Bellegarde Bakery is Now A Co-Op!

How can the poem and the stink and the grating noise–the quality of light, the tone, the habit and the dream–be set down alive? When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this–to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves.

John Steinbeck

How do you write words you never thought you’d have to? The alphabet permits infinite combinations. But does the heart have the same possibilities?

Eleven years ago I believed it did. That’s when I borrowed $300 from my grandmother to buy my first suit at Lakeside Mall. I went to Kinko’s to spiral bind a business plan the LSBDC helped write. And I bummed a ride, knees knocking and palms damp, to a room full of strangers in Houma to explain why I loved bread. I either a) convinced them or b) no one else in a polyester suit pitched that day because I was awarded $85k at 3% in government backed funds to open Bellegarde. I’d never held a heavier check in my life.

So the saga began. As did the work of work. Long, blind years of unrequited work. But that’s what it takes. And that’s all I gave it. (See Boomers, Millennials can do it.) A commitment to passion, a dig deeper into the alchemy of dreams and desires that you ever thought you had the shovels for...when you really, really, really want to stop is the exact moment that living starts. (Thanks, dad.)

Did I succeed in my goals? No. Because I didn’t have any. My only ingredients were the love of bread and the need to do the best I could. I stumbled, I fell, I created new problems as a means to solving others. But I also did well. I did what I loved. I did it without compromise or a curated facade. It was raw, wild yeast. The same I used for the bread. And I wouldn’t change a thing, because if I did then Bellegarde wouldn’t be a thing.

Lampedusa said things change by staying the same. And this is the exact ethos that girded Bellegarde. Through all the recent turmoil, we’ve clutched hard at our identity: doing the best with the best. We wanted to stay afloat without fundamentally changing the way we sail. I hope we proved, during Covid, that the dream and the vision will never be in the drydock. The bread is just as majestic as it was 10 years ago–just as classic, as surprisingly good, as original, as nourishing. This I know. Because Bellegarde was the first one there, having built the road that the other New Orleans bakeries are on today.

I’m getting to the point soon.

I came to New Orleans on a Greyhound Bus. And I’m leaving it on Comfort+, with a layover in Boston. But I’d rather not recall that Graison, at Union Passenger Terminal in 2009, with more books than clothes, a carton of unfiltered Camels , and a pint of Heaven Hill with lipstick on it. He reminds me too much of myself. But within him there was a kernel which was nourished by all the things he loves–gastronomy, books, history, art–and it fermented into something beautiful, something rhythmic, something fraught, something pyrrhic. Essentially, into something very New Orleans.

My life and my heart would not be mine without New Orleans. It didn’t make me, so much as reveal me. It washed away the resin of angst, the faux–distressed hubris, the grimey crud of entitlement and once exfoliated made me who I am. Much like a stone mill, where all is milled together and you work with the flour you get, New Orleans chewed me up and spit me out. Miraculously, after being in New Orlean’s mouth for 13 years, I came out a cleaner and better man.

Here’s the point. I’ve been offered a fairy-tale opportunity to open a bakery in London. And you can’t say no to a destiny which has already said yes–how else could I be so lucky if not for fate? By the time you’re reading this, I’m already next to London Bridge placing flour orders and reading oven manuals. This little shop in Albion really won’t be much different than the one on Toledano (the first Bellegarde.) Why would it need to be? The same integrity, energy, and ingredients are to be used. I know no other way to make bread.

I’ve tried not to make this an elegy. YOU, Bellegarde’s 5000 newsletter subscribers, have beared with us for years as we spilled a lot of digital ink. And as I asked in the beginning, how can I make the alphabet describe a feeling I never thought I’d have? How do I walk away from something so personal and ingrained in my soul+body without looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life?

CoOperative. That’s the answer. The energy and integrity of Bellegarde will be retained by the people who maintained it all these years. By doing this, we all did a simple arithmetic: how can we preserve what works and carry-on without disturbing any integers? The new custodians of Bellegarde have been in its halls and offices for years–but now they’ll be signing checks, getting up earlier, and working harder to make what was once mine into something entirely theirs. All the while maintaining the perfect custodianship of craft which defines our greatness.

And despite your politics, this is fascinating. The opportunity to show the city how business can be done. What makes the CoOp model so exciting is that it stands for a way things used to be done and how many people want them to be done in the future. Much like bread baking, it’s a way of doing business where you get out what you put in. And in this transference we hope a more exciting, more viable, more reflexive lifestyle can be carved and maintained for those doing the heavy lifting. I’m proud and excited for this change. And I ask for your support. The same you’ve provided for years. But this time to a newer spirit at Bellegarde.

So, there it is. You’ve made it to the end of my last newsletter for Bellegarde. I’m grateful for your patience. Y’all have watched me ferment into a man and a better baker. Your love and support were ingredients as important as flour and water. And from one of my favorite books of all time, the opening quote of this note defines my experience and love for New Orleans. It’s not a place you do things for or to: it's a place that does to you. To have been overwhelmed by such a congress of love and sensation is more than I could have ever asked for. One day I’ll get my heart back, but New Orleans will always have custody of my soul.

Please stay in touch! You can keep eyes on me here and ears on me here.

Sincerely,

Graison S. Gill