I’m tired. School has started back and we are all still adjusting. Around the bakery that means that staffing patterns shift as our student-workers are suddenly juggling so much more now. Many of our student-workers are also student-athletes and are in fall sports so they are now squeezing in batches of cookie doughs, pastry lamination, and retail shifts around practice schedules and late-night away games. The persistence, patience, and strength that I developed in youth sports have helped me succeed in most every job I have ever held and to us, it’s worth working around their schedules because they bring those skills right back here into the kitchen and put them to use.

The days are getting noticeably shorter and these wonderfully cool nights lately belie the fact that it’s still weeks until the fall equinox. We are making the most of this peak late summer produce in our pastries and bagels, on our sandwiches, and in the soups and grab n go salads.

On busy mornings, I simplify my diet. Bread, protein, cheese, vegetable. It’s all top notch ingredients that really don’t need the amplification of sauces, spreads, and spices. It’s just good As Is — the first time you eat one, and the fifth, and the fiftieth.

The short attention span culture we are living in currently urges us feel like we always need to be coming up with something new & different — that we need to keep up with the times, chase the latest fad flavors or diets. You know, just so there’s something to talk about on the socials I guess? Flavor-maxxing I think it would be called? I think we’ll settle for repeating ourselves because we believe that these simple real foods are worth eating, again and again, and that they truly provide what we need to thrive, in a space that nurtures community, and in a place that is worth investing in.

This is the final week for August flavors — stock up on Pesto Bagels, honey cream cheese, and Smores cruffins. Peach pastry and lemonades will be phasing out as our supply of peaches dwindles — but we would recommend snagging one of these Peaches & Creme scones before they disappear till next year. Soup this week is Stuffed Pepper.

September pizza menu is complete enough to publicize, and we have a band coming down from Morgantown to play by the red door that evening. Fingers crossed the weather cooperates to open it up and play out into the alleyway. The day after September pizza, there will be a square dance in that same space with Andy Fitzgibbon and friends spinning the tunes and Beth Longo calling the steps. Train tickets are available each of those days for the sunset trip up along the Tygart Valley River.

Eat a lot of peaches,

Katie, Jeanne, & the crew

When you come in at 10am on a Saturday morning to a tidy board full of shiny pastries and fresh bagels, our lucky weekend staff gets complimented for a job well done, as they should. But and however, none of that fresh shininess on a weekend morning is possible without the weekday team doing their job — rain or snow or shine.

They deep clean the bottoms of the fridges and the backs of the ovens, wash, clean, and slice all those fresh veggies that go on your sandwiches, pre-fry all the bacons so that we can finish the job quickly when the line for breakfast sammys gets long, and slice dice and simmer those soups. Bagel doughs are mixed up well over 12 hours before they turn into bagels and pastry… phew. I’m going to give pastry a whole paragraph to itself next...

Pastry for the weekend begins on Tuesday afternoon when we activate our sourdough starter. Person 1 pulls the starter out of the fridge to warm. Person 2 feeds and builds it in the evening to grow it to the size needed for that week’s pastry (photo above). Person 3 shows up in the kitchen early on Wednesday to mix, fold, proof, and chill the pastry dough (starter + everything else). Person 4 comes in later in the morning to shape the sheets of butter that will create those flaky layers in your croissant.

Persons 5 and 6 finish the bakery day on Wednesday with the long process of lamination during which those pieces of dough and blocks of butter are turned into “patons”.

On tired legs, they carry those patons down to the freezer and pull the last of last week’s patons to thaw so we can shape them in the morning for Thursday orders.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, Persons 7, 8, and 9 take those thawed patons …

… and rolls, shapes, proofs, bakes, and fills the patons into that wild and varying diversity of flavors you enjoy.

When I sign these emails each week from “the team” this is not a meaningless nod to make us seem more like a ‘thing.’ The needs and processes here at the Bakery are fully intertwined with specific jobs and skills and over time our young staff develop expertise and teach us what they have learned. Our products’ quality and consistency continue to improve for this reason!

Pizza Night this week — Friday, August 21 from 5-8:30. Come spend some time with us or call as early as you can to place an order for pickup if you don’t have time to wait. The Casseday Boys will be playing some reels to spin the night along, and the Museum will be walking rope/twine out on the back porch. So stop by and see what that is all about if you’re feeling curious. Soup of the week is Coconut Spinach.

There’s two opposing train opportunities coming up: The Old Fashioned Days train is a chance for a bite-sized, community-centric train experience; a chance to dip your toes in and return to either pizza night (Friday) or a square dance (Saturday). The Belington Zephyr in October is a full-day affair, designed to indulge your fall color-loving, waterfall-chasing, wilderness-facing self. The Saturday (October 3) trip is sold out already so if you’re on the fence you’ll want to snag tickets for the Friday trip soon.

