http://www.contracostatimes.

com/east-county-times/ci_27203394/antiochs-frank-giovanni-hits-self-imposed-bread-baking

Antioch's Frank Giovanni hits self-imposed bread baking

record on Christmas Eve
By Lou Fancher For the Contra Costa Times
Updated: 12/24/2014 04:21:56 PM PST

ContraCostaTimes.com

In case you missed the news, 2014 was "The Year of Frank" -- that's Frank Giovanni, Antioch Renaissance
Man.
Facing his 50th birthday on Dec. 26 and asked by his wife, Gail, for suggestions about how to celebrate the
landmark occasion, Giovanni had so many ideas that she said, "What's this, The Year of Frank?"
That is how Giovanni came to participate in setting a Guinness Book World Record earlier this year (joining
263 pizza dough-tossing folks in San Francisco), going out on a solo musical limb at acoustic guitar shows
at Zachary's Chicago Pizza in Pleasant Hill, setting record attendance levels as the organizer of the annual
free Antioch Delta Blues Festival, and the latest: baking 50 different crusty breads in his backyard
wood-fire brick oven built-by-family-and-friends before his next birthday.

Frank Giovanni, of Antioch, moves around loaves of his

Cardinale Bread, named after his uncle’s old
bakery in Pittsburg, as they bake in his outdoor

Giovanni performed his magnificent acts while holding down

his day job as director of sales for Saladino's, a
manufacturing and food distribution service company, and
operating an online company that dispenses advice and
recipes as well as sells artisan Italian cooking books and
kitchen tools. Reaching the goal of baking his 50th loaf of
bread in his outdoor oven on Christmas Eve morning,
Giovanni says that his one regret was not setting the
ambitious goal until July. The interior of his 32-by-36-inch
brick, cement, stucco, vermiculite-insulated oven, built over
two years, takes roughly three hours to heat. Weather
conditions and the variations of yeasts and starters also add

complexity to the days-long task.

"You need radiant heat stored in the back to keep the center of the oven hot," Giovanni said. "You can't just
build a house of bricks."
A true wood-fired oven built for bread baking has walls 10 to 20 inches thick. Fast-burning, cheap wood
like pine and cedar are best for the aggressive fire needed to heat the bricks.
"The first hour, the oven turns black. Then at about 700 degrees, the creosote (a gummy byproduct of
burning wood) burns away," Giovanni said. "When the bricks bake clean, you rake the coals and you're
ready to bake."
Out of Giovanni's oven this year have come such highlights as a focaccia with tomatoes that Giovanni says
were picked from his garden less than 15 minutes before they went into the dough. And there's "bialy"
that's made with a Jewish-style bagel dough, something he'd never attempted until this year. No less
awesome are loaves of Puglese -- the inaugural bread Giovanni baked after the oven was built 10 years
ago.
"It was the first bread and it showed me how much I've progressed as a baker because of how well it
turned out this time," he said. "It had a great, crunchy crust and it was big -- 14 inches by 19 inches."
Page 1 of 2

Jan 02, 2015 10:12:46AM MST

http://www.contracostatimes.com/east-county-times/ci_27203394/antiochs-frank-giovanni-hits-self-imposed-bread-baking

It's fair to say that baking runs in the Giovanni family history, and
not just because his 14-year-old daughter, Natalie, had her
education financed by the proceeds from his online business or
because Kyle, 27, and Ryan, 25, whom he calls "my sons by
way of my wife Gail," helped build the oven.
Giovanni's great uncle and aunt, Gaetano and Josephine
Cardinale, were Italian immigrants who once owned Cardinale
bakery in Pittsburg.

Frank Giovanni, of Antioch, prepares a load of

Cardinale Bread, named after his uncle’s old
bakery in Pittsburg , as he prepares to bake them in
his

"It was successful and they always kept the recipes close to
heart," Giovanni said.
He remembers ducking out of high school at lunchtime to race to
the bakery.

"My uncle would give me a hot loaf right out of the oven. I loved watching him load 10-foot slats with loaves,
holding the knife to score them with in his teeth," he said.
But the Cardinales were protective, especially of their Cardinale Italian bread, and Giovanni resorted to
begging his mother to ask her sister for the recipe when it was eventually passed down through the family.
Finally, one year at Christmas, he opened a present to find the recipe.
"When I made it the first time, I Fed Exed it to my aunt to make sure it was right," Giovanni said. "It's the
obvious choice for bread No. 50."
When Giovanni posts on his Facebook page that he is firing up the oven, he says his phone begins to ring.
He makes large quantities to maximize the effort involved and gives many loaves away. Baking bread has
taught him patience ("The bread's the boss: when it's ready, you're on," he says) and to savor the love of
family and friends, he says.

Frank Giovanni of Antioch slides in a pair of loaves of

Cardinale Bread, named after his uncle’s old
bakery in Pittsburg, into an outdoor wood oven

Page 2 of 2

Jan 02, 2015 10:12:46AM MST