After studying sculpture in college, baker Jim Lahey found his true calling in Italy, where he learned the art of baking bread. Since 2000, he has been churning out some of New York’s finest focaccia using his hand-cultivated wild yeasts to leaven old-world-style loaves and pizzas. Rising to national notice after a New York Times article featured his no-knead bread dough technique, Lahey released a baking book that taught home cooks how to produce bakery-quality, European-style breads using a slow-rise fermentation similar to the rises he uses for his sourdoughs and other breads at Sullivan Street. Thankfully, his recipes are easy to reproduce at home, but if you’re in New York (with a New York-sized kitchen) you may want to leave it to the expert. The menu items at the bakery (and Lahey’s sister pizza shop, Co., at 230 9th. Ave, NYC) feature ingredients that have been locally sourced from nearby farmers, and much of the summertime produce hails from the bakery building’s rooftop. That means that Lahey’s crusty creations aren’t just baked fresh, they’re picked fresh too.
