Episode 12: Jim Lahey

Evolutionaries

Jim Lahey studied sculpture before learning the art of bread baking in Italy. When he returned to New York City in 1994, he opened Sullivan St Bakery in Soho with little more than the wild yeast he hand-cultivated in Italy and a desire to bring the craft of small-batch bread baking to America. In October 2000, Lahey built the Sullivan St Bakery headquarters in Hell’s Kitchen, where he has become renowned not just for his bread, but for his Roman-style pizza, rustic Italian pastries and cookies. Lahey and his businesses have been featured in Vogue, Bon Appétit and The New York Times, and he has appeared on the Martha Stewart Show and NBC’s Today show. His innovative no-knead bread recipe that ignited a worldwide home-baking revolution was first published in an article by Mark Bittman in The New York Times in 2006. This article became the basis of Lahey’s first cookbook My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method, and now his just-released, My Pizza: The Easy No-Knead Way to Make Spectacular Pizza at Home. On this special episode of Evolutionaries, learn how Jim has become one of the most important and well known bread makers today! This program has been sponsored by Cain Vineyard & Winery.

“You need to have an understanding of the feel of the materials in order to get the right result. Even if its being done with machinery, you need to have a sense of how things are supposed to feel, i.e. the dough.” [14:10]

“I have noticed, that the bigger the bakery, the harder it is to get consistent results without machinery.” [17:20]

— Jim Lahey on Evolutionaries