One of my fondest childhood memories was baking bread with my mom. We would take an entire day to bake every kind of bread imaginable, from white to wheat, rolls to pizza dough. I also distinctly remember my favorite part: after patiently waiting for the dough to rise in my mom’s large white mixing bowl (my brother and I were under strict instructions not to run around or else the dough would fall), I would get to punch down the soft and fluffy mound of dough that had seemed to rise because of magic. This simple task was one of the most intriguing and pleasurable parts of learning how to bake.

I have not done anything remotely close to baking bread since I was that eight or nine-year-old child. So, I was thrilled at the recent opportunity to visit husband and wife team Chuck Conway and Carla Kevorkian at O’ Bread Bakery located in the Farm Barn at Shelburne Farms.

A day at the bakery begins at 4:15 a.m.; my day at the bakery began at 5:30 a.m. Let me interject that I have never had to get up that early for anything in my entire life. However, I was so excited for this morning to begin that I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and I could not go back to sleep. The thing that intrigued me in that early hour was the sound of the birds. At no other point during the day can I hear the birds chirping so loudly. Perhaps that is because later in the day all other noises drown them out; I am not sure. But there is something quite profound in looking up at the sky to see the almost-full, creamy, white moon on one side of the sky and the sun’s creeping pink light begin to illuminate the navy blue of the previous evening.

As soon as I got to the Farm Barn, I parked in the back of the building and walked through to the front parking lot. Then all I had to do was follow my nose. The unmistakable scent of freshly baked bread led me right to the bakery. Smiling faces greeted me and offered forth a fresh cup of strong coffee: just what I needed.

Chuck poured himself a cup as well, explaining that this would help him to talk. His story began at the beginning, where all good stories start. He and Carla have been baking bread for a very long time. They have been at Shelburne Farms since 1977 or 1978; prior to that, they lived and baked in Warren and traveled to the Burlington area for a solid portion of their sales.

The original journey for the bakers began in Europe where they first learned to create artisanal bread, an idea not well known in America then. Trips to France, the Netherlands, and Belgium produced many visits to artisan bread makers, visits that led to the "ah ha! bread-bakers" moment. The couple proceeded to bring back bread "starters" from Europe and the rest is history. For the past 30 years and still going strong, O’ Bread bakes bread for local restaurants, stores, and residents. They ship as far west as Michigan and as far south as Virginia.

Some of the many exceptional baked products from O’ Bread include the sesame wheat loaves, ciabattas, sourdoughs, plain and seeded baguettes, and a variety of pastries including croissants and Danishes. Chuck explained they have experimented and there was a time when they also baked pies, which he says he misses at times.

Ever been curious as to how much flour a bakery uses? O’ Bread uses between 50-80 bags of flour per week. One bag weighs 50 lbs. That is a lot of flour. For a time, O’ Bread milled their own flour, but because rain is sometimes a regularity in Vermont, they eventually stopped. Now they get their flour from a mill in Quebec, one in Kansas, and Vermont’s King Arthur too, from time to time.

After hearing Chuck and Carla’s story and learning the basics of bread baking, it was time to get my hands dusty. Rolling baguettes took a good amount of the morning’s time and it is one of the more difficult of baker’s tasks. I rolled about half a dozen baguettes, and happily, I did so with the greatest of ease. One such beautiful loaf was for me to take home: a seeded baguette that turned out perfectly lovely, even if I do say so myself.

All in all, by 9 a.m. I felt like it had already been quite a full and productive day, although O’ Bread’s bakers still had several hours to go before they finished and closed up shop for the day. When I laid down for a nap in the afternoon, instead of sugar plums dancing in my head, there were crunchy loaves of baguettes. My stomach and my subconscious were both grateful for this pleasantly delicious experience.