Wild Hive Farm

Bread.
of course it had to come to this. bread — basic, pure, unadulterated, delicious bread. trust that with the right bread and the right butter, heaven on earth is there for the taking. life can really be as simple as that.
at the union square greenmarket, as anyone who has been there knows, there are several terrific bread stands. Given what is generally available in supermarkets and bakeries, where either pepperidge farm is the closest thing to quality, or the bakery homemade is cut with white flour (ie, «wheat flour») and emulsifiers and oils and sweeteners for taste and texture, and still can taste yeasty, we’re incredibly lucky to have regular access to fresh bread as good as what the greenmarket offers, on a nearly daily basis.
and yet… i’ve discovered one bread stand that so exceeds all the others that the only way to describe it is to call it the bobolink of bread, the same way that bobolink cheese is so far beyond even the best of the best cheeses in the world. this bread is perfect. it is indeed the holy grail.
my friends have asked me, how can you tell? you start with the ingredient list. i picked up a loaf at random, a whole wheat bread. it was made from whole winter wheat, whole spring wheat, sprouted wheat, sourdough starter, and sea salt, all organic. that’s it. no oil, no sugar, no nothing. absolutely pure. it had good consistent color, i liked the shape (standard bread loaf shape, good for slicing and sandwiches). i gave it a squeeze to check density. i felt the weight of it. everything seemed right.
another was called ‘everything onion rye’ and was made from organic whole grain rye flour, whole spring wheat flour, whole wheat sourdough starter, water, rye chops, corn meal, onions, sea salt, caraway, sesame and poppy seeds. again, no oil, no sugars, no emulsifiers, no preservatives. this one was a bit denser and heavier.
of course the worry is that when you eventually eat it, it will be dry and dense and tasteless. admittedly, many health breads are just a lot of work to eat. but these, especially the whole wheat, are not. it was well risen, soft, a little chewy, with delicious flavor. as soon as i got home i lathered up a thick slice (heavily, i confess) with some goopy bobolink jean-​louis. heaven! next day, i toasted some for breakfast. now my toaster is more of an antique than an appliance, but this slice of toast, well, apparently you can have the world in a good slice of toast, as i discovered. charred and crunchy on the outside, soft and fleshy on the inside. wow! double-​wow!
bread. this is the bread i’ve been looking for my whole life.
about wild hive farm: based in dutchess county near clinton corners, where they also run a bakery café, the farm began in the 1980s for beekeeping/​pollination, and gradually moved into baking as a supplement. eventually the beekeeping went away and the transition was made fully to baking and milling. grains are locally produced, organic, sustainably farmed.
the wild hive farmstand at union square is only on friday, which coincidentally is the same day as bobolink dairy. they are right across from each other, in the vicinity of the coffee shop. they don’t have a zillion breads, maybe a dozen varieties. they don’t come in the winter; they just returned last friday and will be around until the end of fall.