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The baker is claustropho-bic. It’s hard to blame him. The 6-foot-2-inch man in a

ball cap and white chef ’s coat looks even taller inside this 12-by-18-foot box. He stands in front of his make-shift bread table along the left wall of his pump-house-turned-bakery. He combines flour and water with large, strong hands and sets the mixture aside to soak.

It’s 9:30 on Wednesday morning. The temperature outside is eighty de-grees, and the air hangs heavy with hu-midity. Temperature control is a chal-lenge. Seventy-four degrees is ideal for a bakery. The window unit manages to hold it at seventy-six degrees, until he starts baking. And then, even at 1 am—when he rises from his sleep, pours himself a cup of dark French roast, and begins his baking routine—the heat from the pizza oven in the corner jacks up the temperature in the room to 110 degrees, 115 degrees, 120 degrees. He opens the windows. He uses fans. He does whatever he can to sustain the business he runs inside this tiny room and bake his way into a big-ger place.

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In 1973, Bill Logan, the baker, told his parents he wanted to go to culinary school. They said no. So he went to the Georgia Institute of Technology and majored in physics. He liked building things, so he took up construction. As a kid, his family moved every three years, and Logan continued that tradition.

He and his wife, Cheryl, met in her hometown of Atlanta. They ended up in Charlotte, Vermont. But Logan grew tired of working construction through the Vermont winters. He sent résumés anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line. Eight years ago, a national home-building company in Charlotte, North Carolina, hired him.

EDIBLE ENDEAVORS

CAROLINA ARTISAN BREADSTORY BY LEAH HUGHES PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEVEN MILLS

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The Logans settled on five acres in Midland, about twenty miles east of Char-lotte. Then the economic woes of 2008 forced the building company out of business. Logan returned to school to get his teaching degree. Professors and colleagues told him he would have no problem with job offers; male science teachers were in demand. Then the education system began cutting teachers.

“I have an awful lot of college credit for someone who was pounding nails,” Logan says.

Logan took a job with a construction company that carved out a niche business working in crawl spaces. He hated it. For a while he took Xanax to calm his nerves enough to coax himself out of bed and spend the day working in a small hole.

“Being that miserable in a job forces you to think,” Logan says.At the age of fifty-seven, he returned to his initial plan and attended culi-

nary school at The Art Institute of Charlotte. The instructors told him he’d never be able to work long enough to rise to the top of the culinary profession. Logan responded by choosing a specialty: baking bread.

He took an apprenticeship with Gérard Rubaud in Vermont. Logan bought Rubaud’s breads while living there and remembered their fine qual-ity. He lived on Rubaud’s farm and baked with him daily. It was a challenge. Learning the technique was hard, but enduring Rubaud’s personality proved more difficult. Rubaud practiced not only the French baking technique, but also the French method of teaching by intimidation.

“He lives on a beautiful farm in Vermont,” Logan says. “It’s an idyllic exis-tence, and he’s mad at the world.”

Logan lasted three months and returned to North Carolina with a feel for making traditional French sourdough.

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The first batches came out flat. Despite Logan’s classes and apprenticeship, it took some time for him to get the feel of working with his ingredients in his bakery.

He built a proofing room onto the front of the bakery and added the air-conditioning unit to prevent the rising bread from overproofing. He learned the tricks of his oven. The loaves on the left would burn before the loaves on the right turned brown. So he rotates them manually. Ovens specifically de-signed for baking bread have automatic controls that release steam and in-crease or decrease the temperature at the proper times. Logan stands by with a spray bottle to add moisture. He opens the door and fans away the heat to reduce the temperature.

After he adjusted, Logan decided upon two standard offerings: a classic sourdough and a rustic sourdough. The classic has 10 percent spelt flour, and the rustic has 30 percent. Spelt is a type of wheat that Logan makes into flour using a grain mill. The spelt adds what Logan describes as a nutty flavor. French sourdough is milder than the strong-flavored, distinctive loaves from San Francisco.

The first potential customer Logan contacted was Nancy Newton at New-ell Farmers Market in the University area.

