Episode 126: What If Better Bread Isn’t About Gluten, But About Time

Looking for a better loaf and a calmer life? We start with snow, dogs, and learning to heat a home on wood—choosing species, managing airflow, taming coals, and moving heat through a mid-century bungalow—then step into the bake room with Edmonton’s Bonjour Bakery owner, Yvan Chartrand, for a masterclass on real bread. Yvan’s journey runs from Montreal to rural Hokkaido and back to the prairies, carrying lessons on heritage grains, stone milling, and the slow magic of fermentation.

Yvan breaks down what sourdough truly means in Canada—no shortcuts, no vinegar masquerading as time—just flour, water, and a 45‑year‑old starter nurtured daily. We unpack gluten in plain language, why rye yields dense, slice-thin loaves, and how real pumpernickel bakes for hours to avoid a burnt crust and raw core. He contrasts one-hour industrial processes full of conditioners and preservatives with three-day fermentation that naturally preserves, deepens flavour, and can support a lower glycemic response. We also demystify “whole wheat” labeling, explore ancient vs heritage vs modern wheats, and show how in-house stone milling preserves aroma and nutrition.

If you bake at home, you’ll love Yvan’s “three secrets” of bread—temperature, temperature, and temperature—and how season, flour storage, water temp, and mixer friction change everything from dough development to crumb. Along the way, we keep returning to a shared theme: patience and process matter. Whether you’re tending a fire, sled-hauling wood with the dogs, or feeding a starter, the reward is real—clean heat, clean bread, and a clearer head.

Subscribe for more conversations that connect outdoor craft, food, and well-being. If this sparks an idea—or a craving—share the episode, leave a review, and tell us your go-to loaf so we can bake up more of what you love.

Chapters

• 0:00 Show Open And Outdoor Journal Introductions
• 2:30 Host Updates: Dogs, Weather, Wood Heat
• 12:00 Fireplace Insert: Fuel, Airflow, And Ash
• 20:30 Cutting, Hauling, And Health Strains
• 29:50 Chains, Tools, And Sled Hauling
• 35:00 Wood Heat Economics And Safety With Dogs
• 42:00 Guest Intro: Yvon Chartrand Of Bonjour Bakery
• 45:30 Sourdough Basics And Canadian Context
• 52:00 Yvon’s Path: Montreal, Japan, Edmonton
• 1:00:00 Unleavened Bread, Gluten, And Rye Density
• 1:07:30 Industrial Vs Artisanal Bread And Preservatives
• 1:13:30 What True Sourdough Is And How It’s Kept
• 1:20:00 Starters, Wild Yeast, And Fermentation
• 1:27:30 Protein, Wheat Types, And Dough Goals

Transcript

SPEAKER_07: 0:01

Hi everybody, I'm Angelo Viola. And I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast.

SPEAKER_05: 0:10

That's right. Every Thursday, Angela will be right here in your ears, bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio.

SPEAKER_07: 0:17

Hmm. Now what are we gonna talk about for two hours every week?

SPEAKER_05: 0:20

Well, you know there's gonna be a lot of fishing.

SPEAKER_00: 0:22

I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.

SPEAKER_07: 0:27

Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors. From athletes.

SPEAKER_05: 0:34

All the other guys would go golfing. Me and Garrison Turk, and all the Russians would go fishing.

SPEAKER_03: 0:41

Now that we're looking for scene or anything, it's the perfect transmission environment for my feet.

SPEAKER_00: 0:47

Chefs, if any game isn't cooked properly, marinated.

SPEAKER_07: 0:53

And whoever else will pick up the phone. Wherever you are, Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside.

