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This week on Saving Bread, I'm joined by Cat Cox, the baker and owner of Country Bird Bakery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the 2025 James Beard Award winner for Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker.

Cat's journey into baking began in restaurant kitchens, where her curiosity about sourdough and locally sourced ingredients eventually grew into a much bigger vision. In 2022, she opened Country Bird Bakery with a commitment to celebrating the grains, farmers, millers, and agricultural traditions of the American Heartland.

At the center of Cat's philosophy is the idea of terroir, that bread, much like wine, can and should reflect the place where it's made.

In this conversation, we explore what it means to create bread with a regional identity, the challenges of sourcing locally grown and stone-milled grains, and why limitations in ingredients can sometimes lead to our most creative work.

We also get into the technical side of baking with whole grains, including how Cat selects different wheat varieties for breads and pastries, adjusts hydration when working with unfamiliar flour, and uses grains like Sonoran wheat, rye, and buckwheat to create distinctive flavors.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Cat's restaurant background led to the creation of Country Bird Bakery
• The meaning of terroir in bread and why regional identity matters
• Building relationships with local farmers and millers
• Using locally available ingredients when fresh-milled flour is difficult to source
• Why pastry can be a wonderful introduction to whole grains
• Choosing hard and soft wheat varieties for bread and laminated pastries
• Adjusting hydration and fermentation when changing grain varieties
• Making whole grains desirable through flavor rather than nutritional claims
• Staying true to your baking philosophy and finding your audience
• Cat's experience winning the 2025 James Beard Award

One of my favorite takeaways from this conversation was Cat's encouragement to look at what's growing around us rather than always searching elsewhere for inspiration. I was so inspired that afterward, I created a honey oat sourdough using 100% locally sourced ingredients.

Whether you're a home baker experimenting with whole grains or a professional looking to build stronger connections with your regional grain economy, this conversation is full of practical advice and inspiration to bring back to your own kitchen.

Connect with Cat Cox and Country Bird Bakery

Website: https://www.countrybirdbakery.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/countrybirdbakery/

Country Bird Bakery
1644 E 3rd St, Unit B
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74120

Connect with Saving Bread

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/savingbreadpodcast/

Podcast website: https://savingbread.buzzsprout.com/

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/saving-bread/id1896790106

Follow Allison and Matriarch Bread

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matriarchbreadco/

Website: https://matriarchbread.com/

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a fellow baker and leave a rating or review. Your support helps these conversations reach more people who care about bread, agriculture, and the people behind our food.

Long live real bread. 🌾

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My dear friend, mentor, and fellow baker Josh Fairbanks returns to Saving Bread for an honest, completely unedited conversation about scalds, dough development, and the art of becoming a more intuitive baker.

We begin by answering listener-submitted questions about scalds: what they are, how they differ from porridges, and why they can be such a valuable tool for incorporating flavorful grains like rye, einkorn, and buckwheat into bread. We discuss hydration, starch gelatinization, mixing techniques, and practical considerations for both home bakers and larger-scale production.

From there, we dive into gluten development, bassinage, folding, and why developing strength early in the mixing process can make life considerably easier for the baker.

But as conversations with Josh often do, we eventually wander into something deeper: learning to trust our senses, questioning rigid methods, and recognizing that making consistently beautiful bread doesn't necessarily mean doing the exact same thing every time.

This episode is a little different. No editing, no polishing, just two friends talking bread, answering your questions, sharing experiences, and occasionally letting the dogs out.

We hope it feels like you've pulled up a seat at the bench alongside us.

Interested in working with Josh? Learn more about his baking consultations at fairbanksbread.com/consult.

If you enjoy Saving Bread, please consider leaving a five-star review or sharing the podcast with a fellow baker.

Happy baking, and long live real bread!

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What happens when you take a community that's grown online and bring everyone together in person?

This week on Saving Bread, Allison sits down with her longtime friend Laila, the baker and educator behind The Early Rise and founder of West Coast Breadfest.

After attending Asheville Breadfest, Laila was inspired to create something similar for the West Coast. What followed was an enormous undertaking that brought together bakers, educators, millers, and bread enthusiasts for a day dedicated to learning and community.

