In This Issue
• Corn Soon? I’m All Ears
• Sourdough Startup pHlour is on the Rise (as Diner Nears Opening)
• Today’s Chicago Region Farmers Market Schedule
Corn Soon? I’m All Ears
A Seasons of Change Update
Wide swaths of our region endured torrential rains over the past few days, a sharp reversal from the very dry weather experienced in the spring. Some of our farmer friends unfortunately reported flooding in their fields.
Yet if heavy rains are to come, our area’s precious sweet corn crop is better off if it’s in the first weeks of summer than in the early part of spring. Corn stalks for the most part have grown sturdy enough to withstand a short-term deluge. And our friend Tracey Vowell at Kankakee’s Three Sisters Garden anticipates sweet corn hitting her Chicago home deliveries by mid to late July — not as early as she’d like, but not unprecedentedly late.
Here is what Tracey is sharing with her customers in her newsletter this week. All things considered and with fingers crossed, it’s pretty good news:
“Although we always hope to have sweet corn by the 4th of July, it did not happen for us this year. That is not to say we will not have corn relatively soon, like mid to late July, but it sure would have been nice if it had worked out earlier, for all of us…
“Although we never got so terribly dry that growth stopped, we did get close enough for things to slow down. Even with overhead irrigation, it is possible for things to go dry faster than we can replace.
“The rains in this last week or so have been a welcome respite from chasing water all over the farm, trying to walk the line between efficient and thorough. We got high wind, and we got hard rain, but thankfully, we did not get the two at the same time. Our corn is still standing, no small feat after such a sustained period of dry ending in days of storms.
“Pound for pound, sweet corn is the biggest crop we produce, so we have been watching closely. Looks like we are ok, late, but ok.
”The rain did hasten our departure from spring greens, but it really was getting to be time. Insect pressure has been building, and they just do not taste as good to me when grown in the big heat. All that warm and dry, followed by field-soaking wet, was just too much to ask at the end of the run. We will revisit those greens, radishes, and maybe a few new roots in the fall.
”We do hope you all have a safe and Happy Fourth of July.”
Sourdough Startup pHlour Is On The Rise
If you are shopping at Green City Market’s locations in Lincoln Park or West Loop and stumble on a long queue of people, there is a pretty good chance that there is a pHlour bread stand at the end of the line.
Since 2017, pHlour (pronounced flour) has been producing a variety of superb sourdough breads — along with pastries, quiches, cookies and soft pretzels — at its bakery and cafe in the Edgewater community on Chicago’s far North Side. Its presence at Green City Market helped build visibility and a following for pHlour, which now also sells at the Lincoln Square, Lincoln Park and Uptown markets among others.
And breaking news… pHlour announced yesterday (on Instagram) that its much-anticipated new diner, located down the block from its bakery/cafe, will have a soft opening this Thursday (July 1) from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. The diner is located at 1100 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.; the bakery/cafe is at 1138 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.
pHlour is the passion project of Surapol Wongkamalasai, who has spent decades in Chicago’s foodservice sector; he was a co-founder of Caffe Baci, which had locations around downtown Chicago before falling victim to the pandemic last year. Wongkamalasai developed a fascination with traditional bread making techniques, taught himself to bake and joined the Bread Bakers Guild of America.
After deciding to open a bakery, Wongkamalasai invited daughter Melissa Wongkamalasai-Monar and son Bobby Wongkamalasai to join the business as partners. Melissa, who studied finance in college, holds the position of director of operations; Bobby, who studied journalism, took a crash course in baking and is now director of production. Mary Wongkamalasai, wife and mother of the partners, runs pHlour’s stand at Green City Market Lincoln Park.
While the pH in the company name suggests a scientific connection, Melissa says it is simply a clever play on words. The following are excerpts from an interview I conducted with her recently in pHlour’s bakery workshop.
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Q: How did your father's passion for baking become pHlour?
A: So he's been in the restaurant business for forever. Caffe Baci did sandwiches. They were also ordering bread from around the city. It was always so inconsistent and he didn't understand why. And then one day he decided, “Well, it can't be that hard. I can just teach myself how to bake bread.” So he literally just started reading every book he could on baking… He joined the Bakers Guild of America. He took some classes from some pretty well-known bakers… And then he asked me to be his partner… I’m not a baker. I went to school for finance, so I know about business. But I’ve also been in the restaurant business forever. I worked for him, I managed his places, I bartended, I waitressed.
