[Vision2020] New Bakery

[B. J. Swanson]

Speaking of food.  Nels was also a baker in one of our favorite Seattle
restaurants.  I can hardly wait...

 

B. J. Swanson

 

>From today's Daily News:

 

It's all in the dough: New bakery rises in Moscow

By Omie Drawhorn, Daily News staff writer 
June 27, 2008

Nels Peterson said baking bread is like raising a child. It takes time and
care and is a hands-on process from start to finish.

Peterson recently opened the Panhandle Artisan Bread Company, located in the
Robinson Business Park at 630 N. Almon St., Suite 110, in Moscow.

He hopes to sell to local restaurants and grocery stores, and eventually
open up a storefront at his bakery space.

He is providing samples and selling bread at the Moscow Farmers Market
today.

Peterson has been working with food for years, originally as a chef at the
restaurant Cafe Spudnik in Moscow. Since then, he has baked bread at several
bakeries, most recently in a tiny town in Vermont.

"The last bakery I worked in, customers could come in and we'd walk them
through the baking process," he said.

He said he'd eventually like to do something like that here.

Peterson started with two live cultures in the fall - one rye and water, the
other flour and water - and has been using them as a base to make his bread
since then.

"I don't have kids, so (the bread starts) are my kids," he said.

Peterson said his bread is made with natural leaven, which means he uses a
wild yeast that makes it rise.

He returned to Moscow last fall to be closer to his parents after living in
various locations across the country.

The idea to start a bakery came to him after he decided his return to Moscow
would be more permanent than originally anticipated.

He currently has one part-time employee helping him, Rob Bjerke.

The process of securing a location and taking the steps to open a bakery has
been long and difficult, but Peterson said "it's a labor of love."

"The process of baking bread is very romantic; there are a million metaphors
about bread," he said. "I love to see the reaction from people, the look in
their eye as they taste the bread."

He said he decided to open a bakery as opposed to a restaurant because he
wanted to focus on one particular thing.

"With one thing you can own it and have more control," he said.

Peterson has accumulated recipes over the years, but he makes them a little
different so he can call the end result his own.

"For the most part the ingredients are the same as every other bakery in
town, but I use a different technique," he said. "The deck oven is really
special, like a hearth. You put it in, let it steam and the bread is so much
better."

Peterson said you can pronounce everything when you look at the ingredient
labels on his products. He tries to use all local ingredients in his bread
and hopes to eventually use 100 percent organic ingredients. 

Peterson's favorite bread is miche, which is like a french country loaf.

He said it can take up to 36 hours to make a loaf of bread.

"It's a long fermentation process," he said.

The dough is taken from the culture, mixed and placed in tubs for up to four
hours. It then is stretched on a table and formed into loaves before being
placed on a rack and eventually in the oven.

He said his breads take a lot longer than normal and are harder on the
baker, but the flavor is a lot deeper and the end result is more rustic and
flavorful.

Peterson prides himself on being an artisan baker.

"Artisan means working with your hands and baking on a hearth," he said.
"I'm fascinated by bread. There's always more to learn and I love it."

n For information call (208) 882-5999 or panhandleartisanbread at live.com

Omie Drawhorn can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 238, or by e-mail at
odrawhorn at dnews.com.

 

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