The Staple of Life

“Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.”  - James Beard

"I am proud to be an American. Because an American can eat anything on the face of this earth as long as he has two pieces of bread." - Bill Cosby

Bread, oh sweet bread. The staple of life. One of the most common There are many great options to buy delicious, artisan breads around the Cleveland area. My personal favorites are Blackbird Baking Company in Lakewood and On the Rise in Cleveland Heights. If you haven't experienced a flaky, buttery croissant or one of the delicious focaccia from either of these places, I highly recommend you try them ASAP.

Unfortunately, these shops are 20-40 minutes from where I live and they close at 6 so I don't make it nearly as often as I'd like to. Fortunately there are plenty of other places to buy bread. Heinen's recently changed their house bread from La Brea to an all natural artisan bread. They have lots of different varieties and while they don't compare to Blackbird Baking Co., they are quite good. You can read Cleveland Foodie's review on Heinen's new bread here.

Another option I recently tried is Orlando Baking Company. You have likely heard of Orlando before. Orlando's products can be found all over Ohio and even a few other states. According to some of the marketing materials they included in the box, Orlando was actually founded in Castel di Sangro, Italy in 1872. To this day it continues to be owned and operated by the Orlando family. They emigrated to the US in 1904 and settled on Cleveland's Eastside. They have since grown to become a major supplier of wholesale breads and rolls, offering over 250 different products. I am typically try to avoid large food operations like this, but after reading over their marketing materials it does sound like it would be cool to visit their 175,000 square foot operation.

 My box of Orlando goodies

Orlando contacted me and asked me to review some of their products. As you can above, they were very generous. They sent hamburger buns, knotted egg rolls, and a few different kinds of ciabatta. There were actually two layers to the box so this picture doesn't show everything. It was a lot of bread! The bread was frozen when it arrived so I decided to put it all in the freezer. I've been sampling it over the last few weeks and have been pleasantly surprised. The bread is tasty. It's nice to have it in the freezer and just grab a ciabatta bun for a sandwich or a couple egg rolls to go with dinner. I simply let them defrost for 20 minutes or so then toss them in the oven for a few minutes to heat them up. My only complaint is Orlando does use some hydrogenated oil in their bread. As you can see in the picture above, their packaging states there are no trans fats in the bread, so it must be a very small amount. If you don't avoid hydrogenated oil (and there are plenty of reasons you should), I recommend giving Orlando a try.

Full Disclosure: Orlando gave me a free box full of their goodies to review for this post.