May. 06, 2009 - Issue #707: Designated Grey Wall

Daily bread

There are plenty of benefits from getting out of the grocery store

Bread. It's something that many of us eat on a very regular basis. What makes the outside part of a sandwich? Bread. What's that thing that you can watch pop out of your toaster? Bread. And when you go to a restaurant, what's in that little basket that arrives at your table along with your drinks? Yeah, that's right.

For some people, buying bread involves going to a designated aisle in the grocery store and grabbing a loaf in a plastic bag; for others, purchasing bread means making a trip to a local bakery, one where breadmaking is both a business and an art.

Nancy Rubuliak opened Tree Stone Bakery, her artisan bread shop, in 1998. Tree Stone's specialty is a French sourdough bread called pain au levain, levain being a wild yeast culture.

Trained by a French baker, Rubuliak uses centuries-old techniques in her breadmaking. She explains that in artisan baking, the bread is not put into pans. Instead, it's baked on the oven's floor: "on the hearth," she notes. This type of baking creates a crusty finish on the loaf, one that is hard to get when the bread is baked in pans.

As for the grain for her products, Rubuliak buys organic, and gets everything from local farmers. Using a stone mill from France, Rubuliak then mills her own flour onsite.

Buying from local farmers is important for Rubuliak. Not only does this show good business sense, it helps her to create relationships, ones that she values.

"I really enjoy having those connections—I grew up in a farming community and my parents were farmers, so it's a way of still being connected," Rubuliak remarks.

Bon Ton Bakery, owned for about ten years by Hilton Dinner and his wife Michelle, also buys local whenever possible. Some of the groceries available at the bakery—jams and dips, for instance—are made by locals. Bon Ton Bakery also buys flour from Alberta as often as possible.
One of the specialties at Bon Ton is the rye bread. When Dinner shows me around the bakery, he points out the natural rye sour starter, the basis for the rye breads, that has been growing for 50 years.

In addition to its breads, Bon Ton also offers products such as cinnamon buns, cookies, bagels, cakes, pies and seasonal baking. Everything is made by hand from scratch on the premises.

"Last year we used 18 000 pounds of butter," Dinner laughs.

While Bon Ton sells a variety of baked goods, Tree Stone sells bread only. There's the pain au levain, and also a brioche, a rich bread made from butter and eggs. Rubuliak also offers baguettes and seasonal breads.

"In essence, the bakery's name and the image was to make life-giving bread. That's the first goal of the bakery is for me to make the best bread that I could," Rubuliak says. "But the image is a metaphor for life-giving bread, not just for the one making the bread or the one eating the bread, but also for the planet, to really look at what we're doing."

At Bon Ton, the Dinners are also interested in having less of an environmental impact—the bakery has been wind-powered for about two years. Environmental awareness also extends into social connections. For instance, the bakery, along with its customers, raised money to help open 12 new daycare spaces at the Terra Centre for Pregnant and Parenting Teens. Bon Ton also supports the Hope Mission.

"We are very aware of the mutual relationship that we have with the community," Dinner notes about the bakery, which was started 53 years ago. Some of the employees at Bon Ton have been there for a good chunk of the bakery's life—one lady has worked there for over 20 years; a man on the night staff has been there for 30.

Bon Ton also expresses its relationship to its community by offering healthy choices.

"Long before it was trendy to be trans fat-free, we had removed trans fat from our products," Dinner recalls.

Both Dinner and Rubuliak sent me home with a large bag full of items from their shops. I got three loaves from Bon Ton, including a rye and a multigrain. A sourdough and a brioche accompanied me from the Tree Stone Bakery. I also got to try the cinnamon buns and a croissant from Bon Ton.

I immediately observed the difference between these baked goods and those in the bakeries at the grocery store; not only is it in the taste, but also in the texture. These breads are softer, yet heartier. Every raisin in the creamy brioche makes itself known to my tastebuds. The cinnamon in the cinnamon buns produces a similar effect. The sourdough offers a strong, concentrated flavour that matches the aroma that fills the bakery itself. I became aware that I wasn't just eating the food, I'm was really tasting it.

When it comes to her baking, Rubuliak follows a three-part philosophy: she wants to make bread that is healthy and nutritious, beautiful, and tastes good.

"When we eat food, we should have all those things—that should be the basis for all the food we make and consume and grow," she reflects. "The 'beautiful' part is to me as important as anything. I mean, that can be with a plate of pasta you eat or a salad that you make or an apple that you pick, right? I think that we're nourished also by aesthetics." V


Bon Ton Bakery
8720 - 149 Street
780.489.7717

Tree Stone Bakery
8612 - 99 Street
780.433.5924 

More info about Bon Ton Bakery →
More info about Treestone Bakery →

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