Till next time,

The team, including Jeanne & Katie

I really love those first cooler nights after a long heat wave, when the days are getting shorter and our primitive brains can sense the changing light as the world around us bends towards fall. I love how blessedly cool and cozy those nights feel — despite being so many degrees warmer than those first balmy nights in the early spring when I can make it work to sleep with my window open in anticipation of the warmer days that are coming. It has been so enjoyable lately to pretend to be a little cold; to don a long sleeve shirt, or a jacket in the early morning — because I can get away with it NOT because I need it — at least until the sun burns through the fog.

Those summer days so hot that they force you to live a little slower are ceding a bit of ground to the frantic hub bub of fall. Kids are heading back to school, fall sports seasons are heating up, the county fair is just around the corner, and the Bakery/Golden Rule calendar is filling up with all sorts of activities and events.

Coming up next Friday: August Pizza on the 21st with those quickly-sprouting-but-still-very-young Casseday Boys sending us reeling with their fiddle and banjo performance. If you missed them this winter, make a point to stop in this time. You can hear the music clear as day from the basement, where Robyn’s newest exhibit will be opening at the Golden Rule Museum, exploring twine, rope, and those wondrous ties that bind us and our lives together.

Our friend Bea Stowe, a Pysanka, or Pysanky artist who lives just over Laurel Mountain in Montrose is offering a half-day workshop here at the Golden Rule on September 18th. Bea, together with her son Mike, is going to teach the technique of etching which uses vinegar to dissolve thin layers of the eggshell to create the color variation. The class fee also includes a set of tools that you take home and a hearty lunch from the Bakery. Find the full class listing here on our website and we have a new system that allows you to register and pay for the class there too.

That same weekend, Friday and Saturday, September 18th and 19th, there’s the special Belington Old Fashioned Days train trips. A short sunset ride each day will take you out the Tygart Valley River and back — and ticket sales benefit the Belington Revitalization Committee. On Friday, train service intersects with our September Pizza Night (yes, you can take your pizza on the train!) and on Saturday, passengers returning to Belington will be greeted with a Square Dance taking place in the Golden Rule. Live music, dancing, more food options that this town is accustomed to, and a great chance to run into friends, new and old.

Did you catch that mention of a Square Dance on September 19th? Hopefully the Bakery will be closed and joining in the dancing, but it’s bakery adjacent and we hope you can come either way.

But what about THIS WEEK? We cooked up a pot of Chicken Tortilla Soup for you this weekend — all the veg are straight out of the garden and its about as summery as a hot soup can get. We’ll continue toasting the S’mores Cruffins for you and though peaches are scarce this year, we were able to scrounge enough for Roasted Peach Danish and another batch of Peach-Basil Lemonade. The team has been keeping us stocked with Chipotle (or Southwest) Ranch for the Grab n Go salads, and Mori Coffees are fully stocked and ready for you to take home.

Soak it up while you can!

Katie, Jeanne, and the team

August seasonals make their debut this week and we are featuring one of my favorite summer herbs: BASIL. Seasonal bagel is a Basil Pesto and we’re bringing back the Basil Braid. Roasted Peach Danish will be available alongside a S’mores Cruffin — toasted meringue, atop a filling of graham cracker and chocolate crumbles.

As close as we can get to a campfire in the bakery. We’ll be roasting some Poblano/Goat Cheese pastries as well off and on this month. Seasonal salads will continue to be available as they give us a great excuse to purchase and use more fresh, locally produced veg.

Sourcing your preferred ingredients is a big part of establishing a new business. From the start we have purchased much of our veg from local partners like our friends over at the Charm Farm in Elkins, though not without challenges. Inconsistent supply and varying quality over the course of a season created degrees of variation that we needed to manage on our end as we strove for consistency in our own products. Unexpected crop failures or running out of a key ingredient at a critical time has definitely created some headaches for us. But lately, we’ve noticed a trend:

As we stick it out as consistent customers, the farmers on the other end are incentivized to become more consistent producers. We experience the same thing with our growing contingent of gluten-free customers. The more GF items we sell, the more we can justify making and developing. Since we committed to purchasing ham and lettuce in bulk week in and week out, there’s reason for a producer to succession plant and create a consistent pipeline of product.

So it makes all the sense in the world when we look back at it, but during those early weeks when we were unexpectedly left without key products, we were tempted to waffle, and look for a more commercial/consistent source. Staying the course is paying off now, as your demand for salads drives our need for fresh veg which creates incentive for Mike to provide those things for us for more weeks of the year. If you come, they will build it — someone has to take that first step, and it CAN be you too!

