By Dianne Langeland

"It's all about the bread," insists Vojin Vujosevic, one of the founders of Pain D'Avignon, on a recent afternoon in their sleek new corporate offices. "Our inspiration is just to make better bread. Every day, we seek to perfect our product, which is not easy to do with a big operation. Although most of our breads are made with only four ingredients, the quality of those ingredients, as well as the climate, temperature, and, even the help, affect the quality of our bread."

Vojin and his partner, Toma Stamenkovic, are not interested in promoting themselves, but rather the quality of their product. The oft-told story about their immigration from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s is not what these self-taught bakers want to emphasize about their success story. Their goal, then as now, was to recreate old world-style breads using baking techniques and recipes that have barely changed in centuries. For aficionados of country-style bread, the proof of their success in attaining their goal can be found in each crusty, yeasty, chewy loaf.

"All our breads are made from scratch, using no artificial ingredients," states Toma. "From four basic ingredients-starter, unbleached wheat flour, sea salt, and filtered water-we make six or seven different breads. Country White, Ciabatta, Baguette, White French Pullman, and Pugliese are different in appearance and taste. It just depends on how much starter is used in the mix." Although Toma believes that too many ingredients take away from the bread, some of their tastiest and best-selling loaves-such as Seven Grain, Cranberry Pecan, and Raisin Pecan-are obviously composed of more than the basic four. But the quality of the additional ingredients in these breads, as well as in the myriad other bread varieties offered at the store, is as scrupulously high.

Most of the breads baked at Pain D'Avignon are sold to wholesale clients, such as hotels, restaurants, markets, schools, even hospitals. In addition to the country loaves and French baguettes available to the public in their retail store, Pain D'Avignon produces a great quantity of rolls and buns for banquets and hotels. While they try to accommodate special orders from restaurants, they also take care to ensure that small batch orders do not impact the quality of their regular operations. To make it cost effective to bake a unique product, they need to create a larger quantity of bread than the average restaurant can handle. That's why you'll only find the Chocolate Hazelnut Boule in the retail store only on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. During the week there is not enough demand to justify baking it. (I'm convinced once the word gets out about this decadent concoction, however, that they'll be baking it seven days a week.)

Although they don't do much of the baking themselves anymore, Toma and Vojin spend about 80 percent of their time in the bakery overseeing the operations. According to Toma, "There is something happening at the bakery every minute of every day. Dough is being mixed, or shaped, or packaged, or put on a truck for delivery." Before the sun has even come over the horizon, the first crew of bakers is already on the job mixing the ingredients for whatever breads are to be baked based on orders received the day before. Depending on the type of bread, it can take between 8 and 15 hours to proof the dough. By 11:00 AM the second crew of bakers has started prepping and weighing loaves. The last batch of bread is baked around 3:00 AM. As it comes out of the ovens, it's packaged for delivery. Twice a day-morning and afternoon-Pain D'Avignon trucks, with their familiar orange and blue logo, crisscross the Cape or drive over the bridge to Boston, Rhode Island and Connecticut, where the bakery does the majority of its wholesale business. When you see their trucks on the road in the afternoon, chances are they are making a delivery to one of the top restaurants on the Cape.

Long-time residents might recall when Pain D'Avignon first opened its bakery in 1992 in downtown Hyannis. At the time there was not much parking and almost no foot-traffic-beyond tee-shirt shoppers-on Main Street. There also wasn't enough space for them to expand their baking operation, so within two years they moved to Airport Road off Route 132 in Hyannis. According to Vojin, in 1994 when they moved into the space it was just an empty box.

Vojin Vujosevic and Toma Stamenkovic among freshly-baked loaves

Over the years they fitted out the space to meet their ever-expanding needs. Last year they made a big investment in the property, increasing the back room operation by an additional 3,000 square feet, purchasing new equipment, enlarging the retail store, and building out the offices on the second floor. Now the Hyannis Airport is interested in expanding its operations, and Pain D'Avignon might have to relocate. Both Toma and Vojin are very happy where they are and don't want to move, and they are adamant about staying in Hyannis. To quote Toma, "This is the healthiest place for us to be. We love it here. We live here; our kids go to school here. We have 70 families who work here. In the summer, our employees ride their bikes to work."

In particular, Hyannis offers the infrastructure they need to make their operation hum: trucks have easy access to major roads, there is plenty of parking, and it is effortless to purchase office supplies and building materials and have their vehicles serviced. Toma and Vojin also are big boosters of the local community. The bakery frequently donates breads to churches, schools, police and fire departments, and civic organizations, like the chamber of commerce and money to local sports teams such as the little league. As Vojin says, "We like to help local organizations as much as we can."

