LCBO Food & Drink Spring 2017

BY CYNTHIA DAVID  •  PHOTOGRAPHY BY DARREN KEMPER JAN CAMPBELL-LUXTON, CHEF/OWNER, DE LA TERRE BAKERY, VINELAND, ONTARIO, DELATERRE.CA FIVE qUESTIONS WITH…

A t age 18, Jan Campbell-Luxton hopped in a used 4x4 truck with three others and drove for 11 days to Nicaragua, where they donated the truck to a charity. The high school grad was keen to stay but a Canadian diplomat had a better idea: “Go home and figure out what you can do that would be helpful.” And he did. For the past decade, Campbell-Luxton’s De La Terre bakery has created beautiful, healthful loaves that con- nect bread lovers with local farmers.

What makes flour your biggest challenge? In 2015 we started baking with spelt, rye and red fife from my father’s 100-acre farm. It’s milled by a local farmer rather than at one of Canada’s three big mills, where loads under 30 tons are mixed together. It’s been a long process, but using my father’s grain is a big step toward my dream of shortening our supply chain. Why do you sell your bread at farmers markets? Farmers markets are magnificent because people can ask you directly why your bread costs so much, how it’s made and how one loaf differs from the next. It’s also lovely because if people like what you do you become part of their routine, and it’s another way to shorten the supply chain from farm to customer. What else should we try? Though bread’s the part that excites me, we put a lot of work into figuring out a croissant we’re really proud of.

How did a desire to help others lead you to become a chef? I’ve always loved to cook. As part of an international development degree at Trent University I spent a semester in Ecuador, where I helped cook lunch for 200 barrio kids in a program run by a Carmelite nun. Before starting at the Stratford Chefs School, I volun- teered in a Toronto restaurant and spent a summer cooking in Languedoc. Did you really hate bread? In the two years I studied at Stratford followed by three years teaching there, I had an antagonistic relationship with bread. Then I bumped into Lenny Karmiol, who was bak- ing 100% sourdough bread in a wood-fired oven in Vineland. I suddenly experienced the alchemy of bread as a living organism. If you’re attentive, you get these amazing crack- ling loaves, the ultimate reward for 12 hours of enormously hard work.

De La Terre loaves are available at farmers’ markets and independent shops throughout Southern Ontario. The Grimsby and new Jordan bakery cafés offer sandwiches, salads, soups and pastries.

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