SPEAKER_05: 1:02

Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_09: 1:15

As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Olette, and I was honored to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as Chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest, use, testimonials, and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession. And I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of this strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy Podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode, and hopefully, we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. Any suggestions for show, let us know. We got a couple coming up I'm working on, so that uh this month in uh January I should be able to put together the the last uh questions. But you know, it's it's my usual update. So, Gunner, my chocolate lab, Ensign Gunner, um, he's been doing this weird thing lately. It's it's snowing like crazy out. And you know, Christmas Day was kind of a white Christmas here, and then then uh nothing after that, and then Boxing Day was a complete zoo, and then uh snow and rain, and it's raining out there now with warm temperatures, and then it's gonna get cold again, so back and forth and up and down. But Gunner, he'll run outside and he'll bury his face in the snow. It's like he's washing his face, and I just don't get it. You know, it's just kind of different to see. And when you get that sort of stuff, you wonder, what is he doing and why? Do I need to wash his face as what? But I don't know. He's uh chocolate lab, he's my buddy. But also, we've got my son's dog, Benny, in. Now, Josh's dog, Benny, is uh cock-poo, and he's a bit of a yapper, and Benny runs around and kind of tries to dominate uh Gunner, but he's about 25% of the weight, and Gunner just looks at him like, leave me alone, go away. And anyway, so Benny's always there, and they they get along pretty good. So when we say, Oh, Benny's coming, he gunner runs. Now, I mentioned it before, but Gunner has his own special chair, and that's the only spot he sits in. He doesn't go on uh any of the other chairs or anywhere else, and at night he sleeps on the floor in his own little bed right beside me, which is kind of a uh a foam thing with uh some sheets and then a um uh quilted blanket on top of that, and he curls up in that. So he stays on his own stuff, but when he we tell him Benny's coming, he runs up and looks at the front window and runs around looking for Benny, but then when he gets here, he's just like, oh yeah, it's him. Anyway, so but and the only time he actually gets uh uh he knows the difference. So we're at camp or the cottage. Uh Gunner gets to sleep on the bed, and but he drives me crazy because he won't sleep from top to bottom. He sleeps side to side on the bed. So your legs are laying out over the side of the bed just to try and accommodate the darn dog. But he's uh certainly interesting, and you know when it's his walk time, he gives you the look, and then he runs and gets his harness and he tries to put the harness on himself, which is kind of cool to see. But anyways, you know, and I have to tell you this this new fireplace insert. Well, it's it's interesting. It realistically, you know, I'm playing, I'm I'm learning how to use it. You know, and it's how do you manage it when the temperature's like it is outside right now, plus one, or when it's colder, minus eight. And I'm learning to use different sizes of wood. So I'll use uh some small, you know, some sort of six, eight, ten inch wood and put that in, and some lighter wood as well. So if you burn s SPF, spruce pine fir, it doesn't throw the heat off that you'll get with the the ash or the maple or the birch. And anyway, so it's a learning process. And there's a bunch of other stuff. It's it's kind of like, you know, what do you um set the uh the the vent on, the airflow vent on, you know, because if you open it wide open, the flames go on like crazy. But I have to tell you, at night I'll put in I think last night I put in four pieces of, you know, about oh five, five inch by I think they're about fifteen inches long, uh, hardwood and filled it up pretty good. I think there was only four, maybe might have been five. And that went from like ten o'clock last night until five o'clock this morning, and it was hot coals uh still going in, and the blowers were still going on it, so it was working pretty good. But what do you do with all the ash? So you get this huge pile of coals in there, and one of the things I try to do is to get the coals down, otherwise they take up so much space in there because it'll fill half the box just in coals itself. It's kind of like I look at it and go, this is how they must make charcoal. Because all of a sudden you got all these chunks of of coals in there that are hot and glowing, and when you open the the airflow vent in they kind of glow red and give off a lot of heat, but they take up a lot of room. And then the other stuff is how do you circulate the air in the room? And and I have to tell you, the furnace, I haven't had it on. I've had it on maybe in the past realistically, I would say two and a half months, maybe an hour total time, and I just use the uh the fireplace insert to heat the entire place. But part of it is how do you get the the heat around the house? So we've got um an air purifier at one end of the room that we we kind of set so it blows and sends air down the hallway, because it's a ranch style bungalow that was built in 58, three-bedroom. Not a big place, but uh comfortable brick place. And so the the the air purifier helps send it around. And I also turn the the furnace fan on. And the furnace fan will circulate the air through the house and heats the basement up a bit. Uh to a I like it to be honest. I like it kind of cool uh myself. I like the house cooler than everybody else, but uh uh my wife Diane, she likes it warmer, as does Josh, and Garrett likes it freezing cold. He'd rather have it around 12, 14, 16 degrees Celsius in the entire place. But so it's it's a real learning process, and I'm having kind of fun with it. But I'm pushing myself too. So when I got this, everybody said, Oh, you'll burn less wood, you'll burn less wood than the fireplace. And of course we do, but we only turned put the fireplace on basically when we were home or at night. But this wood stove, we got it going basically 24-7 sort of thing. And so I'm burning less wood, but I'm burning it more often. So I'm taking um uh just as much wood, but I didn't prepare for that. So I only put about last year I went through probably four cord bushcord of wood. And this year I've only got uh about two, two and a half bushcord, and I'm through most of it already. So I'm out there cutting and hauling, and and it's certainly wearing on me, shall we say. I got a knee brace on because uh what happens is my knee falls out of, slips out of position, and I have to go back to the gyropractor to get my knee put back in so it's all lined up properly. Not only that, but when I'm cutting, splitting and hauling, it wears on my ribs. And uh the part of the problem is when you get, how shall I say this, more experience in life, um you get to realize there's certain ways to do things. So one of the things that I would do is I used to take, once upon a time, I take out the the chainsaw and uh, you know, a 10-liter gas container and a uh four-liter jug of bar oil and all the the wrenches and stuff, and I would run that pretty heavily. Now I know I take out one the chainsaw with a gas tank full of gas and a oil tank full of oil and just my uh wrench to tighten the chain if it loosens up on me, and that's it. Once it's done, I know I'm done. But I've had enough. But uh Josh is uh doing wood now, and he's like, Oh dad, can you help me? I gotta get like three cords out, uh, two 16-inch and a 12-inch. And okay, yeah, sure, I can do that. So guess who's hauling all the wood and doing it up? And we're we're we're actually hauling it out by toboggan. I bought one of those uh five-foot sleds that's about uh probably about 12 inches deep and five feet long, and I think it's about uh three, four feet wide, and we'll fill that up and haul the stuff out that way. But it plays a number on uh on my wrists, and I have to get a rib put back in place regularly, otherwise my breathing's off, and which it is now, and I can feel the pain. What happens is I get this pain in my right shoulder, just down from that, and the breathing's off a bit, and I know, okay, I know that the uh the um the rib is out of place, and then I gotta go back to see Oris, uh my chiropractor, and he'll do his magic and put my knee back in and fix my wrists and carpal tunnel, because apparently 91% of carpal tunnel, according to my chiropractor, there's a study done in the States, 91% is a bone that slipped out of joint, and I can feel my hands going numb all the time, but I know I'm pushing myself and not giving myself enough downtime. But that's what uh we do for our our kids and uh need the the the wood for the the the stove. And it was interesting. I uh for Christmas I got a uh Josh got me some chains for the 16-inch bar. They weren't uh uh uh original equipment, they were an off-brand. So and you open it up and the package says 16 inches, so I take them out and try to hook up the new chain, but they're from China, and guess what? They're exactly 16 inches long, and you can't get it around the sprocket. It goes around the bar, a 16-inch bar. And for those of uh that know uh cutting, you know, you've got your length that sticks out, which is your 16 inches cutting lengths, but you've got the end that connects inside the chainsaw, and the end of the chain goes around the sprocket. Well, the original equipment has 60 links, and this one only has 56 links, so it won't fit around the sprocket. Yeah, it's a 16-inch chain, but ain't gonna work, so back it's going. I imagine it was one of those Amazon Amazon things, but that's uh part of the learning process. So what we'll do is we'll get an 18-inch one from the same company, which has 61 links, and I've got enough I got enough uh play in my adjuster to take uh take that into consideration, so it should be good. But with the uh the fireplace insert, there's quite a bit of learning to do. You know, it's it's how do you um keep it because we're we're burning so much wood. So I boil the kettle uh quite a bit longer than normal to put some humidity in the room, and the plants that are in the room, we need to water those a little bit more often than the plants that aren't in the room because quite frankly, they dry out quite a bit. And see those, these are all some of the processes that I learned that I'm trying to trying to figure out what to do and how to do it and how to heat the house. But I have to tell you, normally this time of the year I'm spending about a hundred bucks a week on heating the house with the furnace. With this thing's going, I'm spending fifty dollars a month. But it's like a buddy of mine, Doug, used to say, well, uh, yeah, you got to do the wood, but it's either get out there and do the wood and get the exercise doing that, or join the gym. So when I love doing wood, I love doing it with my sons and getting out there, and I take the dogs and they have uh a great time, both Benny and Gunner, and they play ball. And Gunner knows uh Benny's still learning a bit because he's not out as much as Gunner, but as soon as I start the saw, Gunner will find a spot at a distance and he'll sit there until the saw's not running because he knows not to come around, especially if I'm falling a tree. And so I'll get him, and then uh I check the tree height and I make sure there's lots of distance, and then I move Gunner to a spot and have him sit, and he'll just sit there waiting the whole time. And then as soon as a tree falls, I check to make sure there's no Chicos or broken branches in the treetop that need to come down, and I'll tell him it's okay, and he'll come back to me and he'll bring a ball and I'll throw a ball for him. And he goes and out and gets his exercise, and we have some fun. But it's a good way to get some exercise. I love doing the wood, love working the saws. And you have to watch now. I I had the chains sharpened, and I can sharpen them by hand, but I with the files, it's tough on the wrists. And with my carpal tunnel that's bad, I'm wearing wrist guards at night so I can sleep, but they still wake me up with the pain. I gotta keep my arms straight a lot of the time because I'm not giving myself time to heal, and I gotta roll my back, which helps put the uh rib back in place and a bunch of other stuff. So it gives me a bit of down healing time. But the uh the dogs out there just love it, and and I do too. And we uh very much enjoy getting out and getting our exercise doing the wood and burning it as well. So I'll be out filling up because I'm running low. I don't think I'll make it through the next two months with uh the wood that I have. But uh I take down standing dead wood, and a lot of the tops, the best burning. You'll get that kind of aged gray wood, and I'll cut that. And I have a little handheld, it's uh uh normally I don't give plugs for a lot unless the companies uh start uh contributing or I get questions from from listeners. But I got a little still, it's a handheld, I think it's a GTA 26, and it's like a little six-inch bar on it. And the thing with that is a new bar's twelve dollars, and it costs ten dollars to sharpen it. So what am I doing? It's a lot easier just to put a new chain on, or not a new bar, uh a new chain on it. Uh so it's it's uh about ten dollars, fifteen dollars to sharpen the chain, or a new one's twelve bucks. So I'm putting uh a new chain on, but it works fantastic for the small stuff into into about uh four inches thick. And a lot of that uh gray top stuff is burned spectacular in the fireplace. It's good and dry, and even in the wintertime, it's got no bark on it, so it's it stays pretty dry. But that's uh that's uh an enjoyable time for me and the boys getting out together and doing wood and filling and hauling. But it's a little tough when you gotta sled it out about a quarter of a mile on this uh sled to take it to the truck to put it in the back. But hey, uh back to it. Uh just one tank full of gas and a tank full of bar oil, and I'll be back in the bush, maybe even well, today's raining. Raining, not snow. But uh, as soon as we get a couple of days and a little cool weather, and I'll be back at it because I love doing that. But today we got a special guest. We have that's gonna answer a lot of questions, I hope, because I got a lot of questions about this myself. We've got uh Yvonne Chartrand from Bonjou Bakery in Edmonton, Alberta. Welcome to the program, Yvonne.

SPEAKER_02: 18:05

Hello, Jerry. It's my pleasure to be talking with you today.

SPEAKER_09: 18:09

Hey, that's spectacular. And the bakery's not open today when we're recording, or it's here.

SPEAKER_02: 18:14

No, well, the uh the bakery, the retail is not open, but uh as we will talk about it, like during uh since we are very uh traditional, we make all of our bread. Well, not all of our bread, most of our bread that's soured away. It takes three days to make. So today we're working for the bread that we're gonna be baking tomorrow, basically.

SPEAKER_09: 18:31

Oh, very good. Very good. So so when Yvonne, what sort of so it takes three days? How come it takes three days to make bread? I mean, mom used to make bread uh in the in the oven when I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and uh I don't remember it taking three days, but how come it takes three days?

