‘Well not the godfather but I’d like to be the best baker in Calgary.’
You’re a bread maker who delivers by bicycle?
It’s part of what I’m doing. I also deliver by car to stores. But once a week I do bike deliveries around downtown. On Mondays I bake a lot of bread and have an email list and people order and then I deliver to the downtown area on my bike.
Is it easier to deliver on a bike downtown?
I think it is probably easier. The initial intention wasn’t because it’s environmental. I kind of started it as a hobby before it became an actual job.
Is this your full-time job now?
Yes. It’s been about a year-and-a-half full time.
Do you have staff or is it just yourself?
It’s my girlfriend and me but it’s mainly me. I get a little bit of help but it’s getting to the point where I’m probably going to hire somebody part time.
Where do you make the bread?
I have a kitchen not a retail store so I’m renting a kitchen. I’m actually just in the process of moving into my own place. I bought an Italian bread oven.
What’s an Italian bread oven?
It’s specifically for bread — it doesn’t have to be Italian but they’re usually made in Europe. You bake on stone and it gives the bread a really nice crust and it has steam which means that when you bake bread you usually try to steam the oven because it cools the outer layer and allows it to rise.
How much does an oven like that cost?
It’s about $33000.
Where will the new place be?
Well it’s going to be me and another company just by Chinook Mall. The good thing about it is that I’m getting my own equipment and it’s going to be easier for me to monitor everything.
Will people be able to buy the bread there or are you going to focus on delivering?
It will take a little bit of time but it would be nice to have a small retail area there. It’s going to be very basic just on the weekends for customers to come and pick up stuff. But it’s mainly going to be a kitchen for production.
You have a master’s degree in biomedical engineering. Did you ever pursue a career in that field?
No. I graduated and got a job at TD Bank in Toronto at their main office. My undergrad is more in math and physics. I had six months before the job started and I looked for something to do in the meantime and started to work at Janice Beaton Fine Cheese on 17th Avenue because I really like food. Bread was something people kept asking about: ‘Where can you get bread here?’ So I started to look into it.
Did you go to school or are you self-taught?
I pretty much started on my own reading a lot of books. After doing that I started baking and selling a little bit and took a course in Vermont where there’s a famous bakery called King Arthur Flour. After that I went to Paris and worked for a few weeks with the godfather of sourdough Jean-Luc Poujauran. He had a famous bakery in Paris for 25 years and then he got tired of it shut it down and set up a bakery two doors down but he now only sells to restaurants and hotels.
So do you want to be the godfather of bread in Calgary?
Ideally in Canada. Well not the godfather but I’d like to be the best baker in Calgary.
Many bakeries have disappeared in Calgary with most people now getting their bread in grocery stores.
Yeah well I’m hoping this is going to change. There’s room for that and there’s room for the specialty artisan places.
What do you think people love about fresh made bread?
It’s such a basic food. It appeals to everybody. You don’t have to know anything about it. It’s basic heartwarming and it makes you feel good right away. As opposed to wine which makes you feel like you have to know a lot. With bread you don’t have to know anything.
What’s your favorite bread?
My basic bread that I do which is a sourdough with a little bit of whole-wheat flour. It’s kind of the cleanest flavour. Usually the basic breads are harder to do.
Why is that?
The whole quest of artisan bread is to extract as much flavour from flour from wheat. It’s a lot easier if you throw in cheese or apple but it’s really hard to get the essence and flavour from just the flour. When you strip it down the less stuff you have in it the harder it is to do well.
It sounds like an art.
It’s kind of in-between. It’s half science half something you can’t really measure.
Does your biomedical engineering background come in handy?
I think it does in a way. Science teaches you how to be methodical which helps a lot with baking to a certain point because it’s not like a formula where if you follow it exactly it will just come out the same way. All these elements like the weather and the humidity how your sourdough culture looks that day you can’t really measure that.
You have a bit of an accent. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Israel. I came here for school. All my family is still there. I go there once a year.
Is bread a big thing in Israel?
It is. When I grew up we bought a fresh loaf of bread everyday. It was nice. It wasn’t anything super fancy but if you eat you have to have bread. I’m still like that. If I don’t have bread I find it very hard to make a meal without it.
You donate some of your profit to CODE. What is that?
CODE is a Canadian organization that supports schools and libraries in Africa. Basically you adopt a library or in my case a school and you try to raise money for them. They require somewhere around $2500 a year to operate.
Why is it important to you to give to this cause?
It started when I was still in grad school. I definitely know what the benefits of education are though it’s funny because I’m not really using any of it. It’s a bit ironic. But I was really fortunate to go to grad school and I think literacy is really important. I grew up in a house full of books and reading was a big part of my childhood.