If you wonder how we can use all this local and often organic veg and keep our prices so low, I credit one thing: efficiency. We rarely throw out vegetables. Since we purchase at the time we need them and in the quantity that we need, we can adjust on the fly, don’t need to force extra, ageing produce on you, and very little veg ends up in the compost bucket. This savings more than balances out the slight (sometimes only perceived) price decrease we might achieve by purchasing lettuce (for example!) through a wholesaler.

This all comes to a peak right here, right now, this summer amidst this very reasonable panic about the Cyclospora outbreak — if the investment in a local foods system hadn’t paid of before, it sure is now! Living rurally can certainly create inefficiencies in daily life, but living closer to the food system that supports us is perhaps one of the most underrated benefits of rural life. The foods we serve would sell for a premium in a large city making the sandwiches prohibitively expensive to many of the folks who we are proud to call customers. But out here in Barbour County, local organic eggs are available at similar price points, without the shipping fees, without the commercial grade chemicals and industrial processes that create widespread contamination issues.

Here in these mountains we get to eat like kings just by doing what I like to call “yard shopping” and forest farming. From the deer in my freezer, wild mushrooms in my dehydrator, arugula growing wild in my neglected garden beds, and my neighbor’s overbearing zucchini plant, we have the agency, especially at this time of the year, to make up for many things that our communities might lack. … And let’s take the rest of the year to pick away at the rest of that list!

Speaking of Charm Farm, they are hosting a music festival this weekend (details in photo below) and we have 9 free tickets to give away. Newsletter readers get first shot at the tickets. If you are free Saturday afternoon/evening and interested to take a trip to Beverly, respond to this newsletter or click the “Message Belington Bakery” button to claim up to two tickets (normally $15/20 each). You’ll need to swing by the Bakery Friday or Saturday to pick them up.

This newsletter is long enough already I’m just going to keep going. You ever hear the Mark Twain quote, “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I’m just going to write you a long one.” Yea, that.

Jeanne’s Stick-Style Pepperoni Rolls “won” the August Foodways Pepperoni Roll Smackdown last weekend at their Festival in Elkins. Our Ground Pepperoni Roll Croissant were a close second.

Peace & Pepperoni Rolls,

Katie, Jeanne, & the whole dang crew

I don’t really remember when I became a baker of bagels. There were some really poor first attempts in high school at that age when we are dabbling in all sorts of skills with no idea what will stick. At some point, I returned to it and eventually it became a thing. By the time my kids were babies I was making bagels to sell at the Elkins farmers market and for the brand new TipTop up in Thomas. I experimented with some wild flavor variations at that time, indulging my strong tendency to avoid the regular and the expected.

My kids were very little and so, just like today, I would wake in the wee hours in hopes of accomplishing most of the bake while everyone else was still asleep. The kids would awaken to the aroma of fresh bagels wafting through their bedroom and they’d sleepily meander downstairs to a steamy kitchen full of stacks of warm bagels. My memory is blurry of the details but it was during this time that we developed the Molasses Oat flavor and it became their favorite, by far. My son in particular is not the type to ever stop moving but if I handed him a warm Molasses Oat with butter dripping out of middle, he’d go into the other room, sit himself on the couch, and contentedly savor that bagel while I finished baking.

When I started the bakery, Molasses Oat was on the short list for permanent flavors but since it is, as far as I know, not a flavor that exists anywhere else, sales were very slow and we almost dropped it a few months in. They tend to bake up a little smaller and denser than the other flavors and can look oddly nubbly due to the rolled oats that give the dough that lovely chewy, nuanced flavor. I couldn’t bring myself to drop it in the end, given our family history & preferences and, by that time, a critical mass of new customers who had discovered them, including my future bakery partner, Jeanne!

Now its a favorite of both my children and my parents and it holds a special place in my heart as well. Customers love it with sweet or savory fillings, it forms the base of the special, seasonal Fasnacht Halver Hahn sandwich (Molasses Oat, smoked gouda, tomato, pickle, mustard), and is an ingredient in the French Toast Scramble.

First time visitors engage with the Plain, Everything, or Monthly Special flavors. But once you are a regular, you have probably figured out that Molasses Oat is where it’s at. If you know, you know. If you haven’t already, consider giving it a try next time you stop in — it doesn’t need to remain our little secret.

This week

• We are featured in a pepperoni roll tasting at the Augusta Festival in Elkins City Park on Saturday afternoon.

