a very special thank you and a very special announcement

4 am saturday morning was when this lil baker boy rolled outta bed to bake a big load of 85 loaves in that totally awesome wood fired oven at pizzaiolo.

here i am pullin hot ass coals out of the oven so that it can cooool down to about 550 F:

and here is just a right sexy shot of the tools of the trade:

after an hour and a half of cooling that sucka down (it was a whopping 800 F when i showed up at 4:15), i baked up three loads of bread, left 16 loaves for the fine diners at the restaurant to enjoy, and headed to SF for the underground farmer's market where i had a booth to sell my goods for the afternoon.

people rolled in about 11:00 AM, and by 2:00 all my bread was gone!

so - THANK YOU to all of you lovely folks who bought bread from this fella. it made me feel very nice.

and now - the moment you've alllll been waiting for - freebreadparty 2011 is going down.

HELL YES.

so, allow me to explain what this thing is all about...

i have a gift for you. or rather, i have a gift for you to give to someone special.

as a THANK YOU for being so amazingly supportive of this littlebakerboy, id love it if you would accept a loaf for free, on me, all expenses paid, bread-4-no-dough (get it?), know what i mean?

and i'd love for you to give this bread as a gift to someone you like. you can like them like them, or maybe just like them. or maybe you just give it to a stranger. or maybe you even give it to your arch enemy, and then you start to like each other, even just a little. cuz bread is awesome like that, ya know? or if you are just an insatiable bread eating maniac, you can just eat it yourself. either way, brighten up somebody's day and come get a free loaf.

but josey baker, how are you baking all this extra bread???

i am sooo glad you asked. cuz this brings me to my second bit of totally awesome news - the incredible people of Mission Pie have agreed to let me bake bread at their bakery on Wednesday afternoons. dudes, i am going to pump out some superduper rad breads from this oven, i can promise you this.

this is very exciting for me - i'm going to open up Wednesdays as a new CSB day! that means that i can take on all of you that i've been turning away since i haven't been able to bake enough out of my little oven at home. how do you get on board? sign up through my blog. i'm hoping that the freebreadparty will get my bread into more people's mouths (don't be perverted), and that maybe some of them will sign up for a bread subscription. can you help? yes!

what kind of bread will there be at this freebreadparty???

ha ha i can answer that too! five kinds. here's the plan:

• black pepper parmesan
• olive levain
• seed feast levain
• cinnamon raisin
• whole wheat levain

i'm not taking orders for the freebreadparty, just baking up a bunch of bread. so if ya wanna be sure to get your favorite, come as soon as you can.

but josey, when is this freebreadparty 2011 going down???

be patient my sweet ones. freebreadparty 2011 is bringing down the house on Wednesday, February 23. it'll be at Mission Pie - at 25th and Mission, going from 5:00-8:00 PM.

so come one come all and celebrate this very exciting new chapter in the josey baker bread world!

<3josey

p.s. if ya wanna stop by MissionPie some Wednesday before Feb 23, i'll be there getting used to their oven, from 3:00-6:00 or so. don't be shy, come say hi. here's a pic from last Wednesday's first bake: