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Love
and Chocolate: A baker's tale
 
Inside Olive & Gourmando
If Vianne Rocher, the enchanting heroine
of the film Chocolat, had a real-life soulmate, she would unquestionably be
Dyan Solomon. Solomon, like her fictional counterpart, is not only the
seductive owner of a chic yet cozy patisserie, her charming way with
chocolate has led to a recipe for life whose ingredients are love, food and
drama.
Of course, she hasn't always seen it this
way. "Talk about denial!" says the 34-year-old Solomon, as she
moves out from behind the cherry wood and copper espresso bar at Olive &
Gourmando, her café-bakery in Old Montreal. "I never believed
something I enjoyed so much could become my profession," she says,
reaching for a loaf of her celebrated chocolate bread, which she holds up
for my inspection. "But you know," she says, dropping her voice to
a whisper, "I also never thought I would fall madly in love with a
younger man who didn't speak my language, who -- to me -- was from another
world, another planet."
How these events unfolded has little to
do with logic and much to do with baking, an art in which amazing results
come surprisingly and suddenly, after a long, quiet, patient period of
leavening.
"No matter what kind of bread you're
making," Solomon insists, drawing me into her kitchen where she's
promised to share the secrets of her signature dish, "whether it's my
chocolate bread, or any other kind of loaf, you want to ensure it happens
slowly." Standing before a 12-foot-long counter, Solomon carefully
measures out flour, cocoa powder and fresh yeast from industrial-sized
containers. "You wouldn't want to make a bottle of wine in a day,"
she instructs, "It would be crapola. Think of bread the same way."
Though Solomon isn't the first person to
combine cocoa powder and dough, she offers a hint as to why her loaves have
become so renowned. "Why does Wonder Bread taste so awful?" she
asks, rolling her eyes. Not waiting for my answer, she shouts, "Because
it has so much sugar." Then, snapping her fingers to make sure I
understand, "It causes the dough to rise like that!" Solomon's
next words would shame anyone who's ever considered a shortcut. "You
would only bake bread with sugar if you wanted your dough to be robbed of
its character."
It was at McGill University, in 1989,
that Solomon first realized culinary decisions require time. She was
completing her master's degree in English literature, trying to finish her
thesis, "but instead of sitting down to write," she explains,
"I was more interested in catering literary events for my program
supervisor." After one successful function too many, he called her into
his office. "My supervisor said, 'I'm sorry,' " Solomon recalls,
" 'I know I talked you into doing this degree, but your heart is in
cooking. You need to consider it as a profession.' "
Uncertain, Solomon decided to let the
idea sit for a while. "Maybe it's because my parents were academics and
I figured that's what I had to do," she says, as she pours cold water
into a large metal bowl before adding her dry ingredients. "Or maybe
it's because cooking was such an obvious choice."
It was a few months later, while she was
on a trip through Vermont with her mother, that things started to become
clear. They were passing through Montpelier, Solomon recalls, home of the
eminent New England Culinary Institute. "I couldn't help but visit the
school, and when I did, it was like --bong! -- here are all these people who
look like they're doing what I want to do." She went straight back to
Montreal and told her supervisor he was right after all.
After a few minutes of mixing, the
contents of Solomon's bowl form a ball of dough, which she places on the
counter and begins to knead. "Whether you use a KitchenAid with a dough
hook, or make your bread by hand," she explains, "you need a bit
of practise to know when it's ready." Solomon's trick is to watch for
that moment when you try to pull a piece of dough from the mass but you find
that it fights back. "At that point," she says, walking with her
small, neat mound into a cool storage room, "leave it in the fridge,
all night, where it will begin to rise. That's when your bread really begins
to form."
It was sometime between three and six, on
an afternoon in 1995, not long after Solomon graduated from the New England
Culinary Institute, that her next major culinary decision began to take
shape. This time, the repercussions would be romantic rather than
professional. But true to Solomon's character, it would take a while before
she understood what was going on.
Ready to assume her new job as chef de
partie de garde-manger (the chef responsible for the preparation of cold
dishes) at Montreal's most celebrated restaurant, Toqué!, Solomon walked
into the restaurant's kitchen, oblivious of the very existence of Toqué!'s
baker, Eric Girard. Seven years later, Girard, 29, now Solomon's partner at
Olive & Gourmando, joins us in the bakery's kitchen, where he recalls
the moment with more clarity. "My heart started to pound."
Shyly, Girard tells me how Solomon took
no notice of him. "But his bread," she interrupts, "It was
amazing!" There were little baby rustic breads; focaccia; a loaf packed
with prunes, hazelnuts and cheese; another, cooked entirely on the barbecue,
made with bacon, sun-dried tomatoes and chives.
"I knew I was in an incredible
place," says Solomon, "because there was bread like that."
But as for getting to know Girard, "That was impossible." While
Solomon's shift was from three to 11 p.m. each day, Girard kept baker's
hours, working nine to five. "And then there was the fact," she
adds, "that I spoke only English and Eric spoke only French."