• Soup of the Week: Loaded Baked Potato

• Last week for our July flavors — Summer Berry Cruffin, Lemon Braid, Plum Danish, Sesame Bagels, Mexican Chocolate Cream Cheese, Cucumber Dill Cream Cheese

• Roasted Peach Mascarpone danish feature continues

• Ask about our current selection of completely homemade ICE CREAM SANDWICHES

• Specialty Salads are made fresh for Fridays and Mondays in our grab n go fridge. We continue to make more of them as you

Thanks for your constant and enthusiastic support,

Katie, Jeanne, & the team

We are looking for help with our morning bake shift. Are you excited about what we are doing? Are you, or do you know someone who is, a morning person, comfortable in the kitchen, has worked with bread dough — or very motivated to learn? We need another person or two to join our team and learn the rhythms and skills of a morning bake shift. This could be an occasional or regular job, and while the options to expand the role are many, we would also welcome someone only has the capacity to be involved in a smaller way. Please respond to this newsletter or send us an email to belingtonbakery@gmail.com to inquire.

The business is in a sustainable position, but the workload needs to be sustainable as well. The Baker Role is a specialty position — one that requires dependability, consistency, focus, and attention to detail. We set the Baker up for success, but it’s on you to follow through. So many of you express your appreciation for our staff and we share your enthusiasm. Every bit of what we do is only possible because we lean on each other. The work of the morning baker is dependent on the folks who mixed the bagel dough the day before, on the team that worked over the past three days to mix and laminate the pastry dough, and the morning bake can be accomplished in time to open only if the prepped pastry fillings and toppings are made and labeled in the fridge.

I’ve been in the kitchen since Day 1 of this bakery and, of course, am still intimately involved. But this project has grown so much bigger than any one person. We put in more staff time on our three prep days than on the four days we are open for service and the work done on those Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays make the magic possible on the weekends. There’s inherent risk when something outgrows a single person, the project becomes dependent on an exponentially larger set of circumstances falling into place. We are all learning to trust each other; learning that we CAN trust each other, and slowly building a team with the skills and the stamina to do it all and take care of each other in the process. Wanna be a part of that?

Working here is also a daily reminder of the wonders and wonderful people who make up our community. Just read back through these newsletter archives to catch a smattering of the beautiful conversations and wonderful stories that we have heard across the service counter. Working here is a great way to grow your faith in humanity, in community, and in the power of doing a simple thing well.

Hey! Friday is pizza night. We’ve got a great lineup of summer-flavored options on the menu (peaches, fresh herbs, some chocolate). We expect to have some feel-good tunes spilling out onto the alleyway PLUS there’s a band playing at the town square that evening, as well as a new ice cream stand right next door. The Golden Rule Museum in our basement will be open and the basement is properly cool no matter the temp outside. Their new Pharmacy Exhibit is on display. Belington is coming alive and we are here for it.

With these ridiculously juicy peaches now on hand you might find some new mid-month pastries available this weekend. The fruits of the season do not adhere to a 30/31 day calendar and when they are ready, we will use them. Speaking of seasonal treats, we have a fun Summer Green Bean (v/gf) soup for you this weekend inspired by the glut of fresh beans from Charm Farm, Jeanne worked her soup magic to create a fresh, tangy, summer soup to write home about. We do give samples if you’d like to taste it before you commit to a bowl or a quart.

Keep it real, catch some soccer, or some live music this weekend — we are surrounded by it right now!

— Katie, Jeanne, and the team

The summer is in full swing, y’all. I hope you are out soaking in the lightning bug shows, sticking your face into flowers, and immersing yourselves in our wonderful rivers and creeks. You know, we get to live in this part of the world which, even during the hottest heat waves, cools off at night and we have fertile soil and wild lands and no need for designating water rights and these simple things are just SO. DARN. EASY. to take for granted because it is all but impossible to imagine the alternatives when we are immersed in such abundance.

You know, no place in this whole world is perfect; Belington, Barbour County, West Virginia, and the YOU-nited States, most certainly included, but THIS place? This is the kind of imperfect that seems pretty darn alright to me. Kinda like each of us, flawed in our own human ways, but pretty great as we are and always working towards a more perfect version of what we’ve got. We can work with this. Don’t you think?

There’s no vacuums in any ecosystem, including our human ecosystem (or community, as we say) and this place that has been losing population and popularity for years/decades, is going to fill back up and here now we are setting a course, establishing a foundation, a precedent, for what it is and for where it is headed.

It’s not work to be taken lightly or to be brushed off but we also probably don’t want to think about it too hard. Like nudging a raft through a long period of turbulent whitewater, we use the rudder and nudge ourselves around the rocks and skirt the big rapids so we don’t capsize, following the current but putting some muscle into charting a workable course down the river.

We’ve been pumping out the seasonals lately. From all the fresh berries on our pastry, to just absolutely killer salads, and relatively basic bagel flavors that accept all the herbed and spiced cream cheeses that we offer this month. A friend’s review of July’s Mexican Cocoa Cream Cheese went approximately like this: “Move over Nutella, now we have Mexican Cocoa Cream Cheese!” It’s ever so slightly spicy with a slight hint of cinnamon. Staff favors it on a molasses oat bagel.

