Hello Muddah, Hello Father

Rick (00:04):

It takes a bit of a blend of art and science to get baking just right and having extra eyes, ears, and hands can make a big difference along the way. That’s where A. B. Maury North America comes into play. We are the team behind industrial and artists and bakers that help optimize success. We’ll discuss more on this episode of The Oven Light. So let’s get going. Flip the switch. Welcome back to The Oven Light. The light is on, the switch is on, and we’ve got a great program for you today. You would know this gentleman as the breadmonk, and it’s Father Dom is live in person, and we’re talking about baking. So awesome to have you on the program today, sir.

Father Dom (00:49):

My pleasure to be with you, certainly. Anytime I get you a chance to talk about baking, I’m happy to do it.

Rick (00:55):

We were just remarking it’s that kind of year and we’re comparing beards, but if you know Father Dom, he’s got a great beard and even a little more celebratory as we get towards Christmas. So it’s exciting to see you that way. But right off the bat, if you know Father Dom and you’ve ever watched PBS and you see some of his baking specials or have read a cookbook or two of his multiple volumes that he’s written, you know he’s a passionate guy about baking and that’s part of AB Myer. We’re passionate about baking and it goes back to the Fleischman Brothers back in the 1860s. But Father Don, I mean, you’re a Fleischmann’s East user. You’re a proud baker. What’s going on in your world? What are you up to right now? It’s almost holidays, right?

Father Dom (01:31):

Well, yeah, I’m thinking a lot about the holidays, of course. And right now, this week, I am dealing with our fall theater production. I’m the drama director and the stage manager of our drama department here at our high school. Our monastery runs a high school. I’m the drama director and the stage manager working on fall theater, which is a children’s place this year, three short children’s place. But as soon as I told my kids, I said, “I want you to know that as soon as this show gets over with, the month becomes November. I’m saying no to everything because I want to get into my own stuff.” And what I really want to get into is baking because I don’t get to do very much when I’m in production.

Rick (02:07):

I thought as a man of the cloth, you’re not supposed to say no, right? It’s more welcoming than that, right?

Father Dom (02:13):

Yeah. Well, I have to say no, thank you. Well at least you’re polite on. God bless you, but yeah.

Rick (02:20):

No, that’s awesome.

Father Dom (02:21):

One of the things too for me is that I really enjoy baking for my brethren. And one of the monks commented, they said, “We haven’t seen anything on the table for a while.” And I’m like, “Ooh, I need to get back to that.

Rick (02:32):

” So it’s this time of year, what’s really special? I’m sure whether it’s back to your childhood and there was a memory of eating something, or is there something that you’ve picked up along the way that you’re like, “Boy, you can’t have the Christmas holiday without this. ” I’ll

Father Dom (02:46):

Tell you, one of the things that always is Christmas as far as I’m concerned is my mother’s Christmas cookie recipe. Now, my mother did not like big, poofy, soft Christmas cookies, and she liked the thin crisp kind. And she had a recipe that used cake flour instead of regular flour, all purpose flour. And you used almond extract instead of vanilla extract. And when you rolled the dough out, you used powdered sugar instead of more flour. And so there was this light layer of sugar on the top of it that would crystallize and make it slightly shiny and a little more crisp, and you almost didn’t need to frost them. And so we would make hundreds of these things. My mother was an avid cookie cutter collector, and I’m not exaggerating here. She had 9,000 cookie cutters when she

Rick (03:35):

Died. Oh my goodness. She sounded like a rebel in terms of her recipe was like, “I’m going against the grain here. I’m going against what the norm is. ” And it sounded like she created wonderful cookies and a lot of shapes.

Father Dom (03:47):

And the thing was is that she made cookies for every holiday. I mean, my mother had a cookie cutter for Groundhog Day. That’s how her extensive her collection was.

Rick (03:56):

Was

Father Dom (03:56):

It a

Rick (03:57):

Woodchuck?

