“If you want to make bread, let’s make bread.” These are the words that captured our attention for an afternoon in Little Italy on Commercial Drive. I had the joy of photographing a sourdough workshop taught by Julie Ann Marr— founder of Everyone at the Table. Between Italy and Vancouver, Julie travels and hosts cooking workshops with her husband Francesco.
Julies’ kitchen is a place you walk into and instantly want to cook something. Labelled jars of spices, bookshelves laden with cookbooks by favourite authors and ceramics by Janaki Larsen. Jars of dough line her mantlepiece, a method Julie uses to make sure the loaves rise in time for her students.
There is no sound more beautiful than the sound of bread crust crackling under your fingertips. There is nothing better than breaking bread with a table full of strangers that now feel like friends. Warm sourdough was served with white bean soup, French cheese, green olives, potato focaccia and a mouth-watering sourdough chocolate cake topped with whipped cream. The meal was pleasantly interrupted by the buzz of the kitchen timer, where students would hop into the kitchen, carve patterns on their risen loaves and pop them into the oven. We talk about travel in Europe: swimming in the ocean, burrata making retreats, and the lingering question that buzzes louder every second — “Why are we not in Italy?”
Julie carries with her a warmth like a ray of sunlight into a rain-dreary Vancouver. Her eyes gleam when she talks about bread, not unlike the pearls that adorn her ears. Decked in a flour-coated apron, Julie zooms around the kitchen opening and shutting oven doors, monitoring loaves, folding dough. We are taught the process of fermentation. Yeast. Water. Salt. Temperature. The art of naming and caring for your starter. Despite the huge amount of activity coming from the kitchen, Julie commands a quietness in the process of baking. Perhaps found in the resting loaves.
I left her quaint home that afternoon with a warm loaf of bread and a feeling that I had experienced something very wholesome. A feeling I wanted to hold onto for as long as possible. If you are looking for an intimate bread making class that leaves you with more food you can eat and a spirit to go home and bake bread, go to Everyone at the Table.
