HAUNTED BY BREAD
In January 2026, Kitchen Table publisher Brett Warnock met Claire Randall for beer and conversation at Bellwether Bar, a cozy and bustling spot in SE Portland, Oregon. Claire is the CEO of Grand Central Bakery, a local mid-sized bakery who, with the Baked Issue, is also Kitchen Table’s first major sponsoring partner. (Interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Brett & Claire
POTATOES, TOMATOES, AND TACO BELL
Brett: Where were you born and raised?
C: Oh, I was born in Denver, Colorado, but I was raised in Boise, Idaho.
B: That's wild. Okay, I was born at a hospital right over here on Belmont. [Five blocks away.]
C: Oh, awesome.
B: And raised in Gresham. Don't judge. The burbs.
C: It’s okay, I’m not a judgy person.
B: What are some of your earliest formative eating memories? Do you remember any favorite foods when you were growing up?
C: Yeah, I do. So my father was the director of the Idaho Potato Commission. (Laughter.) His office existed to promote the work of the farmers and, you know, help get the potatoes to market. So we had a lot of potatoes.
B: Haha!
C: Yeah, potatoes every which way.
B: What was your favorite? Like scalloped potatoes, French fries, baked potatoes…?
C: Okay, my dad got really into hamburgers—good hamburgers. He was way before his time. My dad loved good food, he loved to cook, and so we would have really yummy hamburgers and he would make homemade french fries.
B: Really?
C: Yeah, they were great. We had tomatoes from the garden. They were so delicious. He made homemade buns, but honestly, they were not very good. (Laughter.) They were terrible.
B: Similar. My dad was the cook in my house. He was a firefighter, so when he was at work [for 24 hours at a time] my mom had to feed us. Like, Kraft mac & cheese with sliced hot dogs, you know. Woo! Or McDonald's or Taco Bell. But my favorite meal growing up was my dad’s chicken-fried steak—venison, because he was a hunter—with milk gravy, which was so good with mashed potatoes.
C: My family had friends that were hunters, so we always had a good supply. [Chuckle.] My parents were not hunters. I want to be clear; my dad would swoop in when he wanted to, to make whatever gourmet meal he wanted to make or, you know, like the best hamburgers ever, but the day in and day out, getting the meals on the table? That was my mom.
B: Funny, because my mom was not the day in, day out. My dad wasn’t gourmet, he was “meat and potatoes,” and he never, ever used a recipe. Not one time. And he was good. Like, when he was working at the fire department, he would cook for all the guys, and they’d be, alright, Jack's working.
Okay, what was your favorite food—not potato-based—as a kid growing up?
C: My favorite food... Well, my birthday dinner was flank steak, twice baked potatoes—because we had to have potatoes—and my mom had this thing that, some kind of, it was a big slice of tomato and some, like, gooey cheesy spinach on top. And, yeah, that was my birthday dinner.
Every year. But guess what, Brett? I put ketchup on my flank steak (laughter), and it drove my parents crazy! I put ketchup on everything.
What was your favorite meal?
B: The one I just said, a cut of venison called the backstrap, which is super lean—no fat, no gristle—chicken-fried with mashed potatoes and milk gravy. And then there would be some kind of canned vegetable, or “salad” with iceberg lettuce.
There was no kale!
C: That period of cooking [late-1970s/80s], there were weird things going on. Like, listen to this, because it's probably the same in your family, so my mom loved to bake, and she was a good cook, but margarine was really big.
B: Oh my God, that was huge, Gold’n’Soft margarine.
C: Yeah, we would have margarine on the table, yuk… but somehow my mom always used real butter in her baking, so that was good.
Pecan Pullaparts… sticky and gooey.
COOKING AT HOME, PLUS ALL THE FAVORITE RESTAURANTS IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
B: What's your go-to meal? What’re you cooking if you have friends coming in from out of town—you're going to roll up your sleeves and put on your apron.
