Back after a lengthy hiatus

Greetings Breadheads, 

I haven’t posted here on the Fresh Loaf for over 10 years. A mighty long time indeed. Much has happened in the interim. Maybe one way to put it is that George W. Bush was president when I last posted, and since this is a bread related website I’ll just leave it at that. For me, the past ten+ years has seen me go from from being a professional baker working in a grocery store (Loblaws, a Canadian supermarket chain) to being a professional baker in a small bakery owned and operated by my wife and I. Huge changes overall, some skills from the former were applicable to the new circumstances but many were not. There was a huge learning curve and lots of obstacles to contend with, however, somehow we have managed and even thrived. It’s much easier with a trusted loving partner and I’ve been blessed with a wife who is all that and more. That and a kick ass accountant. I’ve not returned to the Fresh Loaf during the past decade simply because of time. Of course I really missed all the posts and genuine camaraderie that existed then (and now) but most of my waking hours since April 2011 have been spent at hard labour dealing with all the operational issues of growing and maintaining a small business. They say “be careful what you wish for”, it’s very true. Over the years I have often wondered if I would become jaded with the baking industry, maybe miraculously, I haven’t. Very tired physically and mentally, like after holiday seasons such as Christmas and Easter but after a day or two of rest I always find myself, usually in the wee hours, waking up with bread on my mind and a strong desire to make more of it. This dynamic applies with surprising regularity. During every single vacation or even mini-vacay’s I awaken at 4am, brain activity bubbling like an active Levain. It’s usually some detail of production that’s nagging at me for resolution. Get the moka pot on the burner, pull out the iPad, open an Excel file and Google... & start clicking away. This morning I woke up with a single phrase on my mind:

”Salt stressed yeast”

... and I ended up here at the Fresh Loaf, in a way, back where I started.

Of course it is April 2020 now, if you are lucky, like me, you are in some sort of isolation or lock-down. If you’re not that fortunate then I’m really sorry for you and I mean that in the most sincere way. There has been a huge return to home baking, especially of bread. Obviously a lot of people have a lot of time on their hands and rather than jetting off to lord knows where or agitating for major social and political change most people opt for something a bit more reasonable and attainable, at least in the short run. In saying that I consider myself very lucky, I should mention that our operation has been government declared to be an essential business and is open and very busy. Shopping patterns have become topsy turvy but demand for bread remains strong. If our baking ingredients supplier stays open then we should be able to stay in business, signalling (perhaps) that things might eventually return to some sort of stability. I won’t use the word “normal”. Nothing’s normal. A society with huge structures of inequality built into it isn’t normal. Homeless people living on the streets, that’s not normal. The path forward after the tragedy of the pandemic remains an open question. Will we just put it behind us and return to assured destruction? Is there enough will power and consciousness to confront the forces of capital and authoritarianism and actually, ahem, DISMANTLE the global neo-liberal order?

Don’t ask me! I’m just a baker, incapable of seeing beyond the next flour delivery and pondering things like...

”salt stressed yeast”.

Well, I have a couple of loaves from yesterday that need to be cubed so that Camelia can make stuffing for the Easter turkey. Of course it’ll only be the three of us but on behalf of the rest of our extended families we’ll feast like it’s our last meal and offer thanks and prayers to the creator, hoping to contribute to a better world tomorrow, for everyone.

cheers,

David Aplin