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GOURMET NEWS MARCH 2017 www.gourmetnews.com Retailer News RETAILER NEWS 8 Hand Forged Artisan Bread from Hewn BY LORRIE BAUMANN The sourdough starter at Hewn has a gen- der but no name. She's the mother of all the bread sold at this Evanston, Illinois, bakery owned by Julie Matthei and Ellen King. Matthei serves as the bakery's Director of Business Operations, while King is the Head Baker. Together, they and their bakery staff produce and sell about 130 loaves a day as well as run a wholesale business that serves restaurants and specialty stores throughout Chicago. That requires that they give their starter lots of tender loving care, feeding her twice a day, every day, whether the bakery is open or closed. "It's like having a pet almost – the matter of keeping it alive and then having it give back," King says. "She gets fed twice a day, and we literally treat her like a queen." Hewn celebrates its fourth anniversary this June, and in that time, there's only been a baking day or two when all the bread on the shelves didn't come from that mother. "We did have a time early on, when someone didn't realize there was no more in the walk-in and threw it all away," King said. "It was a very bad day." Another local baker donated some of her starter, and within a couple of days, the yeasty air of Hewn had re-asserted itself and re-estab- lished a colony of wild yeasts that carried the unique flavors of Hewn. Everything at Hewn is made from scratch daily. Breads are hand-mixed, hand-shaped and naturally fermented without commer- cial yeast. The only ingredients are flour, water, starter and sea salt. King uses flours that are organic, sustainable and local when- ever she can, which has resulted in making partnerships with local farmers to bring back heritage grains after she'd exhausted the local supply of organic grain. "I think it's important to be able to tell customers where the flour comes from," King says. Dough is mixed by hand, and then turned every 30 minutes over a four-hour period. Then it's shaped and placed into pans to rest overnight. In the morning, it's baked. It's a labor-intensive process that takes two days all told – first a day of feeding the starter so there's enough to leaven that day's bread and enough to save for the next day, and then a day of mixing the dough, letting it rest and rise and then baking it. "It's a solid two days," King says. From the start of the mix to the bake, the bread is fermented about 20 hours. That long fermen- tation time with wild yeasts unassisted by com- mercial yeast plus flours made from heritage wheat and spelt mean that the flour's gluten is developed slowly and then broken down again before the bread is baked, which allows some of Hewn's customers who can't eat other bread to enjoy a simple sandwich again. These customers have gluten sensitivities – not celiac disease, which is another serious medical condition – but intolerances that prevent them from eating and enjoying the conventional breads they could buy in the supermarket. "That's been pretty amazing – to have a bakery that I feel is really help- ing to nourish our community," King said. In addition to 20 different naturally fer- mented breads, including traditional baguettes, croissants and brioche, King makes some sweet pastries, and Hewn also sells coffee and sandwiches from its 2,400 square-foot shop in Evanston. Three quar- ters of that is the production area, and the remainder is the retail space furnished with many hand-made fix- tures that reflect King's deep interest in Ameri- can history – in addi- tion to her training as a classical chef at Seattle Culinary Academy, she also holds a BA in his- tory from St. Norbert College and an MA in history from the Uni- versity of Maine. The bakery's terrazzo floors are original to the building, which was built in 1928 on a site once occupied by Evanston's original high school. The metal that faces the walls was sal- vaged from an old barn roof, and the shelves and counters were built from lumber obtained from an old white oak tree in Wilmette, Illinois, that had to be cut down. The shop's exterior light came from a closed Wisconsin factory, and the doors between the shop and kitchen are made out of old Michigan cy- press pickle barrels. A bench in the retail shop was once an old church pew, and it's become something of a draw for elderly neighborhood residents who like to sit and watch the come and go. "They all come in at roughly the same time. Sometimes they're grumpy," says Matthei. "It's kind of an old-school place," adds King. "For me, part of the fun is seeing peo- ple forced to share a small space – and then connect." The shop fits into a quiet mixed use urban residential neighborhood with low- rise apartment buildings and ground-floor retail storefronts along a two lane street with a 25-miles-per-hour speed limit. There are apartments over the store, and one of the shops at the other end of Hewn's build- ing was once occupied by a family-run neighborhood grocery called Bernstein Bros. "Once in a while, we have a customer come in and say they used to go to that gro- cery store," Matthei says. "They're glad there's food back in the building." She met King a few years ago after she heard about an underground bread club that King was running out of her home. "I had heard about this woman who was making bread, and it was really, really good," she says. Matthei sought out the bread and be- came a regular customer, and as the months went on, she mentioned to King that she'd like to become a partner in her business. Six months later, they'd formed a company, and in another six months, they opened Hewn in June, 2013. When the two of them were making their initial plans, they thought they'd be making and selling 30 to 40 loaves of bread per day, closing the shop for the day when that ran out. Things didn't work out that way, and the bakery's floor plan has now doubled in size, employs about 200, and is selling wholesale to restaurants and specialty stores in the Chicago area as well as in its own retail shop. Because their production process takes so long, the retail day ends when the last loaf of bread is sold. "There are days when it's 5:00 and we sell the last loaf," Matthei says. "I love those days." It's never been hard finding customers, Matthei says. "Evanston's become a food hub. It's really exploded; we were very for- tunate in being at the nexus of that." GN Leelanau Raclette Continued from PAGE 1 From their American launching pad, the couple started looking for a place where they could make cheese the way they had in Switzerland. They found their new home in Leelanau County, a peninsula in north- ern Michigan that extends out into Lake Michigan. It's the home of a substantial portion of the Sleeping Bear Dunes Na- tional Lakeshore, which was named the most beautiful place in America in a 2011 poll conducted by the "Good Morning America" television program. "Leelanau was just so beautiful when we visited. It re- minded me of Bordeaux, with rolling hills and rural countryside with lots of orchards, vineyards and several dairy farms. We thought the cheese would work well with the blossoming wine industry," Anne says. Although the couple now has two full-time employees to help in the creamery and two part- time staff who help in the small retail shop, for their first years at Leelanau, the two of them worked on their own. They make the traditional raclette that John had learned to make in Switzerland. Swiss-style raclette is a semi-hard, washed- rind cheese, and is traditionally served melted over boiled new pota- toes, a tradition in Switzerland's mountain communities. Its nutty fla- vor also makes it work as a table cheese. "It melts very nicely, just like butter," Anne says. "People are get- ting our cheese for both reasons – sometimes they're melting our cheese over potatoes for the raclette dinner, but many just eat it at room temperature." The Leelanau Raclette is aged a minimum of three months, and Anne and John make it every other day year-round in their 300-gallon kettle. Each batch of cheese makes 25 wheels, or about 200 pounds of cheese. "Right now we are building our inventory for the busy summer season; then we'll be working on the fall color tour; then it will be Christmas cheese. It's hard to take a break," Anne says. "If we didn't make cheese right now, we wouldn't have any to sell later in the summer, so we never really stop making the raclette cheese." The Hoyts dedi- cate several wheels per batch for aging. Their 8-10 month old Aged Raclette won Best of Show at the 2007 Ameri- can Cheese Society competition and has scored well in other major com- petitions. They also make a fromage blanc spread which is very popular in the sum- mer tourist season. Leelanau Fromage Blanc is made about twice a week in a 100- gallon kettle and flavored with garlic, dill, peppercorn or black truffle. The Hoyts also make an artisanal ricotta during the cooler months. GN

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