Family is another word that comes up frequently when you speak with Toma and Vojin. Both their wives work in the office, and there are other family teams-father and son, father and daughter, husband and wife-that work at the bakery as well. Toma and Vojin really are concerned about the well being of those families if they have to move their facilities too far from their present location. Right now they offer a lot of flexibility to employees in terms of working hours. Staff is free to come and go to take care of family issues. They are not sure if this will be the case if they cannot stay in Hyannis.

Since expanding their retail store and their lunch menu last summer, Pain D'Avignon has seen a nice increase in foot traffic and is doing a brisk catering business to local companies looking for fresh salads, sandwiches, and cookies for business meetings. The lunch menu includes sandwiches made with freshly sliced meats, such as prosciutto, salami, and ham, served on fresh-baked breads, as well as soups and pizza. If you want to pick up your own supplies for a casual meal, the bakery typically offers four or five different pates (which are big sellers), artisanal European butters and cheeses, smoked salmon, Spanish chourizo, and hard-to-find preserves, like fig jam. Try spreading the French Celles sur Belle butter and eucalyptus honey on some toasted slices of the seven-grain bread or layering thin slices of P'tit Basque cheese and sliced peppered salami on the sourdough bread spread with a thin layer of grainy mustard. Don't forget to pick up dessert. They have a luscious display of elegant pastries as well as our favorite locally-baked Salty Oats cookies sold individually or in six-packs.

The retail store, located at 192 Airport Road in Hyannis (off Route 132) is open from 9:00 AM-5:00 PM Monday through Friday and 9:00 AM-3:00 PM Saturday and Sunday.

By Doug Langeland & Chelsea Vivian

Sound delicious, don't they? They are delicious-really delicious. Where do they come from? Well, you'll find these dishes on the menu at The Wicked Oyster in Wellfleet. But where do the recipes come from? Chefs will tell you they create recipes according to whatever is available. While this is true for daily specials, there has to be more of a science to menu creation. Contrary to the impression that some diners have that restaurant kitchens are huge with every imaginable ingredient readily at hand, in reality most are tight spaces, and a few select ingredients must go a long way on a menu with a range of dishes.

Earlier this year Chelsea Vivian, who contributed to this article and who also works at The Wicked Oyster, gave us the inside scoop that Eric Jansen, chef owner was closing the restaurant for a few days and holding a multi-day "jam session" with his sous chefs and staff to test recipes and develop a new winter menu. Intrigued I asked to visit with Eric to learn more about how his recipe development process works.

Eric Jansen and the Wicked

Eric Jansen clearly loves talking about food and he is wired like a chef. We visited with him in one afternoon after we had eaten lunch. Eric sat down and said, "I'm starving. Do you mind if I eat a hamburger while we talk?" He then got so excited talking about food and recipe development that he forgot to eat his lunch.

Eric is not a formally trained chef and claims he "sort of fell into cooking" by working in restaurants around the U.S. and in Jamaica. Locally, he spent 10 years as Executive Chef at Bubala's by the Bay in Provincetown, one of the most successful spots on the Outer Cape. Eric describes it as a "high-end food factory, in the best possible way-we served as many as 1,600-1,700 covers a day in the height of season. They have great food, and I really learned about the importance of quality and consistency."

Eric always wanted a place of his own and was willing to wait for the right opportunity to come along. In the spring of 2003 he heard of an old building for sale in Wellfleet and he jumped at the chance to buy it. He pooled resources with his brother Todd and friend Kenneth (K) Kozak, both also alum from Bubala's, and one year later they opened a restaurant boasting the name of Wellfleet's most prized edible asset. The Wicked Oyster has 85 seats and serves dinner to about 220 customers in the summer and 140 in the off-season. On a typical day, the restaurant serves as many as 500 customers over the course of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. While The Wicked Oyster is not a "food factory", Eric maintains the strict discipline of adherence to quality and consistency that he learned at Bubala's.

The gray clapboard housing the restaurant is typical of many "established" Cape structures-an old core and rambling additions. The 200-year old dining room, with its wide-plank floorboards, large windows, and fireplace, was floated into town after being built on Billingsgate Island, which has since disappeared from the waters off Wellfleet. The bar, front dining room, and other service areas were added over time. Eric, his wife, Liza, and his business partners, refurbished the building, adding a poured-concrete bar, and smooth coats of rich yellow paint to the walls of elegant dining room. The porch makes for a sunny breakfast spot for coffee or a casual lunch, in the evening the tables in the dining room have crisp linens and candles that add a touch of elegance. The bar is a welcoming place to grab a cup of chowder or a full meal any time.