C: I have a lot of different things I like to cook. I just love really good food and good ingredients. An easy favorite dinner is roast chicken.
B: Same.
C: You can't go wrong.
B: You can’t go wrong! I love making roast chicken. It's so impressive; you pull it out of the oven, and you're cutting into it…
C: We love good hamburgers. On Grand Central Bakery buns, for sure. [Laughter.] And I love making risotto. I love fish. I love, you know, like, I make a lot of different things. But my consistent go-to, roast chicken.
B: Okay, what are your favorite two or three restaurants? Still existing or they can be gone.
C: Oh, wow.
B: Ever.
C: Ever? Oh, my God. Okay. So for like, a nice meal out, my favorite is Nostrana. Consistently great for years. Their bread is amazing. They make their own bread in a wood fire oven. Their bread is pretty much perfect.
And then, it’s just a fun place to go, where do we go a lot?... we go to Por Que No?
B: Oh my God! That's my second favorite restaurant ever.
C: Really?
B: My first was—did you ever go to Taqueria Nueve when they were still around?
C: Oh, yeah, yeah, I loved that.
B: That was my favorite. Oaxacan. I was a food runner at their second location, and a server, and a host.
C: That's so cool.
B: When they first opened on NE 28th Avenue, they were sooo good. And when they first closed in 2009 it was like a friend died. And I'm, like, where am I going to go find elevated street tacos? Then I found Por Que No? I was just at Por Que No? three nights ago for their nachos.
C: Oh my God, me too.
B: No way!
[Por Que No traditionally only makes nachos one day a year, on Superbowl Sunday, but in 2026 they did a few rare extra nacho nights, to see if there was a demand. Ed.]
C: Yeah, we took one of our friends and we drank too many margaritas. [Laughter.]
B: They have such good margaritas.
C: Did you know that over the last couple of years they've catered our employee party?
B: Cool! They’re a great company; they really take care of their people.
C: They really do take care of their employees.
But I also like to go to Yaowarat. [Thai/Chinese in the Montavilla neighborhood.]
B: A really transformational meal that I had when I was married and before we had our kid, was my first trip to Genoa.
C: Oh, Genoa… yeah!
B: Mind boggling. I didn't really understand coursed meals, and we had their 5-course meal.
C: It was amazing. You know, they used to use our bread! Not the whole span of the place, but still.
B: That's awesome. And so the first course came out and it was a single muscle. And I was like, what? Am I going to leave this place hungry? And then, sure enough, two hours later I'm just stuffed to the gills.
C: Oh, my God.
B: Such a great experience.
C: Oh! Shalom Y’all!
B: I love Shalom Y’all, I was there last week.
C: I love it. You made me think about one time we went there and ordered the multi-course thing. And the waiter literally was like “don’t overeat,” right? And none of us listened. By the time we got to the end I was so sad, because I wanted to enjoy everything to the end. So next time I do that, I’ll totally pace myself.
B: Yeah, don't go on a time frame. Be open-ended.
Have you been to Bluto's on Belmont?
C: No. Is it good?
B: Yes. Their lamb skewers? Oh, so good.
C: Did we get your favorite restaurants?
B: Yeah, it's Taqueria Nueve. My favorite restaurant of all time. They just made such good food. And then Por Que No? is right there.
C: Okay, we're on the same wavelength.
[Editor’s note: For fans of the old Taqueria Nueve, they have a sister restaurant in Oregon City called OC Taco, and the menu is essentially identical. Mole is out. Hamburguesas are in.]
Chalkboard art at the SE Hawthorne Blvd location.
WHAT EVEN IS BREAD?
B: Okay, what was bread for you, before you had the aha moment, right? I remember, for example, I have a memory of when we were eating—it was either Wonderbread or the Franz version of it—
C: It sticks to the roof of your mouth! (Laughter.)
B: Yes! And my sister and I would form it into balls, like little dough balls, and like, throw them around. (Laughter.) I don't even think of it as bread now.
