In the context of trying not to take great things for granted, I wanted to write about the Parmesan Pepper bread from the Bakehouse. It’s so consistently good and so widely loved that I would be remiss not to spread the good word now and again. Maybe we’ll make this final week of July into an annual celebration of this lovely loaf! It makes sense to honor it now. July 27 will mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Consorzio Parmigiano Reggiano, the governing body that assures us all that a high set of “minimum” quality standards will be met!
One of the longtime Bakehouse classics, the Parmesan Pepper bread continues to be an exceptionally awesome offering! We started making it all the way back in the winter of 1993 and it’s had a loyal following from the get-go. Like so many of our breads, it’s naturally leavened—no commercial yeast is used—which means the dough gets about 18 hours or so of slow gentle rise time. The bread is made with nothing but organic wheat flour, filtered water, sea salt, chunks of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, and a good bit of world-class cracked black peppercorns to boot! The deep flavor of the bread, the creaminess of the cheese, and the punch of the peppercorns make a magical combination.
The pepper at the Bakehouse is one of the keys to the bread’s excellence. We use the 5-Star Black Pepper Blend we get from our friends at Épices de Cru in Montreal. It gets its name from a quintet of super high-quality peppercorns from India that make up the blend. You can read the whole list here—like a great jazz band, each is playing in their distinctive style, bringing its personality to the playing, but still coming together beautifully as a combo.
What do you do with Parmesan Pepper bread? Tear off a chunk and eat it as it is. Toast it and drizzle on some great olive oil. Lay a bit of Prosciutto di Parma between two slices of it and grill it up for lunch! Warm the whole thing in the oven, and go wild. In the spirit of serving chunks of great Parmigiano Reggiano with honey, it’s great toasted, drizzled with olive oil (on the delicate side, like maybe ROI from Liguria), and then honey—I love the chestnut honey we have from Tuscany at the Deli right now. It’s particularly magical, too, if you use fig jam in place of the honey. It also makes amazing avocado toast!
In 1982, Ari Weinzweig, along with his partner Paul Saginaw, founded Zingerman’s Delicatessen with a $20,000 bank loan, a Russian History degree from the University of Michigan, 4 years of experience washing dishes, cooking and managing in restaurant kitchens and chutzpah from his hometown of Chicago. They opened the doors with 2 employees and a small selection of specialty foods and exceptional sandwiches.
Today, Zingerman’s Delicatessen is a nationally renowned food icon and the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses has grown to 10 businesses with over 750 employees and over $55 million in annual revenue. Aside from the Delicatessen, these businesses include Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Coffee Company, Creamery, Roadhouse, Mail Order, ZingTrain, Candy Manufactory, Cornman Farms and a Korean restaurant that is scheduled to open in 2016. No two businesses in the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses are alike but they all share the same Vision and Guiding Principles and deliver “The Zingerman’s Experience” with passion and commitment.
Besides being the Co-Founding Partner and being actively engaged in some aspect of the day-to-day operations and governance of nearly every business in the Zingerman’s Community, Ari Weinzweig is also a prolific writer. His most recent publications are the first 4 of his 6 book series Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading Series: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business (Part 1), Being a Better Leader (Part 2), Managing Ourselves (Part 3) and the newly-released Part 4, The Power of Beliefs in Business. Earlier books include the Zingerman’s Guides to Giving Great Service, Better Bacon, Good Eating, Good Olive Oil, Good Vinegar and Good Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Ari regularly travels across the country (and world) on behalf of ZingTrain, teaching organizations and businesses about Zingerman’s approach to business. He is a sought-after Keynote speaker, having delivered keynotes for Inc. 500, Microsoft Expo Spring Conference, Great Game of Business Gathering of Games, Positive Business Conference at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, American Society for Quality (ASQ), and the American Cheese Society. Most recently, Ari and Paul Saginaw were invited to address an audience of 50,000 for the University of Michigan 2015 Spring Commencement.
One of Zingerman’s Guiding Principles is being an active part of the community and in 1988, Zingerman’s was instrumental in the founding of Food Gatherers, a food rescue program that delivers over 5 million pounds of food each year to the hungry residents of Washtenaw county. Every year Zingerman’s donates 10% of its previous years profits to local community organizations and non-profits. Ari has served on the board of The Ark, the longest continuously operating folk music venue in America.
Over the decades, the Zingerman’s founding partners have consistently been the recipients of public recognition from a variety of diverse organizations. In April 1995, Ari and Paul were awarded the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County’s first Humanitarian Award. In 2006, Ari was recognized as one of the “Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America” by the James Beard Foundation. In 2007, Ari and Paul were presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award from Bon Appetit magazine for their work in the food industry. Ari was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Cheese Society in 2014. And Ari’s book, Building a Great Business was on Inc. magazine’s list of Best Books for Business Leaders.
Notwithstanding the awards, being engaged on a daily basis in the work of 10 businesses and 21 partners, writing books on business and in-depth articles on food for the Zingerman’s newsletter, Ari finds time to be a voracious reader. He acquires and reads more books than he can find room for. Ari might soon find himself the owner of the largest collection of Anarchist books in Ann Arbor outside the Labadie collection at the University of Michigan library!