The first year at The Wicked Oyster went much better than anyone could have anticipated; the "best we could have hoped for," says Eric. The three owners all worked the line every night with Eric expediting from the grill, which allowed little time for creativity. Despite their initial success, Eric knew the menu needed refinement. So when they had a chance to add some staff and pause after the first summer, Eric put an emphasis on menu development.

The key ingredients to recipe development

I quickly learned that the seasonal "jam sessions" are actually the culmination of a process that is going on all the time at The Wicked Oyster. In Eric's view there are three steps to creating a winning menu: 1) focus on what you are trying to be, 2) generate creative ideas, and 3) make sure the dishes work from a business perspective.

Having a singular focus at The Wicked Oyster is tricky because it serves both locals and visitors in a seasonal town. Eric says that loyal, local customers can make or break a restaurant, and the owners and staff should never lose sight of that important fact. Thus, in winter, they put a big emphasis on comfort foods, like meatloaf, chowder, and fish and chips. But occasional customers looking for a refined dining experience are important too, therefore salmon tartare with caviar and the black pearl organic salmon described above nestle on the menu next to the comfort foods. So while they aren't all things to all people, they need to be what Eric defines "as many things to as many people as possible."

Eric and Sean working the line at The Wicked Oyster

Sous chef Jade Huber

The Wicked Oyster makes this broad focus work by using the highest quality ingredients for all their menu items. Fish and chips are made from fresh local sole or haddock, not a block of fish frozen on a factory ship. (Eric also tries not to use cod, because it's over-fished.) Angus meat is used for steaks, meatloaf, and burgers. Fin and shellfish are delivered daily from local suppliers and sourced from the Cape and Islands whenever possible. In season, local, organic produce is used in salads.

According to Eric, quality ingredients and collaboration with sous chefs Sean Woodman (grill) and Jade Huber (sauté) are key components to generating creative recipe ideas. The collaboration works because each person brings a different approach to working with ingredients. Eric says, "As a chef, I'm not hyper-original, but I know balance and what I'm looking for." He describes Jade as a "kitchen-sink cook, who effectively uses a lot of different ingredients". Sean is talented at experimenting with exotic, high-end foods like the ostrich used in the popular carpaccio appetizer (with aged balsamic vinegar, truffle oil, and shaved reggiano parmesan). Says Eric, "Sean is not afraid to push the envelope." Eric considers himself somewhere in the middle of these two in terms of creativity. He finds his inspiration in reading magazines like Food & Wine and Saveur, and, if he has time, Gourmet. He also likes eating out to get an idea of what other chefs are offering. His business partner K focuses on keeping the breakfast and lunch menus up to speed.

New menu ideas also need to fit the flow of the kitchen, appeal to a broad customer base, and make money. In rapid succession Eric fires off considerations: "I'm not big on pre-cooking and holding food items. Long preparation is fine, but something can't take two hours during service. For example, we fell in love with some double-thick, farm-raised pork chops," he smiles as he thinks about their finer qualities. "They were beautiful, but they were so thick that we couldn't brown them and then roast them quickly enough for service." He continues, "The kitchen is small. We only have so much holding space, so we can't have more for 14 things in our mise en place. This limits what we can offer. It also means that for every new thing on the menu, something has to go." Demand on stations in the kitchen must be balanced. "Three people are cooking: one each on grill, sauté, and garde mange (salads, cold appetizers)," he adds. "You can't have 80 percent of the dishes coming from one station-we aim to have 5 or 6 items for each station."

Cost is also very important and Eric watches the restaurant's bottom line very closely. He emphasizes, however, that pursuing the lowest possible costs is contrary to their focus on quality. He will err on the side of paying a bit more for quality because he believes it ultimately pays in terms of customer loyalty. According to Eric, "local, organic arugula is more expensive, but you actually hear people around the bar raving about the greens in their salads." Another advantage of buying locally is that "the farmers and fishers we support return the favor and come in for dinner."

Eric likes suppliers who suggest quality items suited to The Wicked Oyster. He was recently offered free-range organic Statler chicken from a farm in Vermont. Statler is a cut that includes a portion of the breast and drumette with skin and bone still attached "I've never had a chicken dish on the menu-I think it's kind of boring," confesses Eric, "but Tomas Keller (of French Laundry fame) says that good roast chicken is his favorite dish and after eating this cut of chicken this I see why. The meat is delicious and it presents really well during service." Eric offered the Statler chicken on the menu for two nights, serving it with crimini mushrooms in a wine reduction. It was a hit, so the kitchen staff is now testing new dishes using this cut for the spring menu.