Do you have memories of bread before?
C: This is so fun! Yeah, I was lucky enough that when I was really little my mom made me really yummy lunches every day, right? And usually it involved some leftovers, it was so good. And when we had steak, she would make me a little steak sandwich, but she would put it on that Wonder Bread. And I even remember, I remember a steak sandwich, it had a yummy tomato from our garden, and some lettuce from our garden.
But guess what? It had that bread! I can taste the bite now, Brett, where it's literally going to the roof of my mouth, and how bummed I was. I was just like, what is this? (Laughter.)
B: A little kid, in grade school. (Laughter.)
C: Yeah, I was probably in third grade, and I remember biting into and… okay, that's my relationship with bread. We never had table bread.
B: You were destined for this job!
C: Someday you need to meet Ben and Piper, because growing up with Gwen [original co-founder of Grand Central], you can only imagine the amazing rolls and bread that they had.
So at my table, we never had table bread, but really shitty sandwich bread, and then it was a big deal when we switched to Oroweat.
B: Yes, yes!
C: That was just a revolution.
B: It was!
C: Yeah, and like my mom started thinking a little more about the ingredients.
B: Same. I have very similar memories, like, bread was a vehicle for bologna sandwiches, or PB&Js. That's it.
I remember when I started working at Il Fornaio [a now-closed Italian restaurant] and they would have fresh-baked ciabatta and they’d pour the balsamic vinegar and olive oil on a plate, and I'm like, what are they doing? Ripping off bread and dipping it? And I'm like (makes head exploding gesture and sound), oh, yeah…
It's life changing.
C: Yeah, the first time I had Grand Central Bakery como [a rustic Italian-style bread] in Seattle, I just couldn't believe how good it tasted, and the crust. And then, like we said earlier, I do remember going to Zefiro [now-closed early farm-to-table restaurant] and having their bread, and just being blown away. And then I just couldn't go back.
B: Yeah, how do you go back to that? Ever? At all?
I've always been a Grand Central fan. My early favorites were the tuna melts and, well, the one with the thumbprint on it?
C: The jammer.
B: The jammers! And then, whenever I would host people, for spaghetti or a roast chicken, for example, I would get Piccolo Como. [Piccolo means “small” in Italian.]
C: Oh, yeah!
B: I would cut it in half, melt an entire stick of butter with chopped up garlic, like eight cloves of garlic, pour it on the split halves, put it back together wrapped in foil, and broil for 40 minutes in the oven. Or I would bring that as a guest to dinner parties…
C: You're the most popular guy in the world.
[Laughter.]
B: Oh, yeah! And people were like, more bread, more bread. Piccolo Como, man, it was like a perfect size, too.
Is the regular Como big?
C: Our regular-sized Como can serve eight-to-ten people.
B: Okay, really? That's a big loaf of bread.
LIGHTNING ROUND
B: So, what does “community” mean to you, in six words or less?
C: Six words or less?.. I'm thinking.
B: Let's go back and forth, so… friends.
C: Connection
B: Food.
C: Impact.
B: Oh, that's good. Resilience.
C: Fun.
B: I was going to say that! You literally took the word out of my mouth.
SUSTAINABILITY IS COOL, TASTE IS EVEN BETTER
B: Why is sustainable seasonal sourcing so important?
C: First of all, never mind the economy or the politics, it just tastes better, right? That's it. So, to start with, the ingredients that are locally sourced are more delicious. When I’m talking about our business, I just don't want people to forget about that... literally the genesis of why we’re doing it. It’s delicious.
Start with that. And then—of course, this is near and dear to me—keeping our resources and our communities in a thriving local economy, separating ourselves from the big monster companies that are dominating every aspect of our lives and sucking the soul out of the world... You know, doing what we can in our communities to support each other.