SPEAKER_02: 18:51

Well, you know, like bread making, like again, like if we look at uh traditional bread making, uh ancient bread making, modern bread making, you have all kinds of ways to make bread, right? And uh you have the uh basically the sourdough production, you have uh regular production, uh or maybe we could call some industrial production. And uh basically, I guess it's it's important to understand what uh sourdough production is in Canada, uh, because it's quite uh different uh than uh many European countries. And the reason I'm saying this is that sourdough production is like, and again, well, maybe we should back off to what is uh sourdough before we talk about the production, you know. In French, how do we call it Levin? Levin is leavening, right? It's what makes the the dough, the dough rise. And uh all that starts basically from you know your grain and uh what type of grain you use. But, you know, like uh and I was yeah listening for uh one of your previous podcasts when you were saying that uh you have your uh gluten intolerant, et cetera. Yeah. Uh most of the like I find like again, like I'm not a medical specialist at all. So I'm a baker for 30 years. And uh as a baker, my I come from observations from my customers, from uh my friends, and uh, et cetera, right? So, I mean, so there's always a medical, there is a science behind everything. But for me, basically, it's our observations. What my customer comes back and tell me, and uh, you know why a lot of my customers will come to me and say, Hey, why am I able to eat your bread? But I can't eat the bread from uh XYZ uh big uh big world store, right?

SPEAKER_09: 20:55

Yeah. So, Yvonne, tell us a bit about your background first. So, whereabouts are you from? And uh now you're in Edmonton, Alberta. Where were you before? Because obviously you have uh uh francophone accent.

SPEAKER_02: 21:08

Yeah, well, I'm a little bit of a gypsy, let's face it. I've been uh a little bit all over the place. I'm originally from uh the suburb of Montreal, uh, but my mom is from northern Alberta, she's French Canadian from uh the Fala Peace River area. Uh so and when I was 18, basically, I left Montreal and I came to Alberta to uh to meet my uh my cousins, see where my roots were on my mother's side. And at that time, well it was uh that's in uh 1978. Uh later during those years, I met uh my wife, which uh who is Japanese. So uh after a few years uh in the past in Edmonton, I ended up in Japan. I went, uh we got married, and uh I stayed in Japan for over 15 years. Oh, really? Came back in uh Canada in 2007 with the kids, uh uh, went a little bit. I stayed in uh for one year in Perth in Ontario, which is a lovely, beautiful little town, and but decided to come back to Edmonton. Edmonton had always been good to us. And uh I purchased a bakery here that was already uh uh on the it was an occasional bakery, very similar to the products we made. Right. And uh from there I we grew over the years, and uh right now, so it's been since 2009 that we operate Bonjour Bakery here in Edmonton.

SPEAKER_09: 22:42

Very good. So, what did you do for 15 years in Japan?

SPEAKER_02: 22:45

Well, it's uh I've done like originally, I'll be honest with you, I was going to be uh going to Japan for only three months and uh got married, and then we uh got kids. And uh so I started. We uh we uh my wife uh was teaching English in Japan, and uh so I thought with her uh languages, so French and English, but uh so if you ever see a Japanese person speaking English with a French accent, you'll know who was a teacher.

SPEAKER_09: 23:17

Oh, very interesting.

SPEAKER_02: 23:18

And over the years in Japan, like uh so we I opened up a small cafe at the beginning. We were really living in northern Hokkaido in the Bunis. And uh the uh what I was I was making my whole wheat bread at the cafe, and people were really questioning like, you know, why what is whole wheat? People had no idea, you know, the bread making in northern Japan is quite different. And so they really liked the whole wheat bread, so I kept making whole wheat bread, and from there I traveled a little bit the world for uh teaching, like to learn about baking. That was in 1992. So, you know, learning about baking, about uh I studied with German, with French people, with Italian people, with American, with Canadian people. And uh so we started a bakery in Japan uh very early on. And I was one of the first who brought uh the bagels to Northern Japan. That would have been in 1990, 95-ish. And so it was, you know, like uh we got lots of publicity. I was the only foreigner in town, so and uh so we started a bagel shop, well, kind of bakery bagel shop. Uh, but it was interesting, you know. Like you we had customers, especially the older generation that would come to a bakery, they would look at me and they would look at my bagels and look at me again. And, you know, I remember clearly one day a guy came in and says, Man, you make hard donuts. You know, so I had to explain to them what uh, you know, uh bagels were. And and anyway, from all this, like so I I worked and did more and more uh uh traditional uh baking and uh where I went to completely uh artisanal baking uh uh quite a few years ago.

SPEAKER_09: 25:07

Yeah, well, that's certainly interesting, and you learn a lot when you see different cultures, and certainly Japan uh being the first one to bring a bagels in is would be very interesting to a lot of the people there. And you know, you mentioned uh Montreal. I have to tell you, um that my wife, whenever I say, you know, where do you want to go for dinner, her response is Gibby's, which is uh uh an old monk monastery that's turned into a restaurant in Montreal. Oh, we very much enjoy that. But uh you know, and even my own history, uh uh my father's parents were uh his mother's my father's mother's parents were Scottish and Irish, and my father's father obviously was French and the Histoire de ma famille Romotol Silois called Venue de France en 1604, which means for those that don't know, it means uh the family came across in 1604 in the second boat from from France and uh First Nation. So my father's parents go um his grandparents were f uh French and First Nation, and my mother's side, uh her parents were Polish and Ukrainian. So I've got uh Polish, Ukrainian, French, Scottish, Irish, First Nation, which makes me like everybody else a Canadian. Yeah. Oh yes. And and certainly the food cultures and all those are very, very different. Uh you know, even the even um what they call what do they call them pierogies in uh a lot of people, which is which is uh would be found in Polish, but in Ukrainian it's pedaha. Okay. So so one of the things when I was when I was a kid, uh we used to have the milkman come around the street. And I recall mom sending me down to the milkman to get something. So he came down and he had this kind of like uh it was it wasn't a horse drawn, it was a that. And so I went to the milkman and uh and I said, Yeah, I I need to get some smatana. And he looked at me and said, What's that? And I said, Well, smitana. So, what do you do with that? And he said, Well, you eat it. And he said, He said, What do you mean you eat it? How do you eat it? Well, you eat it with food. And he said, Well, what food do you eat with it? I said, Petahe. And he said, What's petaher? So the milkman came to the house and uh we got smitana, which is sour cream in Ukrainian, and petahe, which is pierogis. And anyways, it was a learning experience how the cultures can influence that which we eat and the lifestyles that we have. And it certainly sounds, Yvonne, like you've had a very interesting time at a lot of different places.

SPEAKER_02: 27:52

You know, with Edmonton, like, well, northern Alberta has got a great French population and a great Ukrainian population, you know, like the whole Vegreville area near east of Edmonton, so it's always been quite traditionally Ukrainian. So uh I mean many of my staff are from Ukrainian background, you know, like we're a little bit more multicultural, I must admit, you know, like I think we have we can speak nine languages right now, the bakery.

SPEAKER_09: 28:18

Oh, very good. Yeah, very good. So you mentioned something that uh is uh regularly mentioned in the Bible, and and uh you know I go to church every Sunday, a Christian. Unleavened bread. What's unleavened bread?

