One of the nicest new arrivals from the Bakehouse are these lovely little, bite-sized, Italianate pine nut cookies. Nina’s ’Nolis are named for our longtime Bakehouse manager Nina Plasencia. Nina has quietly been a BIG contributor to making the Bakehouse what it is for over twenty years now. So naming them for her is a small but fun way to honor her many, many years of wonderful work.
The cookies are made with ground almonds and hazelnuts, some great butter, a bit of egg white, and a touch of honey, and garnished lovingly with toasted pine nuts. It just so happens that Nina’s ’Nolis are naturally gluten-free. Because they have no flour, they’re a nice option for Passover. And in Italy, pine nut cookies are a long-standing staple for holiday tables, so keep them in mind for Easter baskets or after-dinner sweets for Easter Sunday. On a secular and more mundane note, they make a great accompaniment for your morning espresso.
Amy Emberling, long-time managing partner at the Bakehouse, says, “We’ve made them off and on over the years. For a variety of reasons I think they’re going to take off this time. They get positive reviews from practically everyone. Delicious! Traditional! Can’t beat a combo like that.” I wholeheartedly agree. On Food52, community member Food Blogga writes:
Biscotti may be the stars of Italian cookies but pignoli are the talented understudies just waiting to be discovered. Pignoli cookies are mildly sweet yet have a full-bodied nutty flavor from almond paste that lingers pleasantly on your palate. The crispy exterior reveals a chewy interior that gently pulls away as you bite it. Once you taste a pignoli cookie, you may just think it’s a star.
The book Pasta for Nightingales tells tales of 17th-century Italians feeding pasta made with pine nuts and saffron to the birds to encourage them to sing. It’s a beautiful book and the story is superb. Thinking about it here reminded me to use these cookies to make a delicious dessert pasta, or a not-for-Passover Italianate noodle kugel. Getting some of the great Italian egg pasta we have at the Deli, tossed with olive oil and black pepper—our Balinese long pepper would be even better—and then crumbling on a bunch of these pine nut cookies. Wonderful!
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!
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