Father Dom (03:57):

It was an actual groundhog and it was a cutter of a groundhook stand it up and then you put a raisin on for his nose. I mean, I remember, I still have it. When my mother passed away, I’m like, “Okay, I’m going through the collection. I want that one.”

Rick (04:10):

Well, I mean, to use the pun, I mean, that sounds good beyond a shadow of a doubt. Sorry. Had to add a little humor there. So that’s awesome. Your mom, you’ve got great recipes and things that you’re continuing on the tradition. How about within the Abbey? Some of your brethren are like, “Hey, I haven’t seen anything on the table. What are they missing?”

Father Dom (04:27):

Well, okay, two things. One is they’re used to getting breakfast pastries. I just came out with a book called Breakfast Breads and Sweet Treats that just came out in August. And I was testing recipes twice a week. And so they were getting pastries, all kinds of things every single week. And I think they’re kind of feeling like, “Hey, what school year started? What happened here, dude?” I got to get back to that. But the other thing is when it gets to be Thanksgiving and Christmas, it’s all about the dinner rolls. It’s all about the dinner rolls. And there are two different kinds of dinner rolls that I make. I make a lovely crescent roll. Well, I have two different crescent roll recipes. I have one that’s made with sour cream. It’s my mom’s recipe. And another one that I make that I call best ever because I went through online and in cookbooks and magazines and all sorts of things like that.

(05:17):

And I found every single dinner roll recipe I could find that won a blue ribbon somewhere, State Fair, 4-H, County Fair, Parish Cookbooks, that kind of stuff. And I looked at every one of them to see, okay, what do they have in common? And they had the same things in common. It’s two eggs instead of one. It’s got a little extra sugar in it. It’s shortening instead of butter or oil and the addition of mashed potatoes.

Rick (05:44):

Mashed potatoes, really?

Father Dom (05:46):

Mashed potatoes, mashed perfectly smooth and added to the roll. It makes them at the same time more hearty and also brighter and fluffier and more tender.

Rick (05:55):

That’s pretty impressive.

Father Dom (05:56):

I never heard that. And so I use that whenever I do any kind of … We get leftover mashed potatoes a lot because, like I said, we have a high school. Well, if they serve mashed potatoes in the lunchroom, you never know if they’re going to take two helpings or none. So we might have a half a pan leftover, I mean, like a big pan. And so when that happens, yeah, you know you’re going to get potato bread for breakfast.

Rick (06:15):

That’s

Father Dom (06:15):

Awesome.

(06:16):

And then the other thing is a recipe using the same dough. I make something called rose rolls. This is a very old recipe from the 1930s. I have the recipe from my great, great ant, maybe great ants. It must be my great aunt, in which you roll the dough out like you’re going to make cinnamon rolls, but you just brush butter on, but no cinnamon sugar. You roll that little roll up, a jelly roll, just like you were making cinnamon rolls. You cut slices, put them in a muffin tin and then cut an X in the top. And in the oven, it uncurls and opens up into a flour. It’s remarkable. That’s very cool. It makes you look like a pastry chef and it’s not very hard to make it all. That’s

Rick (06:51):

Pretty awesome.

Father Dom (06:52):

What’s best about it is that you can peel off each individual petal to dip in the gravy.

Rick (06:58):

Oh, that sounds good. I don’t know. I mean, people listening to this episode, just keep two hands on the wheel right now. Hold tight. Get home, make some

Father Dom (07:06):

Notes. The brethren ask for those crescent rolls and the rose rolls with regularity. That’s very good. When I make dinner rolls for Thanksgiving and Christmas and for Easter, I probably have five or six families that ask me for them every year and I make them for them. I don’t charge them or anything. I’ve just got friends. I have one friend who says, “My in- laws will not let me in the house unless I have the dom rolls.” Wow.

Rick (07:30):

That’s pretty serious stuff.

