When the post-industrial revolution makes us all superfluous, bread will still exist, hopefully long-fermented, hopefully with an open crumb and tangy flavor and discernible crust.  Bread now, bread always.

Best of 2019

Bartender: Eric Tullis, Criterion 

Realest Tweet: https://twitter.com/ChloeAintDead/status/1187831085066899456

Bake Photo: https://www.instagram.com/p/B2TK1_Dl-my/?igshid=qm39ai22phwr

NSB Bake Photo: Alex Ruch

Minor Celebrity Moment: https://indyweek.com/food-and-drink/features/dish-ninth-street-bakery-bread-program-philosophy/

Instagram Account: Chioke Nassor

Draft List: Hutchins Garage

Ambitious Entrepreneur: Mike Lee

Gym: Top Notch Performance

Dive Bar Bathroom: Accordion Club

Hip Hop/R&B Single: Easy (Remix); Drogba (Joanna)

Guest Verse: Kendrick Lamar, "Hair Down" by SiR

New Opening: Larema Coffee, Rocky Mount

Empty Bakery as Zendo, Alive with Yeast: https://www.instagram.com/p/BtlTwEggx4n/

New NSB Product: Ninth Street Bakery Roasted Coffee Beans

New Eyesore: One City Center 

NSB Photo Shoot: Will Warasila

Local Book: Road Sides, Emily Wallace

Bookseller: Land Arnold, Letters

New NSB Merch: Joe Sink Mugs

Song: Almost Free, Molly Sarle 

with vocals that cut through you like a knife, this song has brought me to tears and that's not something that ever happens 

Candy: Kings Red and White

Up and Coming Artist: Brent Faiyaz 

Instagram Post: https://www.instagram.com/p/B3KteZRnB1F/, Kelsey Dawson

Local Beer: Hopfly

Tacos: Taquizas Martha, Durham Green Flea Market

Bagel Analysis: http://blog.ninthstbakery.com/2019/03/rosenfelds-bagels.html

Traditional Culinary Techniques: Oaxaca, Mexico

Local Twitter: durham mom

Insurrectionist Satirical Twitter: Major the Bull

Style: Russell Dudley, Top Notch Performance

Show: Sylvan Esso WITH Tour, DPAC

Vintage Style: Sarah Spissu, Gibson Girl Vintage

Book I Read This Year: The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison 

Glowing Review: https://www.bonappetit.com/story/boulted-bread

Albums: Karaoke Angel, Molly Sarle; Titanic Rising, Weyes Blood

Dresser:  Siobhan Scully, Wax Poetics

Local Recommendation Compendium: nsb little black book

Foodie Bucket List Destination: Franklin's BBQ, Austin

Grocery: Li Ming Global Mart

Restaurant: Tower Indian Restaurant, Morrisville

Bakery Pandora Station: Lauryn Hill

NSB Blog Post: http://blog.ninthstbakery.com/2019/03/the-bakery-is-hubris-machine.html

Podcast Shoutout: http://blog.ninthstbakery.com/2019/03/men-in-blazers-x-nsb.html

New Art at NSB: Phil Blank's Peas

and. . . 

Worst Attack on Durham Latinx Community: ICE Raids

In Memoriam: 

Worst Loss to the Community: Kong Lee (1958-2019): https://www.facebook.com/Ninthstbakery/photos/a.10153478245550183/10161518633245183/?type=3&theater

little black book

Take a look at the little bi-fold guide we put together for visitors to Durham and Triangle.  Available only in-store at the cashier station.  Here is the front and back cover:

lil farm strikes again

franklin bbq pilgrimage

early drinking in line is not only forgiven, but encouraged.  we got in line at 730am and were served at 1130am. we were about 20th from the front out of 300.

Pit tour!

bakery acrostic affirmations

will warasila

joe sink

You may have noticed we are now carrying custom mugs by Joe Sink of White Cross, NC (near Carrboro). He's super talented and shows up at the Hunt Street Farmer's Market to sell on Saturdays. He made a glazed cassarole dish for me that is my favorite purchased item of the year.  He also donated a large decorative vase to the Bakery that had a hairline crack in it that sits on the bar.  

throwback

Holiday Staff Meeting 2018, with guest Russell Dudley of Top Notch Performance

Love my bookkeeper Sarah M. In addition to keeping the house straight, she leaves a little shrine arrangement of my tsochkes before she leaves (antique salt and pepper shakers and some sea glass). What a gem.

New Coffee Bags

pie inflation

I feel like the overly expensive pie might be anti-pie? This is a post from last year but their 9'' Thanksgiving pies from this year are $48.

Tartine Manufactory and Tartine Bakery

Pies available at the Manufactory: Pumpkin, apple, butterscotch cream tart ($50 each). At the bakery: Pumpkin, apple ($50 each), banana cream tart ($54).

From: https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/Ultimate-Guide-The-best-Bay-Area-bakeries-for-13375523.php

dave planting cilantro starts

red's quality acre

mural in process

The Hustle

Chapel Hill St Mural

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqxCIfVq52I

thanks rog

"Can i make a bagel i connect with?"

Everyone, and I mean everyone, should be asking these questions.

Cookbook Review: Saltie

Saltie was a sandwich shop in Brooklyn that operated from 2009-2017. Like the second wave celebrity chefs of that era, Saltie trafficked in homespun recipes and elevated comfort food. Having never eaten there, I must say that I feel the cookbook encapsulates a place and time in American gastronomy that I look back on fondly. I was food-obsessed, and the Food Network and other media outlets had taken the pleasures of taste and democratized them and made them accessible. Now with Instagram, I am overwrought with images of fancified food, satiated beyond reasonable capacity, but back then, there was a real hunger for copycat recipes and home cooking. I made ramen. I was obsessed with pie. I fried donuts. I pickled. I was obsessed with chocolate chip cookies. I ate porchetta. All things that were delicious, but also novel. Now, we are anesthetized to new foods. Nothing surprises the palate anymore. Perhaps the best a restaurant can do is to make some food very balanced, very fresh, and very consistent (which is rare). But for that singular moment (which really lasted about as long as Saltie was alive), an egg salad sandwich with pickle from Saltie (which my gourmand friend Dave says was overrated) sounded and looked transcendent and revelatory. I can't say that I have cooked anything from the Saltie cookbook by Caroline Fidanza et al., but I like to leave it out like a stone or a talisman, conjuring nostalgia and inspiring me to continue to make honest food that looks beautiful and has authentic flavors. Now in a time when overpriced hipster sandwiches feel passé and bourgeois, I see Saltie as a marker of both the beginning and ending of an American "gourmet" food movement. There will continue to be hipster pizza pies (Pooleside Pies just opened), and bagel shops where you can get a dozen (not a baker's dozen) for $19, but beyond the fatigue of the palate and a deficit of original ideas, there will always be Saltie and the search for the perfect sandwich.

rest in peace toni morrison

That evening the women brought bowls of pot liquor from black-eyed peas, from mustards, from cabbage, from kale, from collards, from turnips, from beets, from green beans. Even the juice from a boiling hog jowl.

Two evenings later Aunt Jimmy had gained much strength.

-from The Bluest Eye