Buy bread baked in La Conner

Locally baked bread is again available in La Conner. You can buy 1.75 pound “Skagit Wheat” sourdough loaves and a variety of cookies from Rachael Sobczak in Gilkey Square 4-8 p.m. Friday during the Shop Local Shop Late.

This pop up sales event is typical for Sobczak’s Rachael and Bread company, which she likens to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) or farmers market model rather than a brick and mortar store.

But more unusual than her pre-order subscription purchasing system is the heart of her bread recipe: the 100 year-old sourdough starter she uses given to her by a friend of a friend 15 months ago.

She calls it ‘the real deal, because it is a symbiotic relationship between yeast and bacteria.” She feeds the starter Cairnspring Mills wheat flour twice a day, making it “happy and bubbly and ready to use.” She uses it to bake up to 54 loaves of her signature loaves twice a week.

The label lists four ingredients: locally milled flour, water, sourdough starter and salt.

Sobczak, 40, is a big fan of the Skagit Valley grown wheat that becomes her flour, which she alone uses unmixed with other flours, she says. Because it is stone ground and partially sifted, bran remains, making it a high nutrient flour.

The coronavirus pandemic became a catalyst to starting her business.

“Things had shifted drastically” and she halted her studies for a Masters in Dietetics last spring, not wanting to take organic chemistry 100 percent online.

Suddenly baking bread “was the obvious path forward, the most clear path forward for me and my family,” she recounted.

Everything aligned, from the need to homeschool her son to her nine years working for Breadfarm (in Edison), to having a low cost kitchen rental at the NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) in Conway, to her flour source.

Perhaps the most obvious: “There isn’t any good bread in La Conner,” she notes.

And, a community of people know of her skills as a baker, a food educator and as the school garden coordinator.

Her goal is to provide “direct access to really good bread and treats to the local community.” She makes a variety of cookies and is planning a fall pear and walnut loaf. She will be selling a pumpkin thumbprint with streusels cookie with her other cookies at Gordon Skagit Farms during pumpkin season.

Online baking workshops will be the next stage of her business, since people “get so excited about sourdough starter and wanting to learn about sourdough bread, specifically,” she says. Longer term growth depends on the crystal ball that is cloudy for everyone: the status of La Conner and the economy next spring.

Her fall weekly subscription is open, 12 weeks at $8 a loaf, prepaid or pay weekly. Friday pick up is at her house. Waxwing Farm in Mount Vernon sells her bread Wednesdays and Saturdays. Information is on her website: rachaelandbread.com.