Also on the menu this weekend: Ratatouille Soup — a trial of our own imagination — come try it and let us know what you think. And we are perfecting our ice cream sandwiches. Photos coming soon, but try it before the word is out — two chewy chocolate cookies with ice cream or matcha custard in between.

Keep it human and see you soon!

— Katie, Jeanne, & the Crew

After a week like this I think we are all trying to stay out of our kitchens, keep our ovens off, and stay hydrated/fed in a relatively inactive manner. Other than the heat, have you noticed that the meals all but make them selves this time of the year. Bunch of fresh veg that barely need cooked and naturally complement each other, sometimes in all but overwhelming quantities if you are lucky — yard shopping or visiting one of the many ways to access Barbour County produce this time of the year could set you up nicely. But, when you are ready for something extra to eat with those shiny fresh veggies, maybe stop by the bakery. We are open regular hours throughout the weekend.

Around the bakery we’ve been using our off days or hours to bring in hay, scratch out a bit more new trail, catch up on laundry and work … and in the kitchen, we’ve been testing out our fresh flavors for July:

Bagel: Sesame
Sweet Cream Cheese: Mexican Cocoa
Savory Cream Cheese: Cucumber Dill
Fruity Pastry: Sugared Plum Danish
Braid: Lemon Glazed
Savory Pastry: Roasted Tomato & Goat Cheese Tart
Cruffin: Summer Berry Bowl

Pumping out salads (Sweet Kale Lunch Date Salads in the fridge on Friday) to cool your palate and for our devoted and committed soup fans we have Summer Chicken Tortilla — made with the first summer squash and zucchini.

If you’re trying to cool off in the Golden Rule a little bit longer, consider stopping in the basement museum. There’s a new exhibit up this weekend diving into the wild array of pharmaceutical, chemicals, and other powders, remedies, and other substances that were left in the Golden Rule Building. Museum will be open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this holiday weekend. It’s extra cool down there!

July Pizza Night is on the calendar for July 17th. We are still deliberating about entertainment, but there’s free music on the town square on Fridays and you can always get our pizzas to go!

Till next week—Katie, Jeanne, and the crew

The bakery kitchen gets a bit overheated when the space is closed up all night. Between the pilot lights and refrigeration chugging away, that little closed room can get quite warm. But the morning air these past few weeks has been significantly cooler than the air conditioning, so when we’re there baking early in the morning, we open the window wide and stand doing our bagel dance (that’s what we call the pattern of shape/boil/bake that we do on repeat when baking bagels) and wave at the train guys when they arrive to fire up the locomotives. There at the confluence of the cool morning air pushing through the window screen and the warmth pulsing off of the now humming stove and ovens and bagel pot, we do our dance and think our many thoughts.

We often solve problems, sometimes create them (both real and imagined), we let go of some hard feelings or dwell uncomfortably long on others, and we have a chance to consider the finer points of dough proofing in ever varying levels of temperature and moisture. That time of meandering thought is also a perfect space to dream up refreshing drinks to go with our mid-morning sandwich.

As we have traveled through the year we have been rolling out our house-made tea blends and now it is finally time for our Summer Blend. A quick-brewing CTC Assam black tea gives a robust base which we amplify with toasted coconut and crushed cardamom seeds. Adapted from teas common in India, it should not be surprising that this tea hits the spot on a hot summer day. Try it iced or hot — and it goes great with milk if you choose.

We’ve also been brewing up a variety of seasonal lemonade flavors. We are currently serving a Blueberry Lavender blend that is as attractive as it is delicious. Lavender is grown right here at the Golden Rule and picked fresh to infuse in the lemonade base. We mash blueberries into the concoction and then strain it all to clean it up. We’ve been stocking grab & go bottles but if you don’t need the convenience of the bottle, order it by the cup to save plastic and get 4 ounces more of lemonade for the same price.

Expect to see some other fruits rotating through as the summer progresses, and let us know which one is your favorite!

We also have ice cream sandwiches made up and for sale, and as those seasonal salads continue to sell, we will continue to make them for you. We call them Lunch Date Salads because we hope they are good enough for a high quality lunch date. They frequently contain dates as well, little nuggets of sweet, honey flavored goodness to contrast with the tangy and crispy fresh veg, most of which is straight from local farm fields right now.

Make sure you swing by if you need to stock up on the June flavors: tomato/basil bagel, jalapeno cream cheese, blueberry bearclaw, and ginger matcha cruffin! Broccoli Cheddar (v/gf, contains cashews) soup in the pot this week.

Till next time!

Katie, Jeanne, et. al.