“We were absolutely delighted to give it a try, and it took off,” Newton says. “The fact that we were going to get it first thing in the morning right out of

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the oven—what’s better than hot bread right out of the oven with butter?”

Newton later suggested that Logan try making focaccia. He did. And it turned out well. Then he took another suggestion from a customer at Provisions by Sandy Creek in Waxhaw who recommended using garlic-infused olive oil for the focaccia. The bread, topped with Parmesan cheese, rosemary, and olives, is now one of Logan’s top sellers.

His ever-expanding lineup includes the two original sourdoughs, the focaccia (with olives and without), a baguette, a whole wheat, and a German rye called vollkorn. Logan sources the whole wheat and cracked rye from Carolina Ground, a small mill in Asheville.

Vollkorn is one of Logan’s farthest flavor stretches yet. It’s heavy, dense, and dark. It has a slightly sour aftertaste and a chewy texture. The cracked rye soaks for at least twelve hours before baking, and the finished loaf rests twenty-four hours before slicing.

“That’s a bread you either love or hate,” Newton says. One Newell customer, an older German woman, waits for Cheryl to arrive ev-ery Saturday at 9 am to purchase two loaves of vollkorn.

She smells them and cradles them in her arms. The bread reminds her of home.

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Five days a week, the Logans man their stand for Carolina Artisan Bread at Atherton Mar-ket in South End. Today is Tuesday, and it’s Bill’s turn. Last night was a baking night. He slept for four hours.

“I’m full of energy today,” he says. “It’s amazing the difference a couple of hours make.”

Cheryl is completing the day’s five deliver-ies. She quit her job at the veterinarian’s office four months ago to devote more time to the bakery business.

Atherton Market makes up about half of the business’s net sales. The Saturday market alone accounts for 40 percent. This past Sat-urday, he sold eighty loaves at Atherton. The

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bread is now available at several stores and markets throughout Char-lotte and the surrounding areas. Block & Grinder in Cotswold uses the focaccia for its chicken-salad sandwich and the challah (a temperamen-tal, delicate bread Logan makes just for the restaurant) for French toast.

When Logan approached Reid’s Fine Foods on Selwyn Avenue, he off ered to deliver breads three days a week and buy back any that didn’t sell. He extended that buy-back promise to all of his store customers. He now buys back about 10 percent of the bread he delivers, compared to 30 percent early on.

“I love Bill’s breads,” says Andrew Arcovio, of Reid’s. Arcovio’s spe-cialty is wine and cheese, which pair well with the bread. “I’m an advo-cate of authentic bread, and he really strives to make real bread.”

As Logan stands behind the counter at Atherton Market, he as-sumes presentation mode. He wears a collared shirt instead of his chef coat. His hair, free of the ball cap he wears in the bakery, is gray. He spreads his loaves on the tablecloth before him.

It’s an unseasonably cool day for summer, and a strong breeze blows through the large open doors at either end of the market. Logan cuts a couple of slices from his whole-wheat loaf. He off ers one to a customer and eats the other. Whole wheat is diffi cult. He made the fi nal tweak just two Fridays ago.

“Does it need more salt?” he asks, addressing both the customer and himself. “No, maybe not.”

He savors the time and practice and patience that went into this single bite. Th en he smiles.

Logan has plans for a bigger bakery, 24-by-25. He’s seeking out a secondhand bread oven and a special stand mixer that mimics the kneading motion he performs by hand. He’s lived in his Midland home longer than he’s lived anywhere else. Th e plans for the new bakery sug-gest he’ll be there awhile. Th e baker is happy.

Carolina Artisan BreadMidland, NC704.254.2616, cabread@bellsouth.net

Carolina Artisan Bread can be found at the following locations:

Carolina Fish Market

Th e Olive Tap

Provisions by Sandy Creek

Atherton Market

Reid’s Fine Foods

Block & Grinder restaurant

Newell Farmers Market

Ballantyne: 11034-A Cedar Walk Lane704-458-1011

SouthPark at Sharon Corners: 4732 W. Fairview Rd704-330-3576

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