Eric also listens carefully to his servers because they hear first hand what customers like. And just as important, they bear the brunt of customers' disappointment when a favorite dish is removed from the menu. Thus, the aforementioned meatloaf was returned to the menu last winter after a brief hiatus. Eric rewards his staff for their input, by serving a family-style meal at the end of the evening. "Some restaurants feed their employees before service, but the staff is typically too busy getting the dining room ready to enjoy it. By sitting down together after the dinner rush, we can blow off steam and really hear how things went," he explains. The staff tastes new menu possibilities and also eats from the same menu as customers do, so they can honestly describe how an entrée tastes.

Another Seasonal Menu Being Finalized

As we were going to press at the end of April, Eric and his staff were getting ready for another jam session while the restaurant is closed for spring cleaning. Off the menu will come the heavy meats and long-cooking items, like braised lamb shanks, beef short ribs, and the spinach risotto. A promising menu replacement is the sautéed shrimp in a spicy, blood orange marmalade, with sautéed spinach, and baked polenta. Jade and Sean developed the dish and ran a sneak taste test with the staff before offering it to Eric to sample. It was been a tremendous success as a special, and there is a good chance it will be a permanent item on the summer menu. Eric is also going to start expediting from outside the line (meaning, he will no longer be working the grill in addition to making sure everything is ready to serve at the same time). His goal is to decrease the amount of time people have to wait for an entrée. By May a new menu should be in place, which sounds like a great reason for a trip to Wellfleet.

The Wicked Oyster, 50 Main Street, Wellfleet, is open daily for breakfast and lunch, and Thursday through Tuesday for dinner. Reservations are recommended. Call 508-349-3455.

When you enter into a conversation with Veronica, you'd better have your brain fully engaged as well. Whether relating the story about how she came to have some very rare heirloom seed in her possession, or describing the various medicinal or household uses of an herb-after carefully spelling its Latin name-Veronica is a veritable font of plant lore and knowledge.

Customers who visited her stand at the Mid-Cape Farmers' Market last summer probably recall getting more than they bargained for in the way of information when they stopped to purchase a jar of dried Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare hirtum) or a bouquet of colorful flowers. Sometimes it might seem that she's lost her train of thought as she spins sentences like a fiendish Rumpelstiltskin, but she invariably finds her way back to her original subject, which seems not to surprise her at all.

On my most recent visit to The Herb Farm in West Dennis, Veronica greeted me with a single indignant word. "Aphids." She gave me a minute to catch up and continued only when it was apparent that I was tracking with her. "I've been picking aphids off my lettuces for two whole weeks." Apparently some Scented Geraniums she had moved into the greenhouse in the fall had returned the favor by introducing a colony of aphids. Not big on using potentially harmful insecticides, Veronica got on her hands and knees and, using a magnifying glass to facilitate the process, individually plucked each offending agent from the delicate leaves. This is not untypical of Veronica's literally hands-on approach to gardening.

The resulting pristine greens-a combination of Mache, Mustard, Oakleaf, Borage, Chicory, Red Oscard, Nasturtium, and Romaine, among others-ultimately found their way to a crispy, post-entrée salad that was served at The Red Pheasant during a multi-course wine-tasting dinner we attended in February. The brightness and contrast of flavors, at once bitter, peppery, tangy, and spicy, caused everyone at our table to sit up and take notice. Such piquancy is rare to come by in the dead of winter on the Cape; nary a single perfectly dressed leaf returned to the kitchen when the salad plates were replaced with the dessert dishes.
Back to the greenhouse and Veronica's dissertation on natural pest control. Despite the fact that ladybugs have a tendency to get caught in the fan that vents her greenhouse, Veronica was about to shell out several hundred dollars on a shipment in order to check her aphid population when she realized the pests were being taken care of by some other force. After careful scrutiny, she discovered a lone daddy long legs had taken up residence on the only Lemon Scented geranium plant that was left in the greenhouse. Scented geraniums are known to be 'aphid magnets' but this solitary Lemon Scented Geranium did not have even one aphid on it! Her interest piqued, Veronica spent hours on the Internet-even putting in a call to a research associate at the Museum of Texas Tech University in Lubbock-researching aphid control using the common arthropod,
Thus, I learned that daddy long legs aren't really spiders, don't spin webs, don't bite humans, lay their eggs in soil, and, do indeed, eat aphids, although it seems no one is selling them to control aphids, at least not commercially and, according to Veronica, the best part is that they don't fly around getting stuck in greenhouse vent fans. Veronica wrapped up the lesson with a simple request, "So, if you see any daddy long legs, save 'em for me."