After a few months at Toqué!, Solomon
was offered the job as the restaurant's pastry chef. Suddenly, she and
Girard were thrown into working together, the only two people in the
restaurant with daytime hours. For Girard, his next move was clear. "I
approached the restaurant's owner, Norman Laprise," he tells me,
"and told him that I planned to resign."
Solomon laughs. "I was still
completely clueless," she says, "But Eric knew that if we started
working together, something would happen. And since we were both in
relationships, he figured he had only one choice."
Unfortunately for Laprise, he paid little
heed to Girard's warning, sparking a culinary romance and the loss of two of
his finest chefs. Just as Girard had predicted, things began to happen. As
Solomon puts it, "There was lots of sign language, lots of laughter,
lots of noise."
Solomon moves to her fridge, where she
pulls out a small ball of dough that's been leavening all night.
"That's when things went to hell in a handbasket," she says.
Rolling the light brown sphere flat and into a shape about eight inches
wide, Solomon says, "Whereas I can do something, sit with it and be
content, Eric is not really into having a comfort zone." Less than
three months after their romance began, Girard left Toqué! -- not because
of Solomon, but definitely with her in mind. He wanted to start a bakery
restaurant, "so he began working on getting a loan and figuring out a
plan," says Solomon. "It was a totally terrifying time. It's one
thing to start a new relationship, and it's another to start a new business.
I still can't believe I went through with both."
Solomon opens a large, clear plastic
container that holds fat, muddy granules. Though the stuff looks like a home
for earthworms, Solomon says it's "a fudge-like mixture" made of
brown sugar and cocoa powder, caramelized in butter. Reaching in for a
handful, Solomon sprinkles the dark crystals on top of the flattened dough.
Then, over them she scatters a handful of small pieces of Valrhona, the
world's most luxurious chocolate.
Solomon and Girard opened Olive &
Gourmando in 1998 (naming their patisserie after Eric's two cats).
"Even then, I couldn't believe what we were doing," she says.
Though the bakery sits a few doors down from the fashionable St. Paul Hotel
in a newly re-gentrified part of Old Montreal, when Solomon and Girard
rented the space, four years ago, they were the only ones on the street.
"When we first drove up to the building," recalls Solomon, "I
thought, 'Oh God, this looks like Beirut.' "
But within a year Solomon and Girard were
acknowledged as Montreal's finest new bakers and their chocolate bread had
developed a character of its own. Carefully, Solomon begins to roll up her
chocolate-covered dough, tucking in its sides, then placing her creation in
a small bread pan. "When Olive & Gourmando started, we made a
chocolate bread with dried cherries that Eric had created at Toqué!, but
the bread wouldn't sell." Since Girard added no sugar to his dough, the
bread wasn't sweet, and customers didn't know whether to enjoy the loaf with
a meal or eat it for dessert. Then, one day, Solomon had an "aha"
experience. "Using Eric's dough," she says, popping her pan into
the oven, "I brought a pastry-type of thinking to the bread, turning it
into a jelly-roll-style three-part chocolate experience."
Now, close to an hour later, when Solomon
cuts me a slice of her bread, I'm transfixed by its chocolate swirl and the
taste of two stunningly different textures -- the crumbly sugar and the
Valrhona chocolate -- nestling inside a subtly bitter loaf. While I eat,
Solomon concludes, "I was never unhappy working in fine cuisine, but
I'm so relieved to have found my way here, interacting with people, enjoying
life, building the bakery. I'm incredibly lucky how well things worked
out."
They have, I agree, though the finality
of her tone gives me pause.
More likely, Solomon's story has just
begun. For, chocolate bread aside, I've just come from her kitchen, where,
slowly, quietly, other confections are on the rise.
OLIVE & GOURMANDO CHOCOLATE BREAD
DOUGH
Ingredients:
-500mL cold, filtered water
-10g fresh yeast
-600g organic, white unbleached bread
flour
-35g Valrhona cocoa powder
-15g salt
"FUDGE" FILLING
Ingredients:
-45g unsalted butter
-100g brown sugar
-70g Valrhona cocoa powder
VALRHONA CHOCOLATE FILLING
-40g Valrhona chocolate chips (available
at fine-food stores).
Method:
Mix water and yeast in a large bowl until
the yeast dissolves completely. Add dry ingredients. Mix for about 7 minutes
in a KitchenAid with a dough hook, or, for about 20 minutes by hand. Place
the dough in an oiled stainless steel bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
Allow the dough to rest (and rise) in the refrigerator overnight.
Mix together brown sugar and cocoa
powder. Melt butter in a pan over a low heat. Pour sugar mixture into the
pan and allow to cook for 10 minutes. Remove mixture from the pan, cool and
set aside.
The next day, after the dough has risen,
weigh out about 400g. Roll the dough flat -- it should be about 8" to 1
ft. in length. Sprinkle dough with approximately 100g of the fudge mixture
and about 40g of the Valrhona chips. Roll the dough, jelly roll style,
folding in the layers of chocolate.
Place in a greased bread pan. Bake for
approximately 35 minutes at 375F (190C). Makes one loaf - by
Sara Borins Saturday
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