So for this little newsletter to live up to its name, I guess maybe (possibly) you can say that you read it here first that the Governor of our little Mountain State will be riding our little Tygart Flyer train and celebrating West Virginia Day (163 years) with us in Belington on Friday. There will be two governor’s on site at the same time as we will also be graced by historic interpreters impersonating the first governor of West Virginia Arthur Boreman and his wife Laurane. Train tickets are sold out but you can always come visit a new-fashioned way by car, bike, or side-by-side and there will be some really great music and plenty to see and do here all day long on Friday.

Regular bakery hours from 10-2 and immediately following that hum-drum regular everyday stuff (remember how much we love the hum-drum everyday stuff?) the festival will kick off with a craft fair setting up in the rest of the Golden Rule and Donna’s group bike ride (~5 miles plus water (swimming/wading) breaks setting off from the City Park. There is a new exhibit up in the Museum downstairs featuring Ms. Wanda Shinn’s spectacular cursive script which she left all over books, magazines, notebooks, copious records, receipts, and wonderful everyday minutiae of Golden Rule life. Soup this week is a Sweet Potato & Bean Chili and Ice Cream Sandwiches will be available while supplies last.

If you want a pizza at a certain time, please respond to this email or call and order ahead. Ideally we get five pieces of information: 1. your name, 2. your phone number, 3. your pizza order, and 4. what time you want it and 5. to go or eat in? Otherwise, you’ll likely find yourself with a healthy wait time and that might not be a bad thing; we are testing a new system that will allow you to wander the festival while you wait your turn but also, I have a theory that many of our customers, many of you, come to the bakery when its busy because you secretly enjoy waiting in line or for your food, here in Belington, WV. Hear me out.

Now before I get too deep into this topic, I want to emphasize to you that we really try to serve you as promptly as possible. But as our kitchen staff’s stress level starts to rise, due to a quickly growing backlog of customer tickets, I notice at the register that the individuals ordering tend to get jollier, almost like you are pleased to have stood in line.

At a recent pizza night we were very backed up when a large family, three generations in tow, placed a large order that took ages to even get started. They camped out at one of our large tables, listening to music, rocking the baby, and just being together in our space. Once when I passed en route to delivering another table’s order, I apologized for the delay and they only expressed their excitement for the hubbub. “You all are doing great,” they said, “this is so cool!” And this sort of reaction is not an isolated incident.

In a town where having to wait for three cars to pass to make a left turn feels like rush hour, I could very much understand a disappointed customer who has to wait 15 minutes just to place an order, or who finally arrives at the counter to find their desired pastry sold out. I hear about lines out the door at urban post offices around Christmas but that is not how it works here. No, to wait in line in Belington, you will need to visit the Bagel place on a Sunday afternoon. What?

And yet. Perhaps when we get to wait in a community-centric space; maybe when a line is an excuse to catch up with a neighbor or meet a stranger, or catch your breath after a busy day, it can be more of a relief than a burden. One could also imagine how that time at the table before your sandwich arrives is more of an excuse to sit still, to not rush to the next thing, to listen to a friend tell a complete story without interruption, and how that could be more of a gift than a pain point.

If your day demands complete consistency, instantaneous service, or a bottomless supply of product, well those things are the purview of fast food and chain shops; establishments that are often owned and operated by our neighbors and totally worth frequenting when you are on a deadline, timeline, out of time. And of course, there’s plenty of occasions when we can serve you promptly as well, but it is a regular and recurring joy of this work for us when we see you embrace the chaos, lean in to the chatter, squeeze in to a packed table, and enjoy the wait!

Thanks for your pausing your day to read this too!

Katie, Jeanne & the rest of the kids

Last week we wrote about satisficing — forgoing optimization in lieu of making good enough choices in a world of many great options — and I hope you are able to let go and let your June be as good-enough as the rest of us!

We provide some of those satisfactory options, both every week on our pastry boards and in our bagel baskets, as well as on a larger scale with events and opportunities.

This weekend we continue with our June specialities, and Loaded Baked Potato soup, while we gear up for next weekend’s ever-expanding WV Day Festival, Sunset Train Ride, and June Pizza Night!

Personally, I love the excuse to be in the kitchen, to put my head down and just work, during festivals or parties — I rarely choose to attend such events in my “free time”. This time, though I will still be busy tossing pizzas, I truly wish, perhaps for the first time, that I could attend this hometown festival.

We designed the event to be a loop through town, inclusive of many of our budding small businesses. There’s plenty to do for free or very low cost — courtesy of funding from the WV Tourism office, the County Commission, and the City of Belington — including what should be some great music, old fashioned kids games, cornhole tournament, and historic interpretation. A few tickets are still available for the train ride, but we expect they will get snapped up in the next few days so please pounce if that is in your plan!

