Saturday, July 30 is the last day at the bakery for our summer intern, Teisha Huff.  She’s heading back to Calgary after two months working with Mark and Patti on the bread shift and helping Cindy and Heather with cookies and muffins.

Teisha’s been a great help; we’ve been able to get our morning bread out much faster and she passed along several tips and techniques picked up from the excellent instructors at SAIT. Hopefully we were able to teach her a thing or two as well; at minimum we’ve improved her knowledge of women’s soccer and the Tour de France!

When we asked Teisha what she thought of her time with us, she mentioned how much she enjoyed the Breadville Open House (especially teaching some of our guests how to shape baguettes!) and the morning the Ethel Milliken kindergartens came to visit and shape buns.

She also said that working in a new bakery was a great opportunity to see how things change every day, as we introduce new products, adjust to wild weather changes and learn how our guest’s shopping patterns change as the weather turns warm. She’s also become super awesome at cleaning the mixer!

We are really going to miss Teisha and we wish her great success as she completes her courses at SAIT. Hopefully we can get her back as an apprentice next year.

We want to give everyone advance notice that Orange Boot Bakery is closing from August 2 – August 15 for summer vacation. Orange Boot staff is dispersing across the country:

• Patti is flying home to New Brunswick to visit her folks
• Teisha is heading back to Calgary to complete her Baking and Pastry Arts program at SAIT.
• Heather is quite possibly heading to PEI to visit her grandparents

There is still time to stock up on bread and other baking to get you through the start of August. Call us (584-BOOT) or email if you want us to work up a care package for you!

And what of Mark, Cindy, Ben and Robyn? Our visitors are coming to us! We are excited to host Ms. Yuko Sakumai, a 15 year old student from Fujioka, Japan. Yuko is coming with 24 other students as part of the Regina Fujioka Student Exchange Program to learn about Canadian culture and practice their English. Robyn will be heading to Fujioka next summer to complete the exchange cycle. Ben was part of the last exchange cycle so we know it’ll be a great 10 days this August.

Never fear though — we’ll still be thinking about bread, sweets and all the yummy things we can make for you this fall. And of course, we’ll be thinking of all our friends who come say hi every week as they get some wheaty, gluteny sustenance at Orange Boot Bakery.

Last month we held an open house as part of Breadville, put on by the Bread Bakers Guild of America. Guild members across the USA, Canada and Ireland held special bakery events on June 25 to celebrate local, intentional bread baking and the role of good bread within the community.

We wanted Breadville at Orange Boot to focus on our bread; what’s in it and how we make it. We worked with our main ingredient suppliers, Bob Balfour at R&J Milling in Riceton and Ray Aspinall at Daybreak Scheresky Mill near Estevan, to create a display of local grains and flours. Nicole Davis at Daybreak even brought over some pamphlets full of recipes that use their organic flours, cereals and grain mixes.

We also wanted to highlight how your bread is made, so we gave tours of the bakery. Cindy did a great job explaining how our equipment works and describing the baking process from mixing to shaping to baking. She even shared some of our stories behind how we collected the recipes we use at Orange Boot to make our classic cookies and muffins.

We suspected that some folks might like to get their hands into the dough, so Mark ran a seminar loosely titled “All About Baguettes.” Ten Bootniks learned how to mix bread dough, shape baguettes and batards and slash them so they bake up pretty. It was as much fun for the instructors as the students; seminars like this are certainly something we want to do again in the future.

Jessica and Robyn took some pictures of the festivities. They did a great job capturing the fun and excitement that was Breadville at Orange Boot Bakery. Thanks to everyone who came out and made the day so much fun for us!

Since the rains have stopped and the weather is warming up Cindy, Patti, Teisha and I sat down and mapped out a new bake schedule for the summer months.  We have expanded the buns, rolls, cookies and muffins to complement the great bread you know and love.

So now whether you’re cooking on the panini grill or the BBQ, Orange Boot has the breadstuffs you need for a lovely summer meal.

The new schedule begins July 2.  Please be sure to let us know what you think about it!

Link to the PDF: Summer Bake Schedule – Website Version

Ben, Robyn and Robyn’s friend Haley usually help out when things get really busy on Saturday, but last weekend both Ben and Robyn were in Saskatoon for Ben’s soccer tryouts.  We’re so grateful that they have wonderful friends in Chonteal, Chris and Jessica.

These three amazing people helped out bagging bread and serving customers through the busiest part of Saturday afternoon.  We had a hard time remembering that they had never worked at Orange Boot before; 10 minutes learning from Cindy and they were away to the races!

With their great energy and positive attitude, these three will go far in life.  I’m sure you sensed it if you dropped in between 11 and 2.  I’m glad to know them.  (And of course, they’re welcome to help any Saturday they’re available!)

Thanks so much!  We

1. Classic Chocolate Chip cookies
2. Lemon Poppy Seed muffins (made with real lemons of course!)
3. Classic Oatmeal Raisin cookies
4. Banana Chocolate chip muffins