Welcome to this week’s Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a roundup of links and items relating to bread, baking, and grain. This week’s email is all in honor of that pan de muerto recipe & story I shared on Wednesday.

The first item is a wonderful pan de muerto explainer from José Ralat, Texas Monthly’s taco editor:

Pan de muerto is an essential part of a Día de los Muertos home altar or shrine, also called an ofrenda. The bread adorns the altar openly or in a basket, and is meant to nourish the dead when they return to the land of the living during Día de los Muertos. The loaves share crowded space with photos of departed loved ones, a few of their favorite beverages or snacks, and garlands of bright marigolds. Ofrendas also commonly include calavera sugar skulls and a rosary, cross, or crucifix.

Next, there is Chris Crowley’s story about bakery Pan Rico in Eater. It’s all about the challenges that chefs and partners Eva Ramirez and Javiar Hernández have faced trying to turn their Queens, NY Mexican pan dulce apartment pop-up into a successful business. (You know how much I love a good apartment bakery story.)

Finally, there’s this CT Bites story from Brian Lance (yes, the same Brian Lance who wrote the pan de muerto story for us), all about Pierluigi Mazzella—the former lead bread baker at Atticus—and his Monroe, CT cottage bakery Fatto a Mano, which specializes in pannetone from his native Italy:

“Panettone is the Mount Everest of baking,” Mazzella says. “Every step must be exact, precise. It starts with the first feeding of the lievito madre sourdough culture. You must get that right. Or you will fail.”

A Good Bread Tweet

Read More Women @WomenRead

"Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new." Ursula K. Le Guin was born #OnThisDay in 1929 #ReadMoreWomen

7:00 AM ∙ Oct 21, 2021

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That’s it for this week’s bread basket. See you all next Monday our next open thread post. I hope you all have a peaceful weekend.

—Andrew