I mean, honestly, one of the reasons we got through the pandemic is because of our sourcing, right? Because we were sourcing locally. While everyone else was having shortages, we were like, oh, we can get our flour and we can get our tomatoes.
B: I love it. The flavor is everything. I remember talking with Corey Schreiber when I worked at Wildwood [now-closed farm-to-table restaurant] he was gung-ho about all the other correct things, but mostly, this tastes better.
C: It just tastes better.
B: But for me too, it humanizes food. It makes you think about the idea that people are behind this. It's not a faceless thing.
C: Yeah. So every year I get our Thanksgiving turkey from Champoeg Farm. And it’s so great to know Mark and Catherine [Anderson] from the farm, and, you know, they were part of bringing this amazing delicious bird into my life.
B: I love that. I'm flashing back to an experience I had when my son was in his first year at Buckman grade school. I volunteered a lot that year, and I remember asking the kids, Where does your food come from? These are first graders or kindergarten; and most of them said “the grocery store, duh.” And I was like, wow. Because they don't even… there's no connection.
C: Yeah, our older son Fred, he was very smart, whenever we were eating something or buying something, he would say, “is it local?”
[Laughter.]
B: I had a similar thing with my son. When I was picking him up from Buckman grade school, I lived in that neighborhood and we would walk by Fire on the Mountain, wings—I love wings—but they weren't using sustainable chicken, and we would poke our head in and I would ask, do you use sustainable chicken?
And then, one day they said, yeah, we just switched. And so we went in!
C: Oh, that's so great. That's a good story.
ALL THE PASTRIES
B: What are your favorite pastries? Whether you make them or not.
C: Okay. so we only make it once a year now at St. Patrick’s Day; our Irish sodabread is literally one of my favorites. But in our classic lineup, the classic cinnamon roll is hands down, that's my favorite. What's so great about our cinnamon roll is, sure it's changed over time, but I love that Gwen started her bakery with her friends with a similar version of it.
And I want to give a shout out to Baker & Spice, and the Katie Bun.
B: The what?
C: Katie Bun. It's this lovely swirl of croissant dough, and.. if you say anything in your article, let's look up what's really in it. It has golden raisins.
[A Katie Bun, like a sort of cinnamon roll-croissant, is a puff pastry filled with cinnamon and raisins, then dusted with powdered sugar.]
B: At Kennedy School, where I work, just last week was J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday, and it was packed. Crazy.
C: Oh my god, that’s so fun.
B: And so they always do bangers and mash—
C: Do they have, like secondsies or whatever they call it?
[Laughter at the Lord of the Rings reference.]
B: Haha! You're a nerd?!
C: Yeah, I'm a nerd. I’m a total nerd, but I don't present as a nerd.
B: So, they have soda bread with their bangers and mash, and it's so good. What even is soda bread?
C: Our soda bread is a pastry. There's all kinds. So, ours is a short dough with currents, caraway, buttermilk… It's a pastry.
B: My favorite—this last July I went with a friend to eat our way around San Francisco for three days, and we went to Tartine.
C: Oh, Tartine's great.
B: And had their morning bun? [Head explodes.] And I'm like, what is this? Citrus? And my friend had made it—she's got all their cookbooks—and she said they grind dried orange peels in with the sugar, to give it that—
C: Yum…
B: I would eat one of those every day.
Okay, so what is your favorite bread?
C: My favorite Grand Central bread is our Peasant Loaf, a levain with wheat and rye, and it's just so delicious. And my second favorite bread is our Ciabatta, which is a little unsung. I have a few theories, but I don't think people know what to do with it. And I also feel like people don't eat table bread anymore.
[Quiet sobbing.]
Have you been to Cafe Olli?
B: Yes!
C: Their bread is really good.
B: The Otis Cafe makes a molasses bread, that's like, dark, brown, rich. When we traveled to the coast [in its original location on HW18 on the Salmon River] I would get a loaf of that, then I would cut a slice, not quite an inch thick, or about an inch thick, toast it up in my toaster oven, flip it until it's getting a little crusty, slather it with butter, add a little sea salt on the top, and it's like, sweet and savory. Like dessert.
