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Bakers and cooks are two different breeds. A cook is impetuous and hot-tempered; he wields sharp knives and deals only in flame and flesh. He is the one-night stand — the dish that, for all its lusty flavor, is gone in five minutes.
A baker, by contrast, is gentle and patient. His ratios and measurements are precise, with adjustments for weather. Much like a relationship, a bad start will not yield profitable results. The baker enters into a bond with his bread, giving it time and space to rise and become more than it was.
Wes Johnson may have started out as a cook at Marigold Kitchen, but at Zahav he has come into his soul as a baker. He arrives every morning at 8:30 to begin the process that results in the startlingly good laffa that accompanies Zahav's hummous and lunchtime sandwiches, a process he learned in Israel.
Prior to opening the restaurant, executive chef/co-owner Michael Solomonov took his key staff to Israel, where they embarked on a whirlwind culinary tour of the flavors of the middle east. CP staff photographer Michael T. Regan accompanied them; his visual documentation and Pervaiz Shallwani's article on their journey can be seen HERE.
Johnson preceded the Zahav staff to Israel by two weeks, staying with Solomonov's mother in Karsava. Mrs. Solomonov phoned bakeries all over Israel, finding out who would take on an American baker eager to learn their techniques.
"Every person I was learning from spoke Arabic, which I don't know a word of," explained Johnson, "Chef's mom is a schoolteacher, and she took me to her class, where they taught me the Hebrew words for flour, sugar, salt."
Johnson makes a batch of dough every day, which he shapes into about 90 small balls and allows to proof and rise in Zahav's walk-in refrigerator. The traditional taboon, a beehive oven constructed of bricks, is fired every morning with hardwoods to reach a baking temperature of 750 degrees Fahrenheit.
"A lot of restaurants have fresh-baked bread, which is bread that is all baked in the morning and then heated up to order. When you order hummous here, we roll out and put the dough in the oven that second," Johnson tells me as he rapidly rolls out a round of laffa. He places the dough round on a peel and slaps it firmly to the bottom of the oven. As if by magic, it begins to balloon out and puff, turned with tongs to cook evenly. Barely 20 seconds later, the laffa emerges from the oven, crisp and just slightly blackened on the bottom, the top tender and chewy. It's garnished with a sprinkle of za'tar, a common Middle Eastern spice blend, and a drizzle of olive oil before service.
"They don't even do it like this in Israel any more," Johnson adds, as he deftly turns another round of dough in his hands, his fire winking in friendly agreement just behind him.
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