Father Dom (07:32):

Yeah. It’s industrial strength. So the dinner rolls are a big thing for the monk. So we have really great love for gravy.

Rick (07:37):

Well, okay. So real quick, we’re going to get out of the way, but if people want to find out about maybe some of your recipes or some of your books, where can they go to? Where can they get a little more information?

Father Dom (07:45):

I have a website. It’s easy to remember, breadmonk.com. There you go. And go there and click on it, find recipes, my bread blog, information about where I’m doing live demonstrations or if I’m doing library programs via Zoom, which I do a lot of these days. There’s also information about how to get my cookbooks. There’s some instructional videos there. So there’s a lot of content on the website. So breadmonk.com is the place to go.

Rick (08:08):

So I’ve been looking at, you’ve got a new series about two dozen of these little one-minute videos that could talk about what type of bread pan to use or the difference in milk or butter. And they’re really cool little short series and it ties into the whole PBS activity. How did that even start for you? I’ve never heard the backstory.

Father Dom (08:29):

It was quite unusual. I have a classmate of mine from high school who had been in public radio and she was doing a program on holiday baking and she remembered that I was a baker. And so she called me and interviewed me along with five or six other people and produced this lovely little special for holiday baking. It was for a public radio in St. Louis. And she was going to go to PBS and pitch some ideas of her own. And she said, “I’m going to mention your name.” And I’m like, “Yeah, go ahead.” Nothing’s going to come of that. So go ahead. They’re not going to be interested in me. Well, sure enough, they work. And so the producers called me and then they arranged to come and watch me in the classroom. They were saying, “We want to find out what you look like live and without a net.” And so they came to my classroom.

(09:12):

Now I teach sacred scripture. And on that day in Bible studies, without changing my curriculum a single day, they showed up on the day that I was teaching the multiplication of the loaves.

Rick (09:22):

No way. I mean, maybe a little divine intervention.

Father Dom (09:27):

I think it was. I think it was.

Rick (09:29):

And how long ago? When was that?

Father Dom (09:30):

Our show debuted in 1999 or 2000, 2000, I guess. So that was 20 some years ago. One of the things that was nice about that for me and that was encouraging is that FleischmanZ came on board immediately as a sponsor. They heard the idea and they’re like, “Oh yeah, we’re in. ” It took us a while to get a second spanser, but Fleischman Juice was like, “Yeah, we want to definitely advance home baking.” And so I felt really good about that partnership because we kind of had the same goals in mind because for me, I want people … It’s not just about the baking. I tell people, people don’t need recipes. They need reasons to bake. You can find a million recipes online. But any recipe, they’re at your fingertips. But it’s the story that goes with it. It’s the cheerfulness people see when it comes out of the oven in the visualness of television where you see that happy person working in the kitchen and telling little stories and they think, “You know what?

(10:21):

I want my family to be that happy. I want my family to have that experience as well.” I really appreciated that people kind of caught onto that. And a lot of the emails I got, it was clear that people were connecting as a family. One of the loveliest, first pieces of fan mail I ever got online actually. And a woman wrote to me and she said, “On Saturdays, we watch your TV show and then we vote on what we’re going to bake for Sunday supper.” Really? So they watched the show and then decide what they were going to make the next day. And it was like a family thing. Nobody wanted to miss it. They were always there. But at the end of the note, she wrote, “Well, got to go. See you Saturday.” I’m a guy who comes to her house on Saturday.

Rick (11:01):

Right.That’s impactful though. I mean, that is really impactful. And you talk about a reason to bake. Our next episode, we’ve got a young lady from Webster Groves, Missouri named Stephanie Pollock. And I don’t know if you know Stephanie, but she has a business now called Bake Fest and it brings in different bakers and they do different webinars to teach aspiring upcoming bakers, tricks of the trade. But she started out, her interest was just because somebody was having a wedding and they said, “Hey, do you mind baking cupcakes for our wedding?” And she was like, “I’ve never baked anything. Here we go. ” And she did it and she just picked up an affinity. It wasn’t about the recipe. It was more about the doing and the people that she was supporting and her love for that. And that’s blossomed into this business. Now she’s got a million followers.