SPEAKER_02: 28:34

Well, there's basically uh bread like just flour and water that's been left without being leavened. That's mean there's no there was no well, I mean, in the old days, like 2,000 years ago, there was only one uh way to make bread. You didn't have commercial yeast, you didn't have like, you know, it was by nature levin, like uh a sourdough bread. That's the only way you could, you know, get uh your your bread to to rise. So I mean, I mean, so there's many kinds of unle unleavened bread, uh, depending again on what flour you use. But you know, it's a little bit like uh, you know, like we were talking about like like the gluten, like uh it's you know, something that people need to be careful. I find like I have all kinds of customers that come in, like they'll ask me what kind of bread is this. Uh my doctor told me I could eat this, I could not eat this, etc. And even I think sometimes the medical, you know, uh doctors in general have uh sometimes misunderstand what you know gluten intolerance versus like you were talking about celiac, you know. Uh yeah, celiac is an allergy. There's not an intolerance to to bread, right? To gluten. Right. Gluten itself, like it's quite wild. Like, you know, it's a group of protein. I mean, we can be really technical, you know, about uh what protein and different wheat, uh well, like a wheat, rye, or barley has gluten, but it can, you know, it has different proteins, so you may be able to eat one type and not not another type. But uh the uh if I look at again unleavened, if you have an unleavened bread is gonna be basically just about hard as a rock. Okay. You know, it's uh it means like the uh and the role of gluten, the gluten, what does gluten do? Like I always explain it this way to people who don't, you know, we know about gluten and gluten and stuff, but we don't really understand what gluten is. No. And gluten really, like, it's like, you know, when you go to a birthday party and you blow a balloon to your kids or to uh your neighbor's kid. Well, that's a little bit what gluten is. It's uh it's kind of a rubber, like an elastic protein. And once the bread starts to ferment, well, then it creates CO2, and that balloon, that gluten traps the uh the uh the the CO2 and makes the bread rise. So not having any any gluten in your unleavened, well not gluten, but in uh any uh uh any yeast in your unleavened bread, then the bread stays really, really small, right? Right. Or then it's the same thing. Like if you look at wheat, I mean there's many different kinds of wheat. Uh but look at rye bread. Rye also has gluten, but it's a much different or in lower gluten. So if you have a real, like uh I call him the German rye, like not the type of rye that you'll find in commercial, you know, that's fluffy like uh like uh uh uh white bread. If you have a real 100% rye, like you drop that loaf on your foot, you break a toe. Like that's you know, that's because the gluten is much, much weaker. It will rise, sounds you know, uh to a certain point, but uh the gluten is is is much lower. So, you know, it's uh so it's compared to wheat, so to wheat bread, then you have quite a bit of a difference. Like again, if we look at wheat, you have different types of wheat. You know, you have you have ancient grains, you have heritage grain, you have the modern grains and genetically modified grain, you know. So, and I always for me, like uh the way I put it is uh I look at ancient grains is basically a little bit like what you're saying in the Bible. It's a grains that were grown 2000 years ago, right? And uh so it's uh it usually like it is gonna be, of course, the you have lower lower yields, etc. Uh and there were you know grains that came from generations of generations, you know. The heritage wheats on the other side, uh especially here in Canada, like so we look at uh grains that were grown between 1860 and 1900. Red Fife is a clear example. And uh so red fife is a type of wheat that was brought from Europe, either Poland or Ukraine and those, you know, Eastern Europe, and was grown uh here. So it's a heritage grain uh that was grown in Canada. After red fife, yeah, you have a wheat called park wheat, uh, you have different types of wheat. And uh and then and then if you look at ancient grains, like like the the biggest one everybody talks about, spelt. Spelt is uh an ancient grain. Uh so now for me, I don't use ancient grains here at the bakery. We use uh heritage grains, mainly because I don't like the taste of ancient grains. There's nothing wrong with it. Some people like the taste, it's just personal. You know, for me, spelt is not something that really pleases my palate. So that's why I stay more in the heritage grain. We do have uh, you know, like if I look at modern wheats, like, you know, that's the wheats that are commercially available here. And another misconception that people have in Canada is that like Canada technically does not have genetically modified wheat. There's norms that are genetically modified soybeans. Uh you have also uh you know different uh different uh there are different grains, but wheat is not genetically modified in Canada. Like there are some trials, universities have some trials, and so and if you do have genetically modified wheat in Canada, well it's mean it's it's outside of CFIA, like a CFIA does control of all of this, right? So you may find some, but it's not so uh so that's the the main thing, you know.

SPEAKER_09: 34:53

Just some people know CFIA is Canadian Food Inspection Agency, yeah. Okay, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04: 34:59

Thank you for mentioning back in 2016, Frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.

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SPEAKER_09: 36:21

Okay, we've got Rob from Hamilton here, who's had some success with the Chaga cream. Rob, can you tell us about it?

SPEAKER_08: 36:27

Yeah, I've uh used it on blemishes, cuts, uh just basically all around healing. Um anything, anything kind of blemish, it speeds it up really quick. Great. Speeds the healing box up, uh, the healing process really well. It leaves no marks and doesn't stain or smells okay. Okay, thanks Rob. Appreciate that. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_09: 36:58

We interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, Chaga Health and Wellness.com, place a few items in the cart, and check out with the code CANAPY, C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package, and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening. Back to the episode. So you mentioned a lot of these flours, and I'd like to get into the the different ones because there's almond flour uh which is gluten-free, and there's a a number of different flour. There's rice flour and w but they all can they I I'm not sure. What ones taste good and and which ones would be basically uh uh gluten-free. And I'm not so sure because I met I've had a master gardener on it a number of times, and the master gardener seemed uh talk to me afterwards that the feeling was is that the problem wasn't so much the gluten, but the glyphosate that they spray on it to uh um to it helps dry it out so it it it it processes and kills weeds and things like that. That's the big problem with a lot of people that uh that people have, because I I have a lot of uh people that go to Europe on a regular basis and they say the bread that they have there they have no problem with, but the bread they have here. And so that's when the the Master Gardener said, Oh, that's because they they they spray here with the glyphosate, and it has a huge impact on people. Are you hearing stuff like that?

SPEAKER_02: 39:05

Or yes, well, you know, like glyphosate, like it's basically, I don't know if we should say the name, it's Roundup, right? Like it's uh it's uh a pesticide. Uh I guess for any any grains, like if you look at Europe compared to here, uh especially uh I'll talk about you know Western Canada being in in Alberta. It's really uh you look at the type and the the type of soils is huge. You know, in Western Canada, the soil is very, I can I can say it's it's a very good soil. It's very proper for grain. As when you go to Europe, their soils are much poorer. So in Europe, traditionally, they've never been able to grow grains that go into uh you know 12% protein, 14% protein, which we get here in northern, you know, in in Canada. Most countries in the world, well, many countries in the world are not able to do that. You know, and again, like if we when I say 12% is how much protein is in the grain. So, you know, that's the gluten part, you know, part of part of it. But that's so how do you grow your also what's is the problem with the protein, with the gluten, not the problem with the gluten, but what uh influences the gluten is what kind of uh fertilizer you use. Like it's what type of uh of growing. It's really a holistic, completely holistic type of a uh, I don't know if holistic is the right word, but it's how how your wheat is grown. So in Europe they they've always had to do with I don't want to say lower quality grain, but lower quality, lower protein types of grain. So that's how basically the French developed like how to make a baguette. Baguette, you know, if you have like a really high protein, uh very high protein grain, and you try to make a baguette with it, well, you end up with a baguette that feels like wonder bread. You know, and that defeats the whole purpose. Like uh a baguette basically is uh is all crust with a little bit of uh of crumb inside, and after one day it's dried. Like you know, you you can beat up someone with it and defend yourself if you need to. So if a baguette is uh still moist after one week, then start asking yourself, what's in there?

SPEAKER_09: 41:30

Okay, so yeah, that brings up a question. You know, about a friend of mine, um, Ron, was uh just visiting his daughter in England, and he was saying that the bread there, um, when you buy your bread three days and it starts to go moldy, you buy bread off the shelf here from a commercial producer, and it's two weeks and it's still sitting on the on the shelf and it's still not going moldy. How come that is? What's the difference there?

SPEAKER_02: 41:57

Yeah, yeah, like in the past, like again, it's uh if you if you look at let's understand a little bit how the difference between artisanal and uh and uh industrial baking. See, again, and that touches on again on your gluten. Because in an industrial, and I I I don't want to put down or you know, bring down industrial baking, uh, but industrial baking, like flour is mixed, it's in the mixer, it's you know, removed from the mixer, divided, it's in the pan, and within an hour, maybe or less than an hour, sometimes a little bit more, it's baked. So your whole process takes an hour. So your your gluten, the only thing your gluten now is doing is catching the CO2, making the bread rise, and it's it's baked. Okay. Now, it's a little bit like wine, you know, when you have uh some wine that's uh six months old and you have a wine that's six years old, usually you're you're gonna need to put something in to uh to make your wine taste a little bit, you know, uh acceptable after six months. After, yeah, you know, so six months. So with bread, it's a little bit the same thing. If you want your uh, you know, a dough to uh an industrial dough to uh taste good, well you either put additives in it, and it's it's a whole uh pharmaceutical uh industries, like all of the additives that you can put in bread, then you have all of the uh preservatives that you can put in bread. Again, exactly like you're saying. You know what bread, like a lot of customers will come to me. Like I have some customers coming to me and being angry, hey, I had your bread on my on my counter, and after five days start to mold. Well, ask yourself why is a natural product not molding then if it's a natural product. So, as far as uh preservatives and additives, I mean I can send you a list that's uh you know uh quite a few pages long, too, because each additive got some different properties, what you want to do with your dough. But that's you know, that becomes quite technical. But in reality, yes, preservatives will make, of course, will make your uh your bread stay longer. That said, sourdough, uh sourdough is a preservant, like it acts as a preservative because a sourdough is a uh is an acid, right? So when your your yeast, uh your sourdough yeast is transforming your you know, your uh your dough, it creates acid, which does help in, you know, uh it's like a pickle, you know, a pickle you can you put in vinegar. Well then it does help in a way uh keep your bread a little bit longer and keeping it fresh. So a true true sourdough bread, again, uh has some good uh some uh I should say good or better uh keep keep uh you can keep them a little bit longer.