C: That reminds me of something in terms of enchanting bread; we had an exchange student from Norway, and then I went to visit her in Norway, and I've never had anything like it, her family served this super dark brown, really dense bread, and then they serve it with all these cheeses and cured fish. I was in heaven.
B: Don't you love other cultures for that very reason?
C: Yeah. I've been really lucky. I had that connection, and then I did some overseas exchanges. I lived in Belgium per year, and I lived in India, and both of my host mothers were off the charts amazing home cooks. That bread! I'm a little haunted by that bread, and it wasn't pumpernickel, because it doesn't have that flavor profile, but it was just so good.
B: “Haunted by bread,” I love that.
I'm reminded of something, a hack that I'm brand new to. I’ve occasionally been gifted bread, and I'm like, I don't know what to do with this, it's so much bread. And a friend said, “you know you can freeze it.” I'm like, no, I didn't know that.
C: What a wacky idea.
B: I never even knew that, and I'm 60 years old. And I didn't know that you could freeze cookies.
C: Oh, totally.
B: I had no idea.
Anyway, I told you that Grand Central donated bread to our Soup Night? [A one night benefit pop-up.]
C: Oh, yeah.
B: It fed over 100 people that were food insecure.
C: Oh, I love that!]
B: I know, and we generated $1,500 for Growing Gardens. And, I got to take home like a large freezer bag of little bread slices. Frozen bread, who knew? Why didn't I know that? My family wasn't a bread family, growing up, so I didn't know these little hacks. [Reader, take note.]
CHEERS TO MOM
C: Yeah. Growing up, my dad was Mr. Make-something-amazing, and my mom was the day in / day out, and I was so spoiled, in a good way—she would always have at least four to six kinds of different homemade cookies on hand, all the time, and she would put them in the freezer!
And so, yeah, I would come home from school, open the freezer, and I would just be like, [makes eating noise].
B: I'm jealous. That would be dangerous for me.
C: My mom and dad have both passed away, but I love giving a shout out to my mom, you know, that level of spoiling. It's good. It's good spoiling.
B: Yes. I'm remembering my mom… do you remember those little Pillsbury Doughboy—
C: Totally, yes!
B: The pop-out biscuits? You would break it? My mom would make those, and they were awesome. And she would make Toll House chocolate chip cookies, cooked medium rare.. so, crispy on the outside, a little gooey on the inside. That's like a perfect food.
C: It's probably one of your best memories.
B: It is, of my mom? Yeah. Oh, my God. Thank you, Mom. Cheers to our moms.
C: Cheers to our moms!
[glasses clinking]
B: What about memories involving bread?
C: I love going to a party, and it's obvious I'm gonna bring bread. I often bring, you know, like wine and beer and whatever, but it's the bread, and I never get tired of it. If you put bread out—I'll always make myself in charge of it—and just see people go for it, right? I love that. At a big gathering and seeing people swarm after bread. They swarm. It's so satisfying.
B: It's kind of primordial.
C: Yeah, totally.
B: It makes me realize, too, that when you bring a loaf of sliced bread to a group environment—
C: And to be clear, I slice it there.
B: Oh, always. It's important.
C: It has to be fresh!
B: And it’s a show too.
C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
B: Okay, last question. What—I'm just kind of curious—what do you appreciate about Kitchen Table Magazine?
C: Oh, that's so fun, it's been so fun getting to know you. I love the joy, the creativity, your design is so great. I love your passion about having something to hold, and I really am excited about that. I love your love of food. I think I've expressed a worry that people are literally forgetting or not even learning to cook and bake. There can still be joy in food and gathering, no matter where your food comes from. The idea that we all create a shared experience is so wonderful. I love that about your magazine.
B: Yay! Well, thank you so much. I'm excited about this partnership.