Father Dom (11:45):

A lot of people, when they bake, their motivation very often is, “Mom made this, grandma made this. It’s not a birthday without that recipe. It’s not Christmas without this recipe. I can’t have Hanukkah unless I make X, Y, Z.” Whatever the holiday is, there’s usually a baked good that goes with it. I teach comparative religions. And so we always study the culture of a religion, not just its theology. And every time we study a festival, there’s always something baked. There always is some grain-based or bread-based thing, whether it’s a flatbread or a yeasted bread or something shaped or molded or whatever. There’s always something that involves bread. That’s just part of every single culture. And so if it’s not a bread, it’s a cookie or some other sweet. I just find that’s kind of a universal thing that when we celebrate, we want to do that with a baked good.

(12:32):

I’ve said this many times. The word companion or the word company comes from the Latin kumpanum with bread. So your company, when you have company over, what do you want to do? You want to break

Rick (12:44):

Bread together? Absolutely.

Father Dom (12:45):

Your company’s on the journey are those the people that you share your bread with. And so it’s built right into the word. When companies coming, I’m going to bake. That’s how it is.

Rick (12:55):

Well, and it doesn’t matter your denomination. I’m in St. Louis and our church, Presbyterian church, every October they do a baking of different breads around the world. And it’s led by a friend of mine, Anne Peacock, and she gathers together and people show off things that maybe relate back to their cultures. But again, it’s the same thing around the world. People do enjoy that. And it’s a community. And your point about companion with bread is really, really good insight.

Father Dom (13:22):

Well, and I actually did a program at a parish one time for All Saints Day, or maybe all souls, I can’t remember, but they did that very thing is that they said, “Everybody bring in a bread from your ethnic heritage.” I have never seen a bread smorgasbord like that. That was incredible. Yeah.

Rick (13:39):

Anybody have any butter around here?

Father Dom (13:41):

My way from one end of the board to the other. It was outstanding. That’s awesome. And in fact, that’s kind of one of the things that drew me to baking. Once I got the TV show, some producers said or programmers said, “Oh, that sounds like a special. Can you find enough recipes for a whole series?” Three seasons later, I still got 90 recipes in backlog. I mean, yeah, you just don’t run out. You just don’t.

Rick (14:07):

For sure. Let’s take a little bit of a turn here. Tell us a little bit about the Benedictine Monastery that you’re a part of. It’s Peru, Illinois, right? Tell us a little bit about the Abbey.

Father Dom (14:17):

We came to the Monastery here in 1890 was the … And you’ll find this is the thing about monks. Monks, it doesn’t matter if it happened in the 19th century or even the 16th century. If it’s about monks, we say we.

Rick (14:29):

Okay. Yeah, I like

Father Dom (14:30):

That. Even though I wasn’t at the beginning, I’ll say, “Well, in 1934, we sold the last plow horse and bought a tractor.” It’s a monk thing, but the monetary- It’s a monk

Rick (14:41):

Thing. I think we need shirts like that that say it’s a monk thing.

Father Dom (14:45):

Exactly. We established the monastery was established in 1890. In 1910, we became an independent house, independent from our motherhouse. We have always taught a high school. Now, at presently, we’re a fairly small community. We only have 10 members. But I mean, at one time we had late 1950s, early 60s. I think there were 80 some monks in the community in two different houses. We actually had a house in another city, but the two were under one avid. We’re much smaller now, as most religious houses are kind of experiencing in the present age. But what I like is that we continue … Many of the traditions that are still part of the core of monastic life are still there. And one of them that we really value in our monastery is manual labor. The kind of things that you learn to do things for yourself. People learn a craft, people learn some useful ability that they can use to benefit the community.

