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POLESTAR HEARTH AND SOURDOUGH BREAD:
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A REVOLUTIONARY PAIR BY GUEST CONTRIBUTOR JONATHON BARRABALL ‘All sorrows are less with bread.’
-Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Bakeries smell good. It’s a universal truth. Walking in to the smell of warm bread is a soul cleansing experience that everyone should have on at least a weekly basis. And when you open the door to Polestar Hearth, a sourdough bakery in Guelph, this sensory phenomenon is heightened to such a degree that you might never want to leave. In the words of my girlfriend, Sidey, whom I brought to Polestar for the first time the other week, ‘it
inducing aroma. It began eleven years ago when Jesse Merrill, the owner and creator (then a musical instrument repairman), built a small brick oven in his backyard and began making sourdough. Soon Jesse was delivering fresh loaves of sourdough bread by bicycle throughout his neighborhood. Before long he transferred his operation to a much larger oven he built in his garage, and finally, two years ago, he moved his bread-making activities into his bakery proper, Polestar, which now produces loaves of sourdough – this seemingly simple food composed of
smells so good you could die in here.’
only four ingredients that, when slightly
Polestar Hearth is indeed a special place,
fabulous results – in a warm, cozy, peaceful,
and not just for the thoughts-of-the-after-life
and welcoming space.
manipulated, can produce innumerable
