In 2009, Laurel was living in Prague, aimless and bartending when a “nice Moravian guy” took her to buy pickles in Poland. “I wound up on a second date, skidding around snow drifts to cross the border into Poland, the first time anyone in my family had been back in about a hundred years.” Carrying an enormous plastic pickle bucket between them, the couple eventually stumbled into a local bakery, where Laurel found herself ogling an “almost impossible variety” of beautiful baked goods. The experience launched her love affair with Polish baking, and pushed her further toward her culinary career. She’s now a French-trained baker and the owner of Berlin’s acclaimed Fine Bagels. And she married that nice Moravian guy. 

The inextricable overlap of Jewish and Polish baking: Kratochvila’s own bakery, Fine Bagels, specializes in Jewish-American baked goods. She’s also of Polish-Jewish descent herself. The more she learned about Polish baking the more connected she felt with her own roots—and the more she recognized the overlap between Jewish and Polish baking. Dobre Dobre emphasizes the essential contributions of Jewish bakers and their indelible influence on Poland’s bakery canon. The book not only traces their journeys beyond Poland, but their place in—and sometimes return to—Poland’s contemporary baking scene. 

Robert Bernheim joins our conversation with a story of journey of bagels returning to Poland.
After a discussion of the bagels we will turn to Hanukah’s two most important foods called Latkes (potatoe pancakes) and sufganiot (Polish Pacski, donuts). Laurel will introduce the donuts (Paczki) and the pancakes (latkes). A trip to a Hanukah menu.