Category: Bakery

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Tully’s Italian Deli & Meats – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno3:19 AM

The sense of smell, more than any of our other senses, influences our ability to recall past events and experience. From among the five senses, fragrance is considered the most potent medium for conjuring up memories. True enough, some of the most enduring sensory memories of my years in the Boston area are reawakened thanks to the amazing aromas that greet me each time I visit Tully’s Italian Deli & Meats on San Mateo. It is with increased rarity that you find an authentic Italian deli which greets you at the door with the incomparable aroma of pastas, meatballs or sausages simmering in a perfect marriage of tomato sauce, garlic, basil and oregano. It’s also rare to find an Italian…

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Kaufman’s Coffee & Bagels – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:59 PM

Seinfeld: “What is that smell?” Kramer “That’s East River.” Seinfeld: You’re swimming in the East River? The most heavily trafficked, overly contaminated waterway on the eastern seaboard?” Kramer: Technically Norfolk has more gross tonnage.” When I lived in the Boston area for two years immediately following high school, those of us in the Bay State (even temporary residents) refused to acknowledge New York City was better than Boston at anything.  We were devastated when the hated Yankees bested our beloved Red Sox in the 1978 American League East tie-breaker.  For that we’ll never forgive Bucky Dent.  Before my first visit to the dreaded Big Big Apple (Bucky Dent is the worm in that apple), friends told me in private and…

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Burque Bakehouse – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

In 2023 Psychology Today profiled an Albuquerque baker who knows the mind-body connection very well.  Pratt Morales, long-time co-owner (with his son Chris) of the Golden Crown Panaderia believes he’ll live to be 130 years young.  You’ll believe it, too, after reading the profile.  Mr. Morales is an 85-year-old going on 22 who’s as spry and fit mentally as he is physically.  At an age when our couch potato lifestyles will mean an early grave for many of us, he can perform one or two hand cartwheels.  The secret of his longevity, he says is a focus on flexibility exercises and watching his diet. Chinese philosopher Confucius  is credited with an idiom that defines Mr. Morales: ““Choose a job you love and…

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Dolina – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:02 AM

For my dad, a professional educator for thirty years, it wasn’t enough that his children learned how to spell cat, dog and all the other traditional first words kids learn to spell in school.  He taught us how to spell Czechoslovakia, rhinoceros, aesthetic and other multisyllabic words.  He also taught us what those words meant.  Being kids, we giggled when he taught us about Lake Titicaca in the Andes of Bolivia, but marveled at its size and altitude.  Because of his teaching, one of my sisters could (at age seven) recite the alphabet backwards as quickly as most people can recite it forward.  Two of my sisters were double-promoted and both finished high school as valedictorians. My dad didn’t teach…

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Cake Fetish – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:09 AM

Americans are absolutely food obsessed!  It’s become alarmingly obvious in our culture of caloric overachievers that few of us miss any meals. It’s also telling (yet seemingly innocuous) that many of the terms of endearment we use for one another are related to food.  Terms such as honey, sugar, pumpkin and others are regularly used by sweet-talking lotharios of both genders. One term of endearment which has grown out of fashion is “cupcake” which in today’s vernacular refers to a woman whose front and back body fat hangs over the waistline, giving the woman the “top of the cupcake” look. While “cupcake” may have become an intended compliment which will get your face slapped, cupcakes themselves have been reestablished as…

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Golden Crown Panaderia – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno5:34 PM

“Around the world while the city still sleeps, you begin.  Some of you because that’s what your parents did.  Others, you’re the first of your kind.  But all of you are one.  Siblings in an ancient tradition.  You take the time, temperature and love.  You bring them together to make something that brings people together.  You make more than just food.  You make friendships.  You make joy.  And for a hundred years, Dawn has been right there with you.  So this is for you, for bakers everywhere.  Thank you for letting us be part of your story.  Here’s to the next chapter together.  Here’s to bakers.” Albuquerque’s beloved Golden Crown Panaderia was one of five bakeries across the globe selected to be…

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Sage Bakehouse – Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gil Garduno11:24 AM

Bread.  We’ve been told it’s bad for our health, that it’s loaded with carbs and gluten.  Western doctors admonish caloric-overachievers to reduce our consumption of bread.  These dispensers of dietary information are at a loss to explain Emma Tillman.  When she passed away in 2007, the daughter of former slaves was an American supercentenarian and, for a few days, the world’s oldest living person.  She passed away at the young age of  114 years and 67 days.  Emma Tillman ran her own baking and catering service for about sixty years.  She prepared the staff of life for dignitaries in the state of North Carolina which proclaimed an “Emma Tillman Day” to commemorate her 110th birthday. Eleven years after Emma Tillman…

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Knead Dough Bar & Eatery – Albuquerque, New Mexico (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“I don’t talk about politics, religion or sports, because all three will divide people. That’s why I talk about food, because food brings people together. That’s right! Unless you’re vegan!” ~Gabriel Iglesias Not even glass half full optimists can disagree that America has accelerated into a warp speed devolution from George H. W. Bush’s vision of a “kinder, gentler nation.”    Replace kinder and gentler with snarky and sniping and you’ve got a more accurate picture.  Not only are there widening schisms between political ideologies, there are deep fissures between values of all types (as comedian Gabriel Iglesias astutely pointed out).  It’s not enough to disagree any more.  In modern America, we don’t tolerate differences of opinion.   We take…

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Banbury Cross Donuts – Salt Lake City, Utah

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“Ride a cockhorse to Banbury Cross, To see a fine lady upon a white horse; Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, She shall have music wherever she goes.” ~The Dorling Kindersley Book of Nursery Rhymes While planning our culinary exploration of the Salt Lake City restaurant scene, there were a number of restaurants we categorized as “must visit.”  Among those in that rarefied air were restaurants with a national profile such as Tony Caputo’s Market & Deli and Freshie’s Lobster Co.  Another made our must visit solely on the basis of its name.  The name Banbury Cross probably doesn’t resonate with you if you’re not a bona fide Anglophile or if haven’t lived in the Cotswolds.  Having…

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Lior The Baker – Scottsdale, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

My friend Bruce “Sr. Plata” Silver is understandably very proud of his Sephardic Jewish heritage.  Sephardic, of course, is a term for Spanish Jews who were forced to Catholicism or face expulsion from Spain.  Estimates indicate this diaspora was responsible for the movement of up to 300,000 Spanish Jews who settled in different parts of Europe and the Middle East.  I’ve shared with him that my maternal grandmother practiced traditions consistent with a Crypto Jewish adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith.  When a blood test revealed that my mom carried genetic traits also consistent with Judaism, I felt more justified in referring to Sr. Plata as my Jewish Brother. During our visit to the Phoenix…

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Ihatov Bread and Coffee – Albuquerque, New Mexico

Gil Garduno12:01 AM

“The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight.” ~ M.F.K. Fischer A colleague who was recently struck with a second bout of the Cabrona virus confided that while he could tolerate the malaise, coughing and body aches, what bothered him most was temporarily losing his sense of smell and taste.  He shared that he couldn’t live with not being able to imbibe the aroma of freshly baked bread right out of the oven.  That aroma is almost universally loved.  For many of us, it promotes a Pavlovian response and catapults us back to very specific points in our formative years.  These “odor-cued” memories may take place at…