Sourdough Baking Summit: Panel Discussion — Somerville Fermentation Festival

Sourdough Baking Summit

A panel discussion and Q&A featuring some of the Boston area's best sourdough bakers, chatting about the work they do, their approaches to sourdough fermentation, and bread baking. Come learn the secrets to successful sourdough — at home or in a professional setting — and have all of your burning sourdough questions answered by the experts.

Location: Armory Cafe

About the Panelists

Jason Bond grew up in Wyoming and Kansas and was raised around farming and preserving the harvest. This "root cellar" style has shaped the food he prepares today. Bond moved to the East Coast to pursue a culinary career and has worked with and learned from many passionate and idealistic chefs over the past 20 years in environments ranging from slow-smoked BBQ to Michelin and Relais & Châteaux properties. Today he focuses on developing a network of food purveyors whose goals are to steward the environment and produce the best quality vegetables, fish, and meat in the world. Jason works directly with producers to find interesting grains, vegetables, and rare breeds of livestock and strives to combine traditional and modern techniques to prepare honest and flavorful food. Follow @jwadebond

Daisy Chow is the owner and head baker at Breadboard Bakery in Arlington, MA, which opened in late November 2019 with a focus on breads and pastries made with locally grown and milled grains. Breadboard is a 2x winner of Le Grand Prix Elmendorf du Pain, East Cambridge's Parisian-style bread competition. A fixture of the Boston baking community for two decades, Daisy traded an engineering career for the kitchens of Maison Robert, Via Matta, Ames Street Deli, and Formaggio Kitchen, then spent 15 years as senior baker at Brookline's Clear Flour Bread while building a devoted following through her Breadboard pop-up at Cutty's. Her sourdough, seeded sourdough, Danish rye, and Texas-style kolaches have made Breadboard an East Arlington institution. Follow @breadboard_bakery

Ayham Haddad is the founder and head baker of Mahalab Bakery in Cambridge, where Levantine tradition meets naturally fermented dough. Originally from Irbid, Jordan, Ayham began baking at age 14, and launched Mahalab in January 2020 as a farmers market stand — starting at the Cambridge Winter Farmers Market before expanding across Central Square, Davis Square, Copley Square, and beyond — then opened a brick-and-mortar shop near Porter Square in spring 2024. His fatayer, sfiha, pita, and signature focaccia are all built on a sourdough base using naturally fermented local grains, earning praise from the Boston Globe, Atlas Obscura, and Edible Boston. He brings a fermentation-first perspective on what sourdough can be beyond the classic loaf. Follow @mahalabbakery

Dana Gilmore is a lifelong baker and sourdough fan. She cultivated her first sourdough starter in 2018 after moving to Boston following completion of a PhD in immunology. After years of baking at home, she decided to trade in the lab coat for a chef coat and expand her baking knowledge. Dana completed the pasty certificate program at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts in May 2025. Dana is now the production lead at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, crafting pasties, and desserts. In her spare time, she combines her pasty degree with her passion for sourdough baking breads, cookies, muffins and more all with her same sourdough starter from 2018.

About the Moderator

Andrew Janjigian is the head baker at the IACP-nominated Wordloaf newsletter, the author of *The Bread Baker’s Pocket Companion* (self-published) and *Breaducation* (November 2026, Ten Speed Press), and the inventor of the sourdough starter whisk. He was a test cook, editor, and resident breadhead at America’s Test Kitchen for more than ten years, and has since written recipes and essays on bread baking for Serious Eats, King Arthur Baking Company, Epicurious, The Perfect Loaf, ChefSteps, Edible Boston, and more. Find him at @wordloaf at all the usual places, or at newsletter.wordloaf.org.

Part of the Somerville Fermentation Festival 2026

This session is part of the second annual Somerville Fermentation Festival — a bubbling celebration of fermented foods and the people (and microbes!) who make them.

The festival is free and open to the public, featuring 20+ local fermenters and growers, a free Kraut Mob demo, a Fermentation Help Desk, culture-sharing, live music, and ready-to-eat food. Ticketed programming runs in two rooms all day. Your ticket to this session reserves your seat for this event only.

Browse all ticketed sessions and the full festival schedule at somervillefermfest.com.

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