Laila shares how the event came together, the decisions behind selecting instructors, what she learned from its first year, and what she's envisioning for its return in October 2027.

The conversation also explores Laila's unexpected journey into professional baking, how The Early Rise grew into a successful educational platform, and the challenges of building a career on social media while staying true to the things that matter.

And for bakers interested in technique, Laila shares the inspiration and science behind her sweet stiff starter, how she uses it to develop flavor without excessive acidity, and why it has become central to her sourdough cinnamon rolls.

Along the way, Allison and Laila reflect on the importance of accessible education, supporting small farms and mills, and why nothing quite replaces learning together in person.

In this episode:

• The inspiration behind West Coast Breadfest and what comes next
• Creating opportunities for a diverse group of bakers and educators
• Turning online connections into real-world friendships
• Growing The Early Rise and navigating success on social media
• The science and practical benefits of a sweet stiff starter
• Supporting local grain economies and preserving meaningful bread traditions

Find Laila:

Website and recipes: https://earlyrisebaker.com

Instagram: @theearlyrisebaker

Follow West Coast Breadfest for updates on the 2027 event.

Send us a question or voice memo!

Jill Nguyen didn’t grow up baking. In fact, she didn’t start until 2020.

What began as a pandemic bread obsession eventually became Capitol Jill Baking, her Washington, DC microbakery known for naturally leavened breads, inventive pastries, and colorful, highly personal cakes.

In this episode, Jill and I talk about how she built a baking style that feels unmistakably her own. We get into how she develops new products, why she often starts with a feeling rather than a flavor, and how she balances creativity with the realities of producing food consistently at scale.

We also talk about building a business within a community: collaborations with local restaurants and shops, earning the trust of customers and other business owners, asking for help, and why those relationships take time.

Jill shares how she went from making her first cake during the pandemic to creating completely custom wedding cakes, why smell and texture matter as much to her as flavor, and what she has learned from pursuing ideas she hadn’t necessarily been trained to do.

Toward the end of our conversation, Jill describes breadmaking as a practice rather than something you ever completely master. You pay attention to the flour, temperature, humidity and fermentation, make the best decision you can, learn from it and come back the next week a little better.

And for Jill, Saving Bread also means something very literal: keeping good bread local, honest, seasonal and accessible.

A conversation about creativity, consistency, community, trust and giving yourself permission to get good at something you didn’t start doing until later in life.

Find Jill:

Instagram: @capitoljillbaking

Capitol Jill Baking: capitoljillbaking.com

Follow Saving Bread:
Instagram: @savingbreadpodcast

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This week on Saving Bread, Allison sits down with Jon and Amanda of Proof Bread in Arizona.

Proof began in 2017 with hand-mixed dough, one farmers market, a few wholesale accounts, and a home bakery. Today, Proof has grown to five locations, nearly 100 employees, an in-house milling program, relationships with local grain producers, and an entirely sourdough menu.

Jon and Amanda share what that growth has actually looked like behind the scenes, including hiring their first employees, investing in equipment, building systems, developing an efficient menu, scaling production across multiple locations, and learning when holding onto control can eventually hold a business back.

They also discuss Proof's transition toward locally grown and house-milled grain, how they work with farmers to plan future wheat crops, and why creating a stronger local grain economy has become such an important part of their work.

The conversation also gets into the Proof Intensive, their hands-on program for bakers. Rather than presenting one version of what a bakery should become, Jon and Amanda give bakers an opportunity to see what growth can actually look like and decide for themselves where they want to land.

And ultimately, the conversation comes back to something much bigger than scaling a bakery: bread as craft, tradition, community, and something worth preserving.

In this episode:

• Growing from a garage bakery to five locations
• Hiring and learning to let go of control
• Choosing equipment that actually gives time back
• Building a more efficient bakery menu
• Scaling sourdough bread and pastry
• Milling flour in-house
• Working directly with local grain producers
• Building a stronger regional grain economy
• The Proof Intensive and education for working bakers
• Why bigger isn't necessarily the goal for every bakery
• Bread, community, and preserving human craft

Find Proof Bread

Proof Bread
https://www.proofbread.com/

Instagram
@proofbread

Proof's bakery locations, classes, and additional resources can be found through their website and Instagram.