SPEAKER_09: 45:02

Okay, so exactly, Yvonne, what is sourdough then? And and how do you because I I recall uh one bakery said this is from the original batch where they actually save some of the the flour to to to to uh mix it in, or not the flour, but the uh uh the the bread mixture with other ones. Yeah and it lasts for years and years and years to uh to spread. So how does it work and what's the difference with sourdough bread then?

SPEAKER_02: 45:33

Well, you know, sourdough is exactly the same. I mean a lot of people will uh I give that example. You know, like people I've heard like eat uh yogurt, yogurt making from example. You'll take uh you'll take some milk, you you warm it up, you take uh some of your uh another uh yogurt container, you put it in, and bang it turned into yogurt, right? Well, it's the same thing with sourdough. Sourdough, like the one that we have here, like that I use right now, is about 45 years old. And uh actually, when I was in the pan, I had brought back one from France who was 150 years old. So it's been that every like here, like for us at the bakery, every every single day I have a batch of sourdough that we make. So I take it's and sourdough is only flour and water. There's no salt, there's nothing else. So flour and water, and then I take from my previous day sourdough, my we call it a chef, or some people call it a mother. I take part of it, then I mix it in my mixer, and then that's going to be used for the next day, uh, the next day batch of bread. So that's what sourdough is, really. It's a natural yeast, you know, it's a wild yeast basically. And uh as it ferments, it it creates some acid, uh, you know, some uh lactic acid in the in the dough. Uh and that's so that's a natural leavening. Like you you can start like your own starter if you want to, but it's it's a lot of work. Like it takes time. But and uh now what you have to be careful in Canada again, there are no rules about what is a sourdough bread and what is not. Oh, okay. So you can have uh like a bakery just uh putting some vinegar or like an acid substance in their bread, it tastes sour, and then no, that's sourdough bread. Well, you know, so there's no laws that says what sourdough is and what it isn't, you know. So yours is uh is so yours is 45 or 100 odd years old? Yeah, right now the one we use is 45 years old. And uh it's been studied. Actually, we have a at the University of Alberta, there's a microbiologist that's been following uh uh our sourdough for at least over 17 years. And uh so we had say he took some samples 17 years ago. Uh he came back last year. We got some more samples of our sourdough and he analyzed it. And it's quite interesting. It's quite interesting, you know, like the uh what he found. But uh this is uh basically those yeast, like those natural yeast strain, like they they stay in for uh, you know, so it's quite anywhere. That's me, that's quite technical. But it's quite interesting. So that's what sourdough is. Like if you have so in our bread, like we have uh we have some lines that are complete sourdough, only sourdough. That means that there's no uh uh dry yeast, there's no baker's yeast, it's 100% sourdough yeast. So the only ingredients is flour, water, and salt. There's nothing else. So that's uh that's what you call like again, come back to your question: why does it take three days for my bread to uh to rise or to to how why does it take me three days to make a traditional bread? So it takes 12 hours for that sourdough to develop. So once I take you know my uh the uh some of the dough from my chef, then I I I make my sourdough with it, and that's fermented for a full something, 12 to 18 hours, depending on what I want to achieve, you know, like uh the acidity that I want.

SPEAKER_09: 49:13

So when you say starter, I know I the family I took up to a uh conference in the Yukon, and I bought a couple of sourdough packages, starter packages up in the Yukon. I've never used them though. So would they still be good? And and how do you keep sourdough for 45 years? Is it something you can freeze uh during a downtime and then bring it back out and it's still good? Or do you have to have it active?

SPEAKER_02: 49:39

Yeah, no, you well, for for us it's different. It's been active for 45 years. So it's been fed every, every day for 45 years, you know. So we've uh we've maintained that for 45 years. Uh probably the one you had in the Yukon would be like, you know, they take a piece of the sourdough and they just dry it. So they would it becomes like, you know, like a kind of a powder form. Yeah. And uh, I mean, that should, should be good for quite a while, but uh I'm not sure, you know, like will it come back after 10, 15, 20 years? That that I'm not sure. That would be but if you looked in Europe again, like with the uh in the old days, like their their starters, how would they keep it? Like a lot, especially in Eastern Europe, you know, like every household had a a wooden bowl where they would put, they would make their sourdough. And that was, you know, the the the the dough that they wouldn't, like the bowl where they would make their dough and stuff like that. And that's the bowl that was often transmitted from you know, grandmother to mother to daughter, to, you know. And uh so the the the yeast, like the the wild yeast actually got engraved sometimes in in the you know, in the wood itself. So that's why they didn't need to put a starter, they would just put the why the water and flour in the bowl and it would start to bubble because of the natural yeast present, you know.

SPEAKER_09: 51:06

Well, Yvonne, what is actually what is yeast then? What where do you get it and uh and how how where does it come from? I don't know a lot. Is it like uh like a hops or what is the difference with?

SPEAKER_02: 51:18

Well, yeast is not well, it's you know you can call it a mold like it's a it's a bacteria. So it's everywhere. So if you leave you know something on your counter, it starts to mold because it's either something that's inside the meat or whatever, or it's fallen from the air. So that's that's a natural yeast. Once you go into commercial yeast, well, this has been it's a yeast that has been quite refined. So kept over. So commercial yeast, in a way, we get it, you know, into uh like a granular form, but it's it's been probably you know uh within those uh those uh that the that company that produces it for probably generations and generations, you know. So but it's just basically really controlled into like a lab, you know, so they keep their roots uh yeast very, very, very pure. And uh so that's what so yeast basically it's in the air, it's everywhere, you know.

SPEAKER_09: 52:09

Yeah, I I wondered because I know that uh I I read one research article that said you can basically develop your own yeast from the air around you. And but I'm like, what? I I don't understand.

SPEAKER_02: 52:21

But that's what I'm trying to find out. The the problem with again, it's always like sometimes when you develop your own yeast on the air, you'll get good bacteria and bad bacteria. Right. You know, so how do you tell the difference? Uh it's hard to tell the difference, I guess, right? Uh you'll see when you start uh baking your bread. Either the bread is not gonna rise or it's gonna taste like yeah.

SPEAKER_09: 52:43

Okay. So you mentioned about different levels of protein in bread. Now I I know protein's a big thing with a lot. Now my son looks at the protein levels and everything, and actually the milk that uh we get now has 20 grams of protein uh per cup in it as opposed to the other stuff, which only has eight or nine. And what's the difference in protein in bread? And is that a marketable marketable tool that high protein bread?

SPEAKER_02: 53:10

Well, the the it's in the grain, like the thing with uh with with Western Canada is that farmers are paid very often by the level of uh protein in their grains. So for them like to have extra protein, like the more protein they have, like it's considered like a better quality for uh for uh I don't know if that's a word, uh pacific uh uh planification, how to make bread. So they so that's why they put a lot of uh a lot of fertilizer in their field. They want a high protein, you know, uh because the more gluten, the more it, the more you you get uh your bread will rise. You also gluten, that's it again, it's an economic thing. Gluten uh helps absorb water. So if you have a high quality gluten in your in your in your dough, you're gonna absorb a lot more water. And water is cheap. So, you know, a kilo loaf that's uh has a you know, you have more water than flour. But again, that's another so but again, it doesn't fit fit any all of the the breads that we we want, you know. So when I make baguettes, I want a low protein flour because I don't want it to be, you know, spongy. If I want, you know, make uh a milk and butter bread that we make sometimes. Well, I want a little bit higher quality because I want the bread to be very fluffy. If I want uh, like again, we make mixes of rye and wheat, and so I want a lower, I don't want my my wheat, my rye bread to be fluffy, you know, like uh like a wheat bread, you know. It all depends on the texture that you want.

SPEAKER_09: 54:48

Okay, so now so what type of breads do you have in your bakery? You mentioned a baguette, uh and and the the the uh the bagels that you had in Japan, not sure if you have them in Edmonton or not.

SPEAKER_02: 54:59

Yeah, we have them only once a week.

SPEAKER_09: 55:02

Okay. So what sort of uh breads do you have in your bakery?

