Fancy Loaves – A Bread Seminar
Dumbledore was adamant that we take a trip together to Magdeburg in order to check out a partnership between a brewery and a bakery. He understood my plans to build out a symbiosis of fermented products, which would be held together by a school, and wanted to show me how one possible partnership may work. The problem was that he wanted to make this trip during the week of exams. Politely declining, we reschedules for the fourth of July.
As chance would have it, there was a seminar earlier in the week. The baker hosting the seminar hails from Barcelona and did not speak German. Dumbledore asked if I would be willing to translate his English into German for the participants. I hesitantly agreed as I would get refunded for transportation and lodging, and the seminar would be free; note, the two-day seminar was not cheap.
The trip did not start out well. As I was headed out for the week, I had a couple bags to carry with me to the train station. Unfortunately, I was running late, so I opted to grab the street car in order to speed things up; I rarely take transportation around the city. I plopped my stuff on the seat and the doors closed. “Kontrolle!”, two men shouted at the front of the train. As it is 5:30 am, I groggily think, “shit”. I did not have a ticket. Eight minutes later, I left the train with a 60 EUR ticket.
Arriving at the academy in Dresden, I great Dumbledore and the two other ladies in the office. Dumbledore explains that there is a change in plans. He opted to bring in another baker from Bayern, who also speaks Italian. The Spaniard will now instruct in Italian, and the German will translate. Okay… I muttered confusedly. How can I pull my weight, then? Dumbledore explained that they need someone to monitor the ovens and wash the dishes. I had now become the baker manning the ovens!
I changed clothes and headed to the bakery and greeted the bakers there. They replied that the seminar starts in two hours; I clarified that I am there to wash dishes. Great, they replied, there was already a pile and they were running out of bowls. Important to note: the Spaniard could only speak broken English – there was no way that we could have pulled off a seminar with our common tongues. As I became the errand-boy as well, the Spaniard would give me instructions in Spanish, which went better than anticipated.
I was happy to discover that two of my former classmates were in attendance. It was nice to see some familiar faces. I also was able to meet some other bakers, who were regulars at the academy’s seminars. The breads that were produced were quite fancy and looked optically very appealing. The seminar itself was very monotonous and lacked energy.
The highlight for me was the second day. Normally, the Spaniard would tell me to prepare water and to weigh out the started dough for each bread. I never worked ahead of him, since I did not want the starter to dry out or to create any confusion in his process. As it would happen, the last two doughs were not rising; there was no yeast in either of them. I was open to taking the blame, but fortunately he was not looking to place any. We frantically came up with a game plan and made magic happen. Oddly enough someone with a camera was there…
As the seminar was ending, the original baker manning the oven had returned from seminar he was hosting in Italy. He was hosting me the next two nights, so I was glad to see him. He had to run some errand that evening, so he gave me the keys to the academy and told me to make sure the doors were locked and windows shut, then find a train to his place.
The seminar ended a little after 4 PM, but cleaning up the bakery, wiping down tables, washing the final dishes, sweeping the floor, and taking out the trash kept me there until after 6 PM. By that time, he had finished his errands and helped me secure the school.
The next day, I explored the area as I had a day to kill before the excursion to Magdeburg with Dumbledore. I headed to the local castle and toured the “feather room” where tapestries were designed from hundreds of colorful feathers. There were antler rooms and walls covered in leather.
On the US’s Independence Day, I headed to Magdeburg with Dumbledore to explore the local offerings. We chatted about life along the way. Our first stop was the bakery where we made a quick tour and talked about changes in customer’s expectations and the next step for their operations. It was an interesting set up with good discussions.
We jumped in the car with the young baker and headed into the city. We stopped at the local tourist attractions: a cathedral. It goes without saying that it was impressive. Then we stopped by a local wine shop, which was extremely hipster. Finally, we made it to the brewery.
The partnership is that the brewery hands off its spent grain to the bakery. The baker then produces spent grain bread and spent grain cookies. The bread was a bit dry, but had an okay taste. The cookies were meant to be eaten with beer – lots of salt and spice. As I was in a craft brewery, I took the opportunity to ask the brewer for advice regarding beers with nut flavoring and other mistakes I seem to be making. Then I rounded out the questioning by asking if he would be open to having me as an intern at some point. He gladly agreed: score! I still need to find a time to make that happen.
After we sat down to some complementary beer and spent grain bread, a reporter entered the brewery. She had been invited by the baker; Dumbledore and I were caught unawares. She was to write a story about the partnership and a bit about my journey. She asked if she could write that I am a Master Baker, to which I said ‘no’, as I had not yet learned the exam results. However, Dumbledore assured me that I passed and should feel free to include that in the article. That, dear reader, is the moment I became a Master Baker.