Purchase Train Tix Here

Enjoy anything from traditional festival food to, well, our pizza, salads, homemade evening-style goodies from the bakery. Once we close up for the evening I plan to step out and enjoy the locals-focused tail end of the festival but we expect all sorts of visitors from around the state for the meat of the event from 6-8pm.

Our friend Donna is organizing a group ride starting at the City Park at 2pm, designed to be a fun-focused, easy ride with some dips in the river and light-hearted exploration along the River Rd. She’ll have you back in town in time to join in the festivities for as long as you wish. Bring a change of clothes and use our facilities to be comfortable all evening long. Details at our event page here.

Just along for the ride,

Katie, Jeannie, and the many who make all this possible

I barely get to bake any bagels in the dark this time of the year as the sun races me over the top of Laurel Mountain. When those first rays pop out down in town our backyard train cars glow so bright. Never gets old. By 7:30 it is shining bright (see above), but still hanging on to that fantastic low-angle vibe, which, on Mondays is a full half hour after we open. If you have the luxury of a slow Monday morning (or a few spare moments on your way to work or other obligations) consider dropping by to appreciate the glow with us inside the Golden Rule or out on that back porch.

Mondays might be your best bet for a quiet morning at the Bakery as June events and the regular business crowd will keep the place hopping the rest of the month.

This weekend, we’ll be partially open early on Saturday to serve everyone coming to town for the Laurel Mountain VFW Post 410 Ride 2 Salute. Bake shift will still be in full swing but we’ll have a percolator full of hot coffee and some piping fresh cinnamon buns ready by 7am. $5 for the pair, grab n go/serve yourself if you have cash — you do not have to be a UTV rider for the deal.

Sunday, June 7th we are helping with the Tygart Valley Gravel Flyer bike race — we’ll be hosting the aid station for the long loop which will bring riders through the heart of town. Share the road and give ‘em a cheer if you see the riders out there!

Friday, June 19th we are staying open late to join the whole-town festivities around WV Day. We’ll be having a mid-summer pizza night — with BBQ chicken pizza, garden veg salads, and homemade ice cream sandwiches. While you wait for your pizza you can wander and take in the festival going on throughout town.

There will be a full festival loop around our downtown that’ll include multiple stages, bands, and other performances, water-enabled bounce houses, food trucks, historic displays, cornhole tournament, kids games, and I’ve lost track of what all else.

If it all sounds hectic and like too much trouble, you have the option of ditching your car in Elkins and riding the train in. Two performers will be on the train with you, enacting the role of settlers in the Tygarts Valley region in the early 1770s.

They’ll be chatting and moving around the cars, talking about the folks they met, food and medicines they gathered or grew, and the surprisingly robust cultural exchange that took place back then which shapes our Appalachian culture to this day. Roll back to Elkins while the sun sets on the almost-solstice along the prettiest river in West Virginia.

Trail work days are still happening up at the Reservoir. The property already has fishing/boating, the Skirmish Hills Disc Golf Course, a picnic pavilion, great views of the Laurel Mountain ridge line, and, now over 1.5 miles of new trail access. We’ve seen sign of human and deer traffic and the recent storms blew down some additional deadfall which we are working on clearing. The park features regular eagle sightings, wild blueberries, spicebush, and other high-quality local flora, fauna, and rocks. Lots of great rocks! We will be blazing and posting trail maps eventually but if you join us on a Thursday then you’ll know where to go — these trails are on public land, owned by the City of Belington and they are yours to use!

Aside from all THAT, this is the first weekend of June and we have new flavors for you to try:

Sun Dried Tomato & Basil bagels
Blueberry Bear Claw pastry
Ginger Matcha Cruffin
Vanilla cream cheese
Jalapeño cream cheese

Italian Wedding Soup (gf)

We’ve been stocking the Grab n Go with our Lunch Date salads on Fridays and Mondays. They change with the seasons and our whims but can make your week day lunches date-worthy, even if it’s just you at your desk (or is that just me?). This week’s features a wealth of amazing local veg on a bed of Charm Farm kale and napa cabbage for some sweetness and crunch. They are always gluten free and dairy is kept separately packaged.

This time of year our sandwich board frequently features locally grown lettuce and, we suspect cucumbers soon. Our sprouts are always hyper-local because we grow them ourselves, and of course that most delicious ham from the Charm Farmers.

Keep passing the open windows*,

Katie, Jeanne, and the crew

*bonus card stamp if you get the reference

Here in Belington we had been conditioned over many years to be always hedging our bets and lowering our expectations. We saw neighbors, businesses, building owners, and eventually even the buildings themselves disappear from our town. We became accustomed to traveling to other counties for anything beyond the basic necessities.