(15:33):

And so there’s monks who are plumbers and there’s monks who are good at other mechanical kinds of things. And I’m into baking and I do other kinds of crafts. And we’ve got a monk who just has a great love for being on a riding mower. It’s like his prayer time. It’s just a skill that he has. And so we got another monk who knows how to fix refrigerators. I just like that kind of respect for manual labor.

(15:55):

What

Rick (15:55):

Are you known for outside? I mean, baking and bread, of course, but do you have another life that somebody says, “Oh, well, obviously that’s Don.”

Father Dom (16:03):

Most recently, I braid wool rugs.

Rick (16:06):

Wow.

Father Dom (16:07):

Yeah, it was a craft my mother did, and she gave me a few lessons. And after she passed away, there were bags and bags of wool, and we just couldn’t bring ourselves to throw it out. And so my sister and I divided it, and her husband and I are both rug braiders. And I’ve made them as large as five by nine, which is a pretty sizable rug. I’ve done some smaller ones as well. It’s a very meditative kind of thing. And let me tell you, after years of baking decorative breads for holidays, my braiding skills are on point, I can tell you.

Rick (16:35):

I was going to say. So okay, we’re going to go rapid fire questions. And usually when we have guests on, we usually ask them things about favorite books or favorite music or just things that are outside the bounds. But since the holidays are upon us, I’m going to rapid fire a couple questions. And just in general, what’s the easiest thing that you think is to bake?

Father Dom (16:55):

Ice cream muffins.

Rick (16:56):

What is

Father Dom (16:57):

An ice

Rick (16:57):

Cream muffin and why is it so easy to make?

Father Dom (17:00):

Ice cream muffins has two ingredients, melted ice cream and self-rising flour.

Rick (17:04):

Okay. Please explain.

Father Dom (17:05):

Everything that goes in muffins is in ice cream, except for the flour, the baking powder and the salt. So you take the melted ice cream, you mix it with the self-rising flour. It’s about a cup and a half of melted ice cream and a couple of self-rising flour, and you can make six small muffins. They’re not very sweet. So you have to add something. You have to add something to it. You might add chocolate chips or raisins or something to them.

Rick (17:26):

How long do you bake it? What’s temperature, that kind of thing.

Father Dom (17:29):

Whatever it kind of stands 375 for 12 minutes. I mean, just like any other muffin. Wow.

Rick (17:34):

Okay. I’ve never even heard of that, but that’s pretty enticing.

Father Dom (17:37):

Easiest restaurant. I know. 100%. All

Rick (17:39):

Right.What’s the hardest to bake? You’re like, “Boy, my day is shot already when I’m thinking about it.

Father Dom (17:44):

” It’s the shaping issue around things like a crown braid, a really good bobka, a really good twist bobka to make that perfectly even, or you’re making a round braid and you’re trying to make the ends disappear so you don’t see the seams. I think that’s the hardest stuff I ever do is things that have to do with shaping, not so much the recipe itself, but shaping. And then the technique for my grandmother’s shortcut Kringle. It’s all technique. I mean, it’s a really simple recipe, but getting it, that perfect ring and the layers and baking it just the right amount so it’s not doughy, all that I find kind of challenging.

Rick (18:20):

All right. Last one of the rapid fire. What is one recipe? If you hear somebody mention it, you just immediately light up or you smile. It’s heartwarming or it brings you to a memory from a time.

Father Dom (18:33):

It’s probably banana coconut cookies. My mother used to make me banana coconut cookies for my birthday and they use pudding, you use pudding in the recipe. So they stay- Like the pudding mix.

Rick (18:42):

You take the dry puddings.

