Gypsy Jan
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Kärlekens Trädgård: The Viking Bread Reconquista in El Porvenir, Valle de Guadalupe
From The OC Weekly: http://blogs.ocweekly.com/stickaforkinit/2013/05/karlekens_t...
By Dave Lieberman
“Yes! Kärlekens Trädgård, Swedish for the Garden of Love, is run by Caroline García, a native of Halland province on the west coast between
Helsingborg and Göteborg, and her Mexican husband, Jaime.
Caroline is as rubia y zarca (blonde-haired and blue-eyed) as St. Lucia, and from her recipes and the outdoor brick oven Jaime built for her comes
Swedish baking in the most un-Swedish of locations.
Their flagship product is three kinds of bread: white "Bulgarian" bread; pan molocano, a dark bread named for the Molokans, the Russian equivalent to
our Puritans, an anti-Orthodox religious group who were the original winemakers (including the Bibayoffs) in Baja California; and an anise- and
fennel-tinged sweet bread with dried fruit tucked inside that goes perfectly with the queso añejo from Rancho Cortés. They're all made by hand.
"Made by hand" is more literal than you know: one day at a party after they moved, Caroline mused aloud at how she'd like to make Swedish bread, but
she couldn't find any rye. The party was at Rancho Cortés--you know, the place we wrote about with the great olive oil and cheese--and one of the
Cortés family mentioned that they had planted some rye. A deal was struck, and hyper-local bread was born.
Serendipity? Or the hand of some long-obsolete Viking god? The Garcías may buy the rye from the Cortés family, but they mill it into flour
themselves--literally, themselves, with a manual mill, while Jaime searches out stones to make a larger stone mill to allow for larger batches and
more production.
Meanwhile, though, there are candied peanuts and cinnamon rolls in the morning and energy "balls" rolled in sweetened coconut. They make wine, too, a
creditable but sweet Zinfandel and an excellent vino de granada--pomegranate wine.
We spent hours there, talking and exchanging recipes (here's hoping Persian mulberry jam ends up on the shelves) and talking in an unholy mixture of
Swedish, English and Spanish. They're just beginning production--they opened two months ago--and have hired a man to help them with their sweets,
including pastries. Look for the menu to expand.
The bread is delicious, and the nice surprise is the price: in a place where chemical-laden pan Bimbo that sticks behind your teeth costs 30 pesos a
loaf, the Garcías' big, rustic loaves cost 40 pesos--a little over $3.”
Kärlekens Trädgård--say "chair-le-kens trade-gord"--is located at Blvd. Emiliano Zapata s/n, Ejido El Porvenir, Baja California. It is in the town of
El Porvenir, on the main highway that leads from Francisco Zarco to the free road at La Misión, between 3rd and 4th Streets, near Tienda Martina.
The telephone number is (646) 191-29-88.
The bakery is open Friday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (or until they run out of bread), with plans to expand hours to Wednesday and
Thursday.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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Gypsy Jan
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4275
Registered: 1-27-2004
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Mood: Depends on which way the wind is blowing
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(Crossposted from Chowhound.com)
By Ringo Gato
"We paid a visit to Kärlekens Trädgård in El Porvenir last weekend (on the way to Fiestas de los Vinedos en Flor at Viñedo Las Nubes; a great event,
by the way). Caroline Garcia is charming and her breads are outstanding. We did not get to meet her husband, Jaime, but she described his passion for
baking. She told us she and her husband met in Los Angeles and lived for a number of years in Sweden. El Porvenir seems like an unlikely next stop
but, then again, why not?"
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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