Being a true Yankee, Veronica likes the idea that the daddy long legs is providing his service free of charge. She also gets a kick out of the fact that the compost heap inside the greenhouse that she carefully tends is providing natural heat, i.e., free energy, as well as the carbon dioxide so needed by plants in a closed, winter, greenhouse environment. Her father used to work at Cape & Vineyard Electric Co. as a heating advisor, and Veronica is sure he would have been interested to help her calculate the BTUs being generated by x pounds of compost over so many square feet.

A freshly cut "batch" of Veronica's salad featuring colorful Nasturtium flowers

Veronica in her Greenhouse

Although her business is called The Herb Farm, Veronica really wants to be known for her flowers, both dried and fresh-cut. As far as fresh cut flowers go, Veronica likes to grow plants that reflect the colors of the season. So in spring and summer she'll have plenty of lavender and pink-petal blossoms, including Phlomis, Lavender Provence, flowering fragrant Herbs, Larkspur, Statice Suworowii, Celosia 'Bombay' and Double Lisianthus. This year, Veronica is big on Sweet Pea, which will figure heavily into the arrangements she makes each week for the Lighthouse Inn in West Dennis. She purchased Sweet Pea seeds from England that she claims will grow flowers with larger heads and firmer, longer stems, making for healthier and more long-lasting cut arrangements.

Veronica also makes the most amazing wreaths from flowers and grasses that she harvests and dries in an old quahog shed at the end of her driveway. Some of her favorite materials for wreaths are Lavender, Statice, Larkspur, Bearded Rush, Broom Corn, Sunflowers, Yarrow, even feathers and shells. To ensure a steady supply of raw materials for her dried arrangements and wreaths, Veronica plans to seed an entire side lawn with Sunflowers and Broom Corn. Both plants grow to average heights that tend to be taller than Veronica, as do many of the plants in her garden. Veronica, who tops out at a neat 5'2" proclaims, "Giant plants are my specialty. There's something overwhelming about standing next to a plant that is taller than you are, like standing before a Henri Rousseau painting in the Louvre. Henri Rousseau paintings are huge! You feel like you are in the painting. His subject matter was usually jungles. He's my favorite artist." As such, in her flower beds you'll find Globe Thistle, a very large, 6' globe thistle from China with tennis-ball-sized silver spheres; Angelica (4-5'), Cardoon Cynara (6') and Verbascum Olympicum (6') from the hillsides of Greece; and Phlomis Tuberosa (6') from northwest of the Caspian Sea. "And I'm hoping to propagate a giant dill-which grows up to 10 feet-from seeds from Russia. Growing bizarre stuff keeps me interested," Veronica confesses, "and, given the sandy soil on the south side of the Cape, even if they don't grow to their expected heights, they still yield decent flowers."

Veronica's reputation for unique flowers is well known in various circles on the Cape. For years local gardeners, including even the staff at Heritage Plantation in Sandwich, have been coming to her for rare and unusual potted plants and plug trays, such as native plants like Soloman's Seal or Sea Lavender or rare and forgotten varieties like the Appleblossom Rosebud Geranium, which was popular as a table ornament in Victorian times, or the Black-leaf Geranium. "I love treasure hunting for different species, something I've never seen before. I could spend hours in a 'rare plant' nursery," says Veronica as if sharing some guilty secret.

It's worth a trip to The Herb Farm just to visit Veronica's shed, which is festooned with drying flowers, decorated wreaths, antiques, and other eye candy during late Summer and Fall. But don't stop at the shed. Be sure to visit the rest of her one-acre property with its greenhouse, perennial beds, beach heather, and evergreen garden encircling the bell tower salvaged from the first schoolhouse in West Dennis. Just watch out for Galileo.

Veronica's salad is on the menu and her pheasant-feather adorned wreaths are on the wall at The Red Pheasant Inn, Route 6A, Dennis. Visit Veronica at The Herb Garden, 89 Fisk Street, West Dennis, or at the Mid-Cape Farmers' Market on Wednesdays from 8:00 AM-1:00 PM starting June 14. (or e-mail her for a plant availability list at Veronica_Worthington@yahoo.com)