Father Dom (18:43):

Regular ordinary pudding mix. The instant banana pudding is one of the ingredients. And then you add some coconut and maybe a little coconut extract, a little banana extract, sugar of course. And it’s a margarine based recipe and it makes just the softest, most delicious. And people who don’t even like coconut tell me they love these cookies. And my mom used to make them every year for my birthday. And the year that my mom was in her last illness, she actually had a stroke on my birthday. And this tells you what a mom she was. I go to visit her in the hospital, she’s able to speak finally. She looks at me and says, “I didn’t get your cookies made.” I’m like, “Mom, you’re in an ER here.”

Rick (19:18):

That’s love. That’s love.

Father Dom (19:20):

It’s okay. So she passed away not long after that. And I was describing Liv’s funeral and other things surrounding her death to one of her elderly cousins in Denver. And I said something about the cookies and she was such a mom. And she said, “Oh, she sent me some of those not long ago. I have some in the freezer. I’ll send them to you.

Rick (19:39):

” No way.

Father Dom (19:40):

And so I got the banana coconut cookies. I’m eating them and crying, but it was such a blessing. And so layout, I light up, I smile. I wipe away a tear a little bit, but banana coconut cookies, 100% probably the most meaningful thing I make. You think it would be a bread. You think it would be something

Rick (19:57):

That really- Well, I tell you what, next time you come to St. Louis and you come to our baking hub, maybe we can work with our bakers together and we put together a few of these great items. That would be awesome.

Father Dom (20:07):

That’d be a great deal of fun. I’d enjoy that very much.

Rick (20:09):

So what else has taken up your time? I mean, you’ve got some new PBS work going on. You always seemed like you’re writing a different book. How do you put it together and you’re teaching and you’re living the life in a monastery. So how do you keep your calendar clear?

Father Dom (20:24):

Well, one of the things that helps keep monks sane is remember this. Imagine this in your own home. Four times a day, a bell rings and everybody has to shut up.

Rick (20:33):

For how long? How long does that-

Father Dom (20:34):

I mean, that’s monastic life. Four times a day, a bell rings and you go and you pray. Now, we pray aloud, but there’s long periods of silence as well. And there’s periods of silence built into the monastery day where we just don’t bother each other. We just have that opportunity to recharge. And one of the fundamental rules of monastic life, and especially with regard to spirituality and helping other people is an old saying, Nimo dabad quadnan habare. You can’t give what you don’t have. So if you don’t recharge yourself, you don’t have anything to give. You won’t have that generosity of spirit because you’re so drained. And so we have that built into our schedule so that not because we’re selfish, not because we’re going to just take time for me, but because otherwise we run out and we have nothing to give. And I think- Well, it’s a

Rick (21:16):

Great life lesson, isn’t

Father Dom (21:17):

It? Especially

Rick (21:19):

Towards the holidays.

Father Dom (21:20):

Especially in the holidays. This thing when I tell people, they say, “Oh, I don’t bake except for during the holidays.” Goodness sake, what are you doing in February? So now there’s a million and six other things to do when you’ve got time to bake. You got to have time in March.

Rick (21:33):

Sure. Well, let me ask you, here’s another question. And before I came to AB Maori, a baking ingredients company, makers of Fleischman’s yeast, I came from Anheuser-Busch. So it was in the beer world. In high school, they would’ve said I would be the least likeliest guy to work for a beer company because I didn’t drink back then. And obviously I picked it up in graduate school and enjoyed my time there on Stellar Toi and Michelotra and others. But some Abbey’s create beer and other products. Is that something that you’ve been exposed to over your years?

Father Dom (21:58):

Well, our honesty doesn’t have that kind of tradition. We do for a long while, not so much now, but for a long while we produced beeswax candles, handmade beeswax candles. We also had an apple orchard and sold apple cider. We don’t really have the personnel to be able to do that now, although we still have the apple orchard. We kind of just do that as a home thing. Mostly the apples get turned into apple crisp and apple pie and- Nothing

Rick (22:22):

Wrong with that. That’s okay. That’s good. Now, some Abbey’s and some monasteries allow visitors and all that. Is that something that people can even come check out or no?

