What happens when bread becomes more than something to eat?
In the first episode of our Eat Well series, we meet Lauren Hambleton of Red Hen Artisanale in Priceville, Ontario. After years working in restaurants, pastry kitchens, and fine dining, Lauren found her way to a rural village of about 200 people, where she built a cozy baking studio beside the river.
What started with sourdough, workshops, and a monthly Bread Club has become something bigger: a gathering place rooted in food, creativity, and the simple pleasure of making something by hand.
Transcript
[Lauren] My mom one day was like, oh, you’re like the little red hen. She’s this little hen that does all the things. She grows the wheat, she mills the wheat, she makes the bread, bakes the bread, and then all of her farm friends want a piece of the bread.
And so I just thought about the Red Hen. And how can we make that sound? I don’t know, fancier. There was a bakery that I worked at for about two weeks when I was 15, and it was called Artisanale. And so I thought Red Hen Artisanale. And that’s how the name was born.
[Narrator] Lauren Hamilton’s journey to Red Hen didn’t begin in the countryside. It began at culinary school in Toronto, then through kitchens in Amsterdam and Italy, where she learned the rhythms of baking, hospitality and working with their hands.
[Lauren] So before I moved out here, I was working in restaurants for about ten years, primarily specializing in pastry and working as, like, the pastry chef for several different fine dining restaurants.
[Narrator] Food was always the thing that made sense. While running a pastry department at a winery, Lauren’s love of hands-on learning turned into teaching part-time at a college and eventually her own workshops.
[Lauren] Initially when I started this business, about eight and a half years ago, I didn’t have a permanent building, so I was teaching at a cute little spots around southern Ontario. I would find a location that kind of fit my vibe and had a nice cozy environment. I would rent it out, take everything with me, set it up, teach the workshop, take it all home, and then do it all over again the next weekend. So I did that for a few years before I decided to kind of commit to the bit.
[Narrator] It was while Lauren was looking for a more permanent space that she met her partner, Aaron, which somewhat unexpectedly led her to Priceville, Ontario, a rural village of about 200 people and a lot of dogs. Not exactly the bustling place most people would choose to launch a business, but Lauren had a vision.
[Lauren] We were sitting on the back deck and having a drink, and I looked out into the yard and I said, man, like, your yard is really big. Like do your dogs need that much space to run around? And the answer was no, maybe we can build a studio.
[Narrator] Once the permits were pulled, the studio came together quickly with help from family, friends and local tradespeople.
[Lauren] I would say three months from digging in the ground to hosting the first workshop it was ready to go. So it felt like an eternity, but it was pretty quick.
[Lauren] Initially, it was like, how do we get the word out? Postcards. And so I started doing like a monthly Bread Club subscription—people would sign up for the month and then come every Friday for a fresh loaf of sourdough.
And so sort of different pockets of people were reaching out because like, some people want to make bread, some people just want to buy it. And so there is some overlap in there, but just connecting with those different people that they then spread the word and they tell their friends and before you know it, we got all kinds of people in the area, but also from far and beyond.
[Narrator] In a place this small, Red Hen has become something bigger, a gathering place built around food, creativity and the simple act of making something together.
[Lauren] And maybe we don’t know each other very well, but we’re connecting over something so basic and simple as food and it’s like nurturing and wholesome, and that just feels really like cozy.
Even though the days are long and there’s a lot of work that goes into it, having those relationships is really, really special. And I don’t think something that a lot of other people get to do in their day to day career. So I feel pretty lucky in that.