When you break bread with Lionel Vatinet, you don't just grab a slice and eat it. You begin by squeezing the loaf to feel its crisp (but pliant) crust and moist interior, then take a whiff of its intoxicating freshness. "You eat with your nose," Vatinet says.
The owner of La Farm Bakery in Cary, North Carolina, has had a love affair with bread since he was young boy in France (see photo).
As a teenager, Vatinet joined the highly competitive and demanding Les Compagnons du Devoir, a guild of artisans who learn their trade through apprenticeship. In 1995, he became a founding instructor at the San Francisco Baking Institute, where boulangers from some of America's best bakeries--Acme, La Brea, Balthazar, Amy's and Zabar's--learned under him.
This month, Vatinet and his wife, Missy, are celebrating La Farm's 10th birthday by making pain au lardon, a fougasse-style bread studded with bacon, in tribute to their adopted home state's penchant for pork.
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