SPEAKER_02: 55:07

So we we really like an artisanal bakery. Like our specialty is uh sourdough breads. So we have, and then we milled here on site. We I have a mill in the bakery. It's uh an Austrian mill that uh we've imported many years ago. Uh so it's a stone mill, and we uh we mill most of our flour. I don't want to say all because the mill is still, even though it's a fairly sized mill, it's too small to make all of our needs. Uh, but we mill a lot of our uh our grains here, and the grains that we mill, all of all of the grains is 100% organic. And again, for me, the the part of being organic, uh I don't claim it on my website and I won't say to people we're organic, because I think sometimes organic is misleading now, like there's been too many, you know, uh bad stories about organic. But for me, it's basically uh if I'm gonna have a whole wheat bread, then you know, with uh because the greens, you know, has like the uh the how do you say in English? The uh uh you have the germ, you have the endosperm, and you have the hull, right? So I want the whole, I don't want my myself, I don't want to be eating all kinds of chemicals, you know, that are left over on the hull. So all of those breads, so they are 100% like some of many of my breads like that will be 100% organic, that the bread that we mill, the flour that we mill here. So we have probably about 10 to 15 different types of sourdough bread. So from white sourdough to rye sourdough to whole wheat sourdough to mix sourdough with grains. Uh, you have all types of uh, you know, of uh, and then we make baguettes, uh different type of baguettes, you know, whole wheat baguettes and things like that. And then we mix what we say in French is a Viennoiserie, uh in English is uh pastries. I don't make, we don't make cakes here. Like I'm not a pastisity if you want. You know, in French we say passierty for a pastry shop and boulangerie for a bakery. We're really a bakery here. Now on the sides, I do have like we sell imported cheese and stuff like that, you know, a lot of raw milk uh cheese that we are able to to get from Canada or the uh uh European. Uh but the so that's our mainly our our focus here is bread. We're a bread bakery.

SPEAKER_09: 57:27

Okay, yeah. So in much like you you just said earlier about um the definition of sourdough. Yeah, I I I had the the uh the the the president executive director for the Organic Association Ontario, and it's basically the same for the definition of organic, that there's no specific breakdown of what the definition of organic is. So, and the same as what you're saying about uh some people add some some uh acids like vinegar and they call it sourdough when it's not really. And it's the same sort of thing there. So Well, even whole wheat.

SPEAKER_02: 58:03

Whole wheat, the you you if you say you have a whole wheat bread, is it whole wheat? Like you there's no uh you know, you can uh because again, like when you look at whole wheat, like at flour, how again that's another topic completely, how flour is made. You know, usually you go into uh like the big milling companies, they will take out the the outside part of the grain, they will take the germ out, they will take the endosperm, basically, you know, the flour, and then recombine everything to call it whole wheat. But sometimes they they may not add back all the germ, because the germ makes the flour go ransid, right? You don't want your flour after six months on the shelf to smell like uh, you know, like a garbage container. So that's the that's part of it. So, you know, so even whole wheat, as you were saying, like I like the other uh we were saying, like, is uh not exactly quite clear, you know. So there's always a few things that have to watch.

SPEAKER_09: 59:00

So whole wheat is not necessarily whole wheat. That's right. And and so when you see things like whole wheat bread, you're expecting in and basically when I look at it, I go, oh, okay, so it's only wheat in this bread, it's not the complete unit, is what they're referring to, right?

SPEAKER_02: 59:15

That's right. So you may not have all the germs, or they may be adding the gluten to it. So you have a higher because if you have real whole wheat bread, like again, it's how you know, like the the brand of the whole wheat, the brand, like for me, I always consider it, it's like a little bit, it's like sand. It's heavy, it doesn't do anything in the bread. It doesn't, the brand in in in in the wheat just gives fiber. It's not, you know, it doesn't uh make the bread uh uh rise or it doesn't trap any of the gluten. It's only so it's a little bit like sand. So the more of the brand you have in the bread, the more your uh your gluten and or you know, your your has to work hard, like it's it becomes heavy. And that's why if you have a bread that's only white flour, it's gonna be a lot fluffier. Because there's nothing to hold the yeast. So, you know, sorry, it's a little bit simplistic, but that's a little bit how you know how how I look at whole wheat versus other type of flour.

SPEAKER_09: 1:00:11

So and so what would rye bed bread be then?

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:15

Well, real rye, rye has only about three to four percent protein. Compared to wheat, that's going to be between between eight and and fourteen percent. So is it better for making baguettes? Uh no, actually, the uh whipped with baguettes, you want a the a light, a very light flour. You know, it makes sense, which but what uh but a rye will be very, very consistent, you know. So you'll make like a pumper nickel or something like that, you know, that you slice an in uh one eighth of an inch thick. You know, like if you have a real big, thick uh pumper a real pumper nickel, my gosh, you're gonna break it too. So you know so yeah. Very, very heavy and dense, yes. That's right. Because there were, you know. I mean, again, you can add all kinds of stuff in it and make it fluffy, but that this is the purpose.

SPEAKER_09: 1:01:02

So what makes the pumper nickel bread bumper nickel bread?

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:06

Uh well that then again, if it's a hundred percent rye, I mean you can have, you know, uh, and it's gonna be black, you know, or very dark in color. And uh that's because of the color of the grain, you know, of rye. Rye is a grain. So you and then you're gonna ferment that for a long time and you're gonna bake it again for an extremely long time because it's very dense, you know. So like in like in many uh in Germany, like it takes uh over eight hours to bake a true pump and nickel. You know, so because it's so dense, like you don't want to burn the uh the outside and then have uh a raw inside, right? So it's very, very uh typical typical pump per nickel is going to be quite sometimes just about black. Now, if it's too black, be careful, because again, if you look at some rye bread and you look on the what it says on the label, it says, well, you've got all kinds of additives in there. You'll have like uh, you know, some uh some sugar, some dark sugar, some chocolate, like some, you know, to make it go dark. Right. So again, that defeats the purpose for me of saying, I mean, people call it rye bread, but for me considered that right.

SPEAKER_09: 1:02:18

Here's another one for you. You have uh Ukrainians working in your store of Ukrainian descent, a lot of Ukrainians there. Do you know what a pasca is?

SPEAKER_02: 1:02:30

An egg bread. You know, uh yes, uh well, yeah. Okay, oh the pasca. Yes, okay, sorry. Yes, no, I get it. Yeah, yeah, so we have lots of those. Like he right now, my Ukrainian chef at Easter will make a pasca, right? And we'll put chocolate in it. It's a braided bread. Uh he makes a bread called Seljansky, also, which is uh the I won't I don't want to offend like anybody with my rough translation, but it's more like a country, like a house bread, you know. So it's uh it's again, it's a little heavier bread, but he puts sunflowers in it. He has different types of uh so yeah, he so he makes you know often some very traditional bread. And I I really encourage him like to make breads that he liked making. That reminds him, you know, of his uh of uh you know of his origin and stuff like that. So that's quite important, I find it.

SPEAKER_09: 1:03:24

Now, my baba, which would be my mother's mother, my grandmother on that side, uh, used to like a caraway seed bread. Okay, different seeds like that. Is that very popular? That or uh poppy seed bread as well.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:37

Poppy. Poppy, we have lots of poppy. Yeah, he makes lots of poppy. He likes poppy. We make uh we make a dark rye, that we what we call a dark rye, which is 98% rye. Uh and then we add poppy seed. Uh there's also uh the caraway, this we make it into a rye bread. Uh so that's uh caraway uh is I how can I say it, you like it or you don't. Yep. You know, it's uh both both like there's nothing wrong if you like it, there's nothing wrong if you don't, but it's a purely a taste type of uh uh product, you know, like it pleases you or it doesn't.

SPEAKER_09: 1:04:12

Yeah, so even that, uh you know, I had um one individual on uh Antonio that we talked about he because he uh cooks for the stars, and um like uh Nicolas Cage, um uh Ben Stiller and and Olivia Newton, John Blessed Her Soul when she was around, et cetera, et cetera. And he we talked about some of the medicinal things that uh can uh the impacts of things like basil and a bunch of other things like that that can be added and cooked with that have a significant benefit to a lot of people. Are there breads that have significant uh components in it that would be beneficial? Not only that, but uh I I recall one study I saw where two servings of sourdough bread a day, uh the enzyme in it can actually assist with people with um with uh type 2 diabetes, yeah. Normalizing blood sugars. So is there that sort of thing that you're aware of in the breads that are out there?