Q: How did it become pHlour?
A: He decided he wanted to open a bakery the summer of 2016 and then we started looking at places. We looked at one place on Clark, it was a restaurant. Then we saw this was for sale…. It was already a bakery. They were selling, we wanted to open one, so we bought it…. We just did what we had to do and failed a lot and learned a lot. And now we’re here.
Q: So about the name.
A: Coming up with the business name is silly. We could have done anything with an ampersand, but that was so overdone. We had ideas and they all were not good. I don’t remember who exactly thought up pHlour. My dad's attraction for baking was because it was so mathematical and scientific. That's how his brain works. It made sense to kind of go that route. It’s just a play on flour. I like design, my older brother likes design, so he felt like doing the little pH symbol.
Q: What about the decision to emphasize sourdough?
A: That’s the kind of bread we wanted to make. We wanted to make real bread. If we were going to open a business, it was going to be something that was good and something that we wanted to share with people and we wanted to eat. We weren’t just gonna like slap together some gross artificial things. The naturally fermented stuff is the best bread.
Q: I really think that the rise of good bread and good flour is probably the biggest and most profound development since I've been living here.
A: Yeah, we got lucky that we opened the time we did because it’s become this humongous fad. If we tried to do this 10 years ago we probably would have failed and if we tried to do it 10 years from now it would probably be too late. I think it was perfect timing.
During the [pandemic] shutdown, people were stuck at home and we were selling flour. Literally I was hand-scaling out like 300 bags on a Saturday for people to come get flour and then they’d buy our sourdough starter which we never considered selling. I’d buy these cases of these glass jars, and every time I’d order like eight dozen at a time…
Because when everything was closed, there were like the same 30 people who would come in the door and I didn't see any new faces. So I became like pretty close with these people and they would show me pictures of what they have done and they would ask us questions. It was nice to have that bond with those people because they had nothing else to do.
Q: On opening day at Green City Market, I knew that you guys had a following but I didn't know it's like an around-the-block following. Were you expecting that?
A: This was our third Green City season. The first year was just like, whatever. We were so new and we didn't know what to bring. And now we’ve had so much practice, people know what they want… I don't know, we just make stuff that tastes good and looks good and they keep buying it. We’re just lucky.
Before anything walks out the door, it has to have my approval. It's gotta look good. People eat with their eyes, right? So long as the presentations there. We take the extra 10 seconds to score the loaf. People can’t make stuff like that at home.
Q: in terms of the flours that you use, are you able to source locally at all?
A: Yeah, we try to get a lot of our flour from Harold Wilken at Janie's Mill, which is down south [in Ashkum, Illinois]. When we first opened he came in and he introduced himself. They’re a great partner. People know their flour, and they're pleased to see that we use their stuff.
Q: In terms of the variety of the products you make, there’s a lot of diversity. You have cardamom buns, which are typically Swedish. I don’t know why more people don’t make soft pretzels in the city but yours are amazing.
A: They’re so good because they're fresh, they come out of the oven after I have already left to set up the market. I get here at like 3:30 on Saturday and then our baker Ted comes in at 5 and he starts to do the pretzels then. There's really nothing better than something that's fresh.
Q: About the diner, what can people expect from that?
A: Nookie’s [a restaurant that formerly occupied the space] was the big brunch spot in the neighborhood… So we're definitely just doing like breakfast, lunch, pancakes, waffles... We’ll use the bread from here. It will just be your neighborhood brunch spot.
Q: Are there any other plans in the offing?
A: We'll definitely stay in Edgewater. That's our plan. We have a couple more restaurants that we’re thinking about. We’ve outgrown this space, so we need to relocate the bakery. The people have been very good to us.
We're just so grateful that people love our bread. It's hard work. It’s no joke. I have a lady who comes to the Lincoln Park Market and she was coming every Saturday last year to buy a quiche. And she told me last week that her son was thinking about opening a bakery and asked if he could talk to me. I definitely would talk to him but you better warn him that it’s not easy, you have to be prepared to work.... People need to realize what's happening for them to get from one day to another.