Real Bread
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Real Bread
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About UsWe are Brett Laidlaw and Mary Eckmeier--avid home bakers, public market fanatics, incurable Francophiles. We make European-style artisan breads, with a scone or two thrown in for good measure. With a very few exceptions, our breads, brioche, scones, madeleines, etc., are made entirely by hand in very small batches. We use the best ingredients we can find, choosing local products whenever possible, like the organic flours from Whole Grain Milling Company, Cedar Summit Farm milk and cream, and Hope Creamery butter. Because we make our breads at home, in a 30-inch range and 24-inch wall oven, our production is very limited. We can't feed the world, but we do our best to keep a few dozen bread enthusiasts happy each week. Along the way we celebrate the joys of the excellent seasonal foods that you can find at our local markets. Making any quantity of bread by hand, in an ordinary home kitchen, and then going out to sell it in parking lots, at the mercy of every sort or weather, is really hard work, the most physically demanding work we've ever done. And yet, why we really do it is because it's so much fun.... You'll find a certain predilection for all things French in both our bread and our writing. A lot of our inspiration comes from the bread, the public markets, the amazing, inexhaustible culinary culture of France. Nonetheless, we gave our bakery as straightforward and American a name as we could find. We intended the name to be strictly descriptive, not necessarily comparative: which is to say, we don't mean to imply that ours is the only "real" bread around, only to stress the simplicity and authenticity of our breads, the natural, honest quality of the ingredients we use, and the age-old (let's not say "primitive"...) methods of hand-mixing and -kneading we employ. But if you're wondering why we feel the need to make that point, just pick up a loaf of bread at your local supermarket and read the ingredients. This summer our bread is available exclusively at the Midtown Public Market in south Minneapolis. The market is located on East Lake Street at 22nd Avenue South--just west of Hiawatha Avenue and the light rail line. We're there on Saturdays from 8 am-1 pm. through the end of October. When the market is busy we often run out of bread pretty early; for a good selection, it's best to get to the market by ten o'clock. Click on "Our Breads" in the menu to the left for descriptions of our breads and ingredient lists. You can find out more about us by reading our "missives". This is a collection of newsletters that we have distributed at the markets or via email. |
Send mail to
brettlaidlaw@eckmeier.com with
questions or comments about this web site.
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