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:09

Well, definitely if you have like uh again, like people who are diabetics are very uh usually aware of the uh glycemic index, right? So if you have like a heavier bread that has lots of grains, that uh uh has uh, you know, again, sourdough usually are are the ones chosen, but uh it's a lot, it takes longer to digest. If you have a like a baguette, it's probably the worst bread for a diabetic because it's fluffy, like you crust it, it's digested right there. It's white, you know, it's mainly white flour. As for a heavy, heavier bread, then especially with if you you have lots of lots of grains, it takes a lot longer to digest. So the sugars, you know, your body will transform uh the sugars a lot slower. So we call that a low glycemic uh type of bread. Uh with the enzymes and in the in the true sourdough, well, it's it's fermentation. That's the magic word here. You know, if you have a true sauerkraut or you know, a true pickle, not the pickle that's just made with vinegar, but it's been allowed to ferment, you know, like uh that's fermentation. Like you have a tons of uh of goodness in those products, you know. For me, like I'm always amazed when I look at the world of fermentation, you know, from cheese, from meat. Like, you know, being in Japan, like Japan, when I lived in Japan, they are the king of fermentation. They'll ferment anything in Japan. Like you have fermented fish, fermented blood, like you have all kinds of ferments, you know, that's been its tradition has been, you know, for years and years and centuries, you know. So fermentation for me is is so important. And that's why, like, when you have a product that's been fermented for three days, you know, like time is the essence here. Like you have to take your time, you know, people are just in a rush, in a rush, in a rush. And uh, you know, like so, and the fast food and fast this, and you know, and it and it's not like I'm not pointing fingers because I'll tell you a little bit later, a little bit about what happened to me and how I discovered your podcast. But basically, so time and you know, and temperature, like especially in baking, you know, I'll give your listener the secret of baking. The absolute secret of bread making. The first one is temperature. Oh, really? The second one is temperature. Okay. Want to guess have the third one? Temperature. Temperature, you got it. You know, because if you're gonna have a product that's gonna ferment over three days, you have to have the right temperature. Right. You don't want your your dough to be too cold. You don't want it because the the the yeast is it's a living organism, right? You put it, you put your yeast in a cold spot and whoo, let's slow down. Like we're not gonna be all excited here. We're gonna, you know, uh go slow and uh you put your heat on the opposite and to a really hot and whoa, yeah, we got it like you. Let's move like that. So that's the most that you know, you need to control your your your your your bread making. That's the first thing. The temperature is your most important thing. Again, everything follows after that. So if you have to control your yeast, your your dough temperature, you need to control your water temperature. You need to control your flour temperature. Okay, you know, so because you want your dough to uh let's say come out between 19 to 21 degrees Celsius, or you want it to be colder. I ferment my sourdough at 15 degrees Celsius. So I have a uh big uh refrigerator where we put the dough, it's at 15 degrees, like it's been like that for years. In Germany, when they do their uh a lot of their rye breads, like there'll be eight hours with their sourdough at 21 degrees. Then they put some more water and flours, and there'll be another five hours at 25 degrees, and there'll be because you develop different acids, right? Which acid the acidity and the acids are is the taste in your bread. So and when you bake your bread, well, you need to bake it at the right temperature. A baguette will, you know, I bake my baguette at 250 degrees Celsius. Right? I don't do my uh rye at that temperature. So everything has to be with temperature, you know. That's what one of the main main things in in baking.

SPEAKER_09: 1:09:51

So, yeah, so that was one of the questions that was uh about temperature, because I know my the turkey says to cook at 325, but I cook it at 350 all the time. And it doesn't take as long, but uh we have no problems with the turkey. So it obviously makes a huge difference. And I recall, I recall my mother and my Baba when they would do bread. Now, Baba had a double oven in the house. Oh, okay. And so one side she would cook in and the other side she'd do bread raising in, and uh the just the heat from the other side would keep that oven very warm and raise her bread in it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:27

That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's heritage, you know. That's what I see, like me, I that's how I called that heritage, you know. Like we don't, like in the old days and pre- you know, like we didn't really understood what was going, you know, internally, but we knew that if you leave it there for so many hours and your mother's been doing that, and it was working. Yeah, as if you did differently, well, nothing works. So, you know, it's a little bit like my recipes, you know. Like I have people, you know, uh asking me, hey, why don't you give me your recipes? I'll give you my recipes, I'll give you, you know, the exact uh the ingredients. But unless you have, you know, my oven that uh bakes differently than your oven, unless you have my refrigeration room where I keep my my doughs to bring down to control the temperature of my dough, unless you have this, you'll never have the same bread as I do, even though you have the exact same ingredients. You know, it's a process in a way that's very important. You know, just the process is just as important as the ingredients, I guess.

SPEAKER_09: 1:11:30

So when you add your water, is it room temperature water? Because uh what I'm hearing is I guess you can't put cold water in, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:37

That's it. If it's in the summer and it's in the winter, it's a completely different ballgame. In the winter, like in the summer, I have to add ice to my water. Because if my if my my flour in I'm I'm quite lucky now. Like I'll be honest with you, because like we uh I'll talk to you a little bit later about it. We built a brand new facility three years ago, and I have air conditioning now. In the previous bakery, I had no air conditioning, only fans. So in the summer, when it's 38 degrees and my flower temperature is at 38 degrees, if I put, I mean, there's a formula if you want, you know, that to, but then I would I need to add ice to bring the whole to end up with a the the final dough when it comes out of the mixer. I want it at 21 degrees. So I sometimes I have to add, so you you you know, you take your room temperature, you take your flour temperature, you look at what temperature you want to end up with your uh your dough, and then you you mix in your formula, and uh you you you plug in your formula, and then you end up usually with a dough that's what you're calculated for. Now, after 25 years, I'll be honest with you, my son is working with me, like he's uh he's taking over all the production. And he looks like he feels a little bit, and you know, by knowing like he knows the temperature, like even though we write it down on the board every day what temperature we we were using for what dough, etc. Uh, because you know, you have again, once you go into a bigger bakery, like you know, the mixer that I have, you could take a bath in it if you wanted the size, you know. So it's it has different friction factors, all kinds of things that again, it's coming back to temperature, right? So that's the uh the main thing. So for me, that's why in the summer I'll have different, different dough temperature, different water temperature, etc. If my flowers coming out from uh uh just arrive, uh you know, some of the flowers that we use as if for our baguette just arrived from uh, you know, the uh the wholesaler. Well, their warehouse may uh may have been at uh, I don't know, at minus 10, not minus 10, but at zero degrees in there or five degrees Celsius, you know, they don't heat it. So in the summer and the winter is very, very different.

SPEAKER_09: 1:13:51

Oh, interesting. So these these commercial bread makers that people can buy to make your own bread at home, do they take into all this kind of considerations and all this, or do you know, or have you seen one? Because I think we have one somewhere in a box in the basement that my father gave us that we've never used. But uh how do they work or do they? I mean, it would be similar, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:11

I mean, again, you you follow their recipes, and usually you'll have sugar, you'll have, you know, like all kinds of little things that to make to help your dough, you know, uh to be consistent. Again, consistent is is the problem, you know. Like if you're at home and you do something, well, if you're not 100% consistent, it's not the end of the world. You know, it might be a little bit bigger today, you're gonna make bread in that that machine, oh, it's gonna be a little bit lighter the next week or whatever you make it. So it's not so important. But for me, when a customer comes in and says, Whoa, your bread is very different from last week. Uh why was it uh, you know, I have to be consistent. So that's why. And again, industrial baking, they have to be extra, you know. Again, now I could put all kinds of chemicals. If you want to put some chemicals, your dough will come out pretty, pretty much the same, you know, every time. But that's again, you know, I hate to say it, but again, with the gluten intolerance, I usually tell my customers, you know, when they tell me, you know, I have gluten intolerance, blah, blah, blah. So you blame your baker. It's your baker that's at fault here. Most, not always, but most of the time, you know, if you're gonna be rushing your product, if you're gonna be rushing your bacon, you're gonna put additives and you know, preservatives to, you know, well, don't expect, you know, like the or expect your customers not to be, you know, feeling healthy or having problems with digestion and stuff like that. So it's a life choice, I guess. You know, I I'm not judging anybody who likes commercial bread. Like that's that's their, you know, that's that that's their right, you know. And uh the uh we all have we all make our own choices, but for me, yeah, it's the more I I don't want to put all kinds of stuff in my bread. I don't want to eat it. I don't want my kids to eat it, and whatever I don't eat, I don't want I won't make my customer eat it either.

SPEAKER_09: 1:16:06

That's good. That's a good belief and a good way to handle things. You know, so I gotta ask a question that my wife asked me to ask. What flowers do you suggest to her? Because she is a it took me forever to get her to try to go gluten-free. We couldn't go anywhere because it was like, okay, uh I need to go to the washroom right away, and we're not going out anywhere just in case. And then she went gluten-free and it was just like night and day. Okay. And what flowers do do can we utilize for making waffles and things like that?

