Bread & Monkey

Emily, who is writing her own weekly musings on the restaurant world, sent me a great story that ran in the NY Post this past week about Jack Greenleaf, the 14-year old who just scored a table to sell his banana bread at Smorgasburg in Brooklyn.

Our friend was taking his daughter to Smorgasburg for an eating extravaganza through the latest and greatest food creators this past weekend so I sent him the article and asked if he would pick me up two loaves, one with chocolate chips and one without.

The bread is off the charts.  Thick, rich, buttery yet also light and crumbly.  A slice can easily be pan-fried in butter like french toast or just eaten out of the bag.  Very very hard not to go back for another piece.  As he says on his website, Bread and Monkey, it will take willpower to not eat the entire loaf at one sitting.  The ingredients are the same that I would use but whatever ratios he is using works beautifully…also if you can see on the label it is also made with love.  Nice touch.

There are so many things great about a 14-year-old scoring a table at Smorgasbord.  First of all, the commitment that he is making while in school to bake enough fresh loaves of bread to service the market is impressive in itself.   The other thing is that this defines how channels have changed.  Nobody has to follow the rules that have essentially been set in stone on how to start a business.  He didn’t have to wait to graduate and open a bakery or begin his career first working at bakeries or restaurants to get a few years under his belt before being able to perhaps raise capital to do his own thing.  There are platforms and places now where they are embracing talent, period.

When the world these days seems to be tumultuous, it is easy to forget how much change has happened in the past decade.  It is stories like this that make me smile….and go for just one more piece of banana bread.