Father Dom (22:32):

We do indeed have a couple of guest rooms, just two guestrooms, each of which has two beds in it. Sometimes couples will come and our family members will come to visit monks. People are allowed to make a private retreat. We do have some plans to expand to a larger space where we can have some larger retreats of 10 or 12 people, but that’s kind of in the future.

Rick (22:50):

Sure.

Father Dom (22:51):

We have a building.

Rick (22:52):

I was thinking different services and things like that. Are people allowed to-

Father Dom (22:56):

Well, people are allowed to come to any … Our masses are all open to the public. So people can come visit us for mass at any time. We have daily mass at 7:45 and then Sundays at 10:00. And yeah, that’s kind of part of our ministry is if we don’t have a parish per se, but people are certainly welcome to come and join us for masses. Yeah.

Rick (23:12):

And where do they find out information on that? Should they find their way to Peru, Illinois?

Father Dom (23:17):

We have a website there, st.peedabbey.org. You can look that up, but St. Bete in Peru, Illinois in a search engine will get you there as well. That includes our schedule. And then there’s also a way to contact the guest master and the emails of the various monks are there as well. So I just recently had somebody come arrange to come and make a little retreat with the monks, but then also have an evening baking with me. I do that. Sure.

Rick (23:39):

That’s pretty cool.

Father Dom (23:40):

Well,

Rick (23:40):

Okay. So let’s finish up on PBS. So tell us about this latest work that you’ve done there, or maybe you just mentioned the new cookbook that’s out there. Is there anything there you’d like to share with our listeners? Because people listening are involved in artisan baking. They could be involved in industrial baking, but they’re going to tap into some of the things that you have to say.

Father Dom (24:02):

Sure. The most recent recipe, I mean, the most recent cookbook was breakfast breads and sweet treats. And the most recent PBS pledge special that I did was all on breakfast. It was breakfast with the bread monk, basically. And so I do some of those classic recipes like cat head biscuits and English muffin bread and a recipe for donuts that uses mashed potatoes. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a main recipe. It’s a thing in Maine that people do and it makes a great recipe. Some shaped things, a beautiful sweetheart coffee cake to make for Valentine’s Day. I really like baking for holidays. I always feel as though that’s a good way. And when I say holidays, I mean, I make Kanuka jelly donuts and I make fruited sweet potato bread for Kwanzaa and- You do

Rick (24:44):

It all, right?

Father Dom (24:44):

All the way to … I have a wonderful chocolate orange coffee cake that I make for epiphany. So you kind of take it all the way to the end of the holidays. And so I like baking for a lot of different holidays and sometimes even ones that I’m not necessarily celebrating from my own religious heritage, but just because I want an excuse.

Rick (25:01):

Let me ask you this question. So you’ve got this nickname, this moniker, The Breadmonk. Who came up with it? People always want to know how did Dr. J, how did Julius Irving get his nickname? How did Father Don become the bread monk? What’s the story?

Father Dom (25:15):

I don’t know if I could nail that down. To be honest, I think I suspect it was probably a product of a PBS marketer. I was going to make some appearance somewhere to sign cookbooks or appear on some other PBS station during a pledge drive. And I suspect it showed up on their tagline and I just kind of adapted it for my own because it’s a pretty good description. I got to say. I think

Rick (25:37):

It’s really good. It’s outstanding. It’s outstanding. And I have to tell you this, Father Don, we enjoy working with you on Fleischman’s East and on your PBS specials and the shorts. And we’re just thrilled that you joined the program today and we look forward to having you back on again. We will as we get into 2023 and I wish you all the best in the holiday season. And for now, the oven light, the switch is off. The oven light is off. We’ll see you next time around. We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of The Oven Light. Until next time when we discuss more about the wonderful world of baking technology, trends and more, the switch is officially off. Goodbye for now. See you next time.