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:41

You know, I don't use like anything that has gluten in it, then you would have a problem. Again, if it's a celiac problem, then it's an allergy, right? It's not just an intolerance. Again, I would I've I'm so sad that you live so far away. I could freeze you some bread and send it over, or next time I go to interview, I'll bring you some. You know. Uh I I basically have nothing gluten-free in the bakery. Nothing. And simply because if I have one product, I could make it. It's not that I can't make it, but then I have flour all over the place. Like the cross contamination would be impossible. I would need a separate bakery, really, to make and personally, again, I I if you have a gluten-free product, well, it means it has to be leavened somehow with uh, you know, either baking powder or a different way of, and uh, I prefer not to have those those products. I can. In your case, you can't. You know, so it's always the so for me right now, I like I would give your wife advice and she would be quite angry at me because I don't have the experience in uh, you know, I'd be, yeah, I'd be guessing and I don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_09: 1:17:55

Okay. Okay. Okay. So Yvonne, you mentioned one other thing, and and how you discovered my podcast. Is that uh how did you discover us?

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:03

Oh, you know, I'll try to make uh a short story, not too long. Okay. But you know, I personally think, Jerry, you don't push enough your like you don't uh plug enough your products in your own podcast. Like uh, and uh basically, like for me again, I'll come back to my personal story. And uh, you know, men in general were we like to think that we're physically invincible, right? Uh especially when you were younger. So 12 to 14 hours a day's work for years and years and years, you know, and uh mentally, you know, we are moving warriors and stuff like that. We like to believe that until we realize we're not, you know. Yes. So a few years back, like basically just about four years ago, uh, I wasn't we I just we with my son. My son is part of the company now, as I mentioned, like he's been with us uh for many years, but he's been baking since he was 12 years old. You know, uh I'm too cheap of a father to give pocket money, so if he wanted pocket money, he came to work at the bakery. But basically, about four years ago, I bought a piece of land and uh in and menton here on White Avenue, the main avenue on the south side of uh the city. And um I built, I built a bakery from scratch. So I decided to uh, you know, well within eight months from the first several to uh the first bake, it took eight months. So for commercial building, like it was long, long, long hours, very stressful hours. And uh at the same time, basically, uh my personal relationships got quite comp very complicated. Let's let's keep it here. No, so I ended up in the hospital with chest pain, quite, you know, I was having big chest pain. And uh spent the night in the emergency. Only to be told in the morning by the doctor that you know they couldn't find there was nothing, they couldn't find anything wrong with the heart. All those chest pains were were weren't distress related. And I thought to myself, oh man, what am I doing? What am I doing? It's you know, I needed a kind of a slap behind the head like from that doctor, but that's exactly what uh you know happened. So went back home and I sat in front of the TV, and what was on show? It was the fishing Canada show with Hello and Pete, right? Yeah, and I had not been watching that show for years and years. I think this year they're the 40th anniversary, you know, and I've not been watching that for years. So that hit me like a block of uh like a brick. Time to get back to basic, you know, like uh, you know, so so anyway, anyway, if you if you say Pete and Angelo, you should tell them, you know, like they became my therapist. Very good. So they uh I owed them a cigar, you know, for uh being involuntary therapist. So but at the same time, then I had a customer, the same, you know, really exactly the same time. He he's an old Frenchman from France, and I had not seen him for maybe four to six months. So, you know, I said, Wow, it's it's funny, you know. And and then he comes in the sh my shop uh that morning, and I could see, ooh, you're not looking too good, you know, like what's happening? And he said, Well, you know, uh, he was diagnosed with uh lung cancer, you know, and uh it was like uh Mr. Thilomia, you know, and uh he had been to treatments, to all the medical treatments, and his doctor had told him like uh just about a few weeks before he came back to the shop that there's nothing we could do, and he only had a few, you know, a few months to live, like basically. And he basically called one of his friends, and one of his friends told him, Listen here, buddy, you're gonna go to uh uh there was a natural uh uh store there that's still you're gonna get two things. You're gonna get a uh a mix of uh you're gonna get like uh turkey tail, which is a true, right? And you're gonna get some cheddar. And you're gonna mix, you're gonna take like I forget like the exact and uh he said I started to take that, you know, and I'm feeling better. Like he, you know, like he that kind that was my second my second slap behind the head. This guy's you know, he's taking, you know, some some uh what what what natural you know a little bit like my my my bread, like a natural living thing, like he's taking natural, you know, uh the and then so and uh he was thinking like and getting better and getting better. So anyway, so so then I was I remember like again, like I was listening to uh uh Pete and Angelo's podcast, and you I think you were on that that was quite quite quite a while ago. Uh because you're part of the uh uh the outdoor radios uh network, yeah. And then I and I was looking for Canadian sources of of uh, you know, I was getting like uh and I started to take some chaga myself. And then I discovered you, and I was really happy that uh to find like your your chaga that I knew would be source, you know, uh a good source of uh uh and uh from there that's what about over three years ago. So I started taking chaga from uh your uh your your shop and uh that's how I discovered you. And uh I'm so glad to say now that uh I you mentioned it in the podcast, but now we're at the bakery, we're selling your your teas and uh things, and so I'm really happy to uh to have been able, you know, it's uh it's uh life happens for all kinds of reasons, but for me, like I mean, I can see that uh I've in the last three years, I think I've caught maybe one one one or two, you know, cold at the most. I've not been sick. Uh I mean, some of it is a little bit like when I listen to you talking about your dog, you know, it's the same thing with me, you know, like going back to and I think, you know, I was you should with uh Angelo and Pete, you know, and and you guys should make a podcast about men's health. You know, the therapy, the therapeutic benefit of going fishing, being in, you know, in a natural area and being with your dog. Like, you know, when I go fishing with my dog, you know, I always tell my dog never complains. He never complains. You know what? We had steak yesterday for supper. Why are we eating steak again tonight? He's always happy, like the stress is out, there's nothing. So, you know, hearing you talking, you know, about your dog, how important they are, animals in our lives and stuff like that, it's always uh pleasureful.

SPEAKER_09: 1:24:58

Well, thanks very much, Yvonne. And I can tell you one thing. If you, on a hot summer day, if you lock your wife or your spouse and your dog in the trunk, you can always tell who loves you more because when you open the trunk, who's gonna be happy to see you?

unknown: 1:25:11

That's right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:13

Oh boy. I think my wife would look put me in the trunk first, though.

SPEAKER_09: 1:25:17

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, uh, you can always tell if you unlock. And I told um, I told uh Fanella, the um she does uh she's a chiropractor that does vets. She says, I'm gonna use that in my speeches. But that's great. Well, Yvonne, we very much appreciate the time that you've spent with us today. Can you how do people find out more or how can they get in touch with you, or or where can they get your products from? And uh tell us that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:42

Uh, you know, like for us, like in Edmonton, we uh just go to uh www.bonjourbakery.ca, bonjour bakeries in one word, and that's the best. You'll see we have uh a lot of the breads, of course, uh how we make the bread. You'll see a picture of our mail. Uh you can like you know, like the grains that we use. Like I can tell like the farmers, I'll tell you the field where exactly things are grown. So, you know, we can trace it all the way down to uh to the source, you know. So that's uh go to bonjourbakery.ca is going to be your best, your best way.

SPEAKER_09: 1:26:17

Well, I very much appreciate the time you spent. I've learned a lot. There's so many different things that from the the different types of bread, you know, bumper linker, rye, whole wheat, and the meetings, sourdough and the amount of time and 45 years, this the same sourdough that you're using is just amazing. And I think that uh a lot of people will very much appreciate all that. Thanks very much, Yvonne, for taking the time to be here. And it's just something a little bit different that we're learning out there under the canopy. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02: 1:26:43

You bet, and I can say that I've learned a lot from your podcast, and thank you very much, Prince Lagery, for the time you put and uh the help that you give us all of us. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06: 1:27:32

But this podcast will be more than that. Every week on Diaries of a Lodge Owner, I'm going to introduce you to a ton of great people. Share their stories of our trials, tribulations, and inspirations, learn and have plenty of laughs along the way.

SPEAKER_07: 1:27:48

Meanwhile, we're sitting there bobbing along trying to figure out how to catch a bass, and we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing a fishing show.

SPEAKER_05: 1:27:58

My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bass in the summertime, but that's might be more fishing than it was punchy.

SPEAKER_06: 1:28:05

You so confidently said, Hey Pat, have you ever eaten a drunk? Find Diaries of a Lodge Owner now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.