In the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashana, Abby Franke and his team of bakers at StoneGround Breads are braiding thousands of egg-and-honey-rich challah loaves by hand. The breads are kosher, as are the hundreds of other Jewish-German products in the Agoura Hills bakery's lineup.
Only the 52-year-old baker isn't Jewish. Franke and his staff are baking those loaves in honor of his friend and former baking partner, Paul Sherman.
The chatty, ponytail-sporting Franke, who comes from Hagen, Germany, readily admits he prefers the rustic whole grain crusty loaves he made while earning his baking meisterbrief (Germany's rigorous seven-year, guild-regulated certificate program for artisan crafts). And that initially he wasn't that crazy about the guy who became his business partner either.
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