Bread is a heavenly food . . . when made with care, respect, and love.
Jesse Merrill makes his bread using those spiritual ingredients. In fact, those are more important to him than the actual material ingredients that go into his handcrafted loaves.
It has taken a few years for Polestar Hearth to evolve from a backyard, outdoor oven operation, to its brand new shop at 535 Woolwich Street. But all along the way, Merrill said, there has been a gathering together of local people who believe that bread is more than just food – it is a symbol of goodness, of community, and especially of family.
Polestar Hearth had a soft-opening of its new kitchen and bread store on Friday. The loaves of bread on the wooden rack were as fresh and wholesome as they come.
The making of a shop sign is in progress against one wall, a large-scale carving of an earthy, rural scene with bread and a sheaf of wheat.
Merrill said he tried to get a bank loan to open the shop, but when the dough of the monetary kind failed to materialize, he went to the community of Polestar Hearth bread lovers. Funding came through. Interest on a number of $5,000 loans, he said, will be paid in bread.
“I think it’s the politics of bread,” said Merrill, explaining why he loves and why he makes bread. “It goes back to a Gandhian kind of philosophy, that handcrafting in your home idea.”
The father of three children, Merrill began making bread in his home, for his family.
“I came to believe from my mother, who made all of our bread, that bread-making is central to the life of a young family,” he said, while standing in his new shop. “And, it’s good to eat.”
Merrill was exhausted on Friday, but happy with how his life as a bread-maker has unfolded. The goodness of his bread, he said, has a lot to do with the spiritual values that go into it.
“It is the spirit of it,” he said. “The actual ingredients are almost secondary to the spiritual ingredients. There is a lifestyle that I live that revolves around my sourdough. It is a family member, the extra child in the household.”
His sourdough culture, he said, is temperamental – a touchy little thing that has to be coddled and nurtured.
“In our home, we live around bread and the making of bread,” he said. “What’s important to me is that it include ingredients that come from like-minded sources, people who are trying to do good agriculture, good work, and delivering the same to a community that cares about the chain of events involved in their food.”
Merrill said he promised himself not to think about turning his bread love into a bread shop, but it simply evolved that way.
“This is a big, big, big jump,” he said. “We started with that tiny little brick oven nine years ago, and two years of doing that out of our home made the idea viable – showed my wife that this is what I would be doing with my life.”
The operation expanded into the renovated family garage with a bigger outdoor oven. After seven years of that, it was time to go to the next level.
“This is a big step out from that, but it’s also a big offering to the community — as a hub, as a growth point for hopefully more businesses that think outside the bounds of standard businesses.”
The Polestar Hearth shop was made possible by a community of people who believe in what Merrill is doing.
“It really is a community endeavour,” he said.
Learn more about the Polestar Hearth story at www.polestarhearth.com.
The word ‘polestar’ means a thing or principle that guides or attracts people.
