Local baker Michael Milch may have celiac disease—a serious autoimmune reaction to gluten—but that hasn’t cramped his diet or his sense of humor.
The disorder, which also afflicts his 10-year-old daughter, has propelled him on a professional journey to make gluten-free goodies not taste “shitty,” he said.
His Los Osos-based registered cottage kitchen, launched as Salty Bagel in 2022, has exceeded Milch’s wildest expectations and now has him dreaming of opening his own brick-and-mortar shop one day.
“The scale of [the business’ growth] really trips me out sometimes,” Milch said.
“When I first started, I’d do prepaid drops here and there in different parts of the county. I’d post where I was going to be a week or two in advance, and people would preorder. I’d bake everything in the morning, then I’d loiter in front of some unsuspecting business for a while with a little folding table, a sign, and a crate full of orders. In a busy week, I’d go through something like 30 pounds of bagel dough.
“By contrast, I’m now in three markets a week plus Harvestly, and I’m looking for more,” he said.
“At the height of tourist season this summer, I would go through 150-ish pounds of bagel dough in a week—enough for about 475 bagels—plus 30 pounds of cookie dough, and 10 pounds each of muffin and banana bread batter,” Milch continued, noting that he’s also started making flatbreads that are not only gluten free but vegan. “They’re quickly becoming best-sellers.”
Milch’s bakery now includes a commissary spot at The Kitchen Terminal SLO, helping him to keep up with demand while he juggles stay-at-home-dad and “trophy husband” duties for his two middle-schoolers and his wife, who owns a dental practice in Atascadero.
“Between school pickup and drop-off hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, my assistant, Sara Sydnor, and I prep at Kitchen Terminal for the week’s markets,” he said. “We bake during the day on Thursdays after I drop my kids off at school, then I pick them up, bring them to the kitchen with me for a while, drop them at dance class, then I return to the kitchen to clean before heading to [Downtown SLO Farmers’ Market].
“On Fridays, I get up stupid early to bake at home for the Cambria market and to fill my Harvestly orders. I bake everything for Harvestly the same day it gets delivered because the idea of someone getting stale bagels makes me physically uncomfortable.”
The week ends with him getting to the Kitchen Terminal by 5 a.m. on Saturday to bake for the Morro Bay downtown market.
Milch’s sweet and savory baked goods use only the “awesomest ingredients,” he boasts, including organic products and King Arthur gluten-free all-purpose flour, which kicks the price up a bit. But he won’t skimp. He also likes to experiment with recipes, keeping the menu fresh and interesting.
“There are always new flavors coming down the pipeline,” he said, “but they’re usually pretty spontaneous. We started selling Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Bagels a few weeks ago, the same day it occurred to us.
“We’ve [also] been putting a lot of creative energy into expanding our vegan flatbread offerings. This past week we had garlic and herb, heirloom tomato and basil, another one that had golden potatoes marinated in gluten-free Bachan barbecue sauce … and the newest one was rainbow carrots, Japanese sweet potato, drizzled gochujang, and lemon tahini. Sounds complicated; tastes awesome.”
Milch’s culinary career was born of a series of setbacks, beginning with his celiac diagnosis in 2016.
“Before Salty Bagel, I was something of a journeyman writer,” he explained. “I’d been a speechwriter and unproduced screenwriter. I worked at Mindbody for three or four years leading up to the pandemic, first as a [user-experience] writer, then as a marketing writer.”
Then he got laid off.
However, he added, “the real inflection point came after the pandemic, when my dad died in June 2021 of a metastatic cancer that seemed to come out of nowhere.”
“I was lucky in the sense that I got to spend his last few weeks with him in Buffalo, where I grew up,” he continued. “But when the autumn came around and my kids were back in school and I still didn’t have a job, I didn’t really know what to do with myself.
“Baking was my escape. I first made bagels that October just to make them, but they came out much better than I would’ve expected. The whole thing kind of crystallized there.”
Milch says long-term he hopes to help establish the Central Coast as “a gluten-free culinary destination, similar to the way it’s a destination for wine.”
“There’s a huge, untapped market for that kind of experience,” he said. “Travel is extraordinarily stressful for celiacs and gluten-intolerant folks; it’s not a given that you’ll find a safe place to eat out anywhere, let alone a place that’s safe and delicious.”
He added that he’s happy to say that’s all starting to change.
“Bit by bit, more and more businesses are [opening] on the Central Coast that [are] gluten free and excellent … from small-scale bakers like Katie Bug Bakes and Rainbow Poppy to established businesses like Hidden Kitchen,” he said.
“I’d like to think Salty Bagel is part of that,” he added, but he’s just getting started.
Ultimately, he hopes to “open a place that’s bagels by day and pizza by night,” noting that before it was Salty Bagel, “it was almost Grumpy Pizza.”
Ten Commandments of (Salty) Bagel Preservation
I. Thou shall NOT let thine bagels go stale, for they are bagels and bagels are good.
II. Thou shall SLICETH thine leftover bagels the very evening thou obtaineth them.
III. Thou shall PLASTIC BAGGYETH thine slicethed bagels and cast them unto thine freezer.
IV. Thou shall SET thine toaster unto its darkest setting, then POPETH IN thine frozen bagel.
V. Haveth FAITH in thine toaster; lo it may be slow, it is also good, like thine grandmama.
VI. Dare NOT covet thy wretched microwave, lest I disclaim responsibility.
VII. Welp, that’s ABOUT it.
VIII. Thou shall LOWERETH thine expectations of these last few commandments.
IX. (This space intentionally LEFT blank).
X. GO Bills. Δ
Flavor Writer Cherish Whyte will be hitting Salty Bagel again for tasty treats and witty wordplay. Reach her at cwhyte@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Oct 17-27, 2024.