So back when the renovation at the Golden Rule was completed, a tide started to turn. A few years earlier the Golden Rule Building had earned an unenviable spot on the West Virginia’s list of Most Endangered Historic Properties. But this time, a whole host of community groups, people, and entities in Barbour County chose to believe and invest time, effort, and resources, in the Golden Rule project and they pushed through so many prohibitive obstacles that should have killed any chance at success. By 2020, we had already exceeded basic expectations: the building survived.

I was recently introduced to the term “satisfice” which is a mash up of satisy + suffice and a concept which stands in contrast to perfection, maximal, optimizing. Friends, there would be no Belington Bakery if we were not committed to just being good enough. We satisfice with the best of them and have found, time and time again, that it is exactly enough.

When we opened our doors back in January 2024, just being there with open doors was enough. Our products today are much improved from those items on our display that first day. But low expectations were exceeded that day, with a line around the corner and the start of so many relationships, conversations, and absorption of excitement. As that excitement and those hopes have grown, we’ve grown with them in the same way that a new mother gets stronger at the same rate that her little newborn grows, so the weight is never a burden she can’t bear.

Would that all new businesses are gifted the grace to be able to grow and develop at a reasonable rate. We have muddled through, one hectic month after another, adjusting and accommodating to the body weight & needs of this little toddler bakery as it changes and based on your feedback, at least for enough of you, we have kept up with expectations and are entirely good enough, and for that, for you, we are eternally grateful!

Once these floodwaters recede, make your way down to the shop for your last chance at our May flavors — blueberry bagels, strawberry cream cheese, strawberry and cream cruffins, or those gemstones of berries + basil danish and salted chocolate braids. New options to tingle your tastebuds coming next week. Asparagus Croissants will remain an option for a bit yet until our asparagus patch is put to bed for the summer.

Jeanne cooked up a Wild Rice and Mushroom soup for you this week.

Last week’s bike riders had a great time riding in the rain and had largely dried themselves off by the time they made it back to the Golden Rule. Plans are in the works to meet up on the regular. We’ll keep you posted on dates and locations. You could call it Social Movement.

Thanks to Donna for stepping up to lead a ride, and the offer still stands for anyone else on the hunt for ride or run or walk or whatever buddies.

Till soon!

Katie, Jeanne, et. al.

I have heard that, when a chef is applying for a chef-type job, it is common to first test them on something very common and simple, like making a scrambled egg, because, with no screens of seasoning and garnish to hide behind, making something simple taste amazing requires the most skill. If you can scramble a perfect egg, the theory goes, you understand the basic principles of cheffing. In the context of Belington Bakery, this role falls on the Plain Bagel.

When I was pulling together the concept for Belington Bakery, there in the late fall of 2023, I wasn’t even going to make Plain Bagels. Brenden, a friend and friend of the shop, looked over my plan and said, “I feel like you have to have Plain Bagels too.” Well that one statement quickly dispersed a thick shroud of creativity that had been clouding my vision, and returned me to the solid, practical earth because of course he was right. I’d been caught up in all the glitz and fun of dreaming up exciting flavors, and neglecting the obvious option right in front of my face.

While our monthly flavors drive interest, meet individual preferences, and allow space for variation within a small production space, that Plain Bagel and our classic Croissant are our biggest sellers week in and week out. We don’t talk about them much; there’s not much new to say about them because they are just always there, every week, every day. We will suggest them to a new customer who is overwhelmed by choices, or an older customer concerned about the bagel being tough to chew. We mostly appreciate them quietly, the way we love and appreciate our mothers. And so, today is Mother’s Day for the Plain Bagel and we’re taking a moment to shine a light on these basic and beautiful parts of the bakery spread!

Often, I find myself grabbing a plain bagel when I’m on my way out of the shop to run errands or do Other Work and so I scamper out to my car, probably running late already, an unadorned bagel hooked on my pinky finger, hands otherwise full of to-do lists, hopefully my keys, and daily clutter. And as I pull out of the Golden Rule lot, scattering crumbs and cornmeal on my lap while I munch that plain bagel, I usually find myself saying out loud, “Dang! But this is really good!”

When you eat one just plain, unadorned, without other add-ins or spreads getting in the way, you can taste the full flavor of the dough — those flavors developed overnight during a 12+ hour cold proofing process, they are the byproduct of high-quality wheat flour, fully hydrated, fermenting slowly with a small set of basic ingredients. The simple but nuanced flavor of this dough is the basis for all our other bagel flavors and those sandwiches and scrambles. While they make a great palette for a towering Turkey Club or tangy Italian sandwich, one of these times, for nothing more than your pocket change try just a single, simple Plain Bagel, unadorned. See if we pass the bakery version of the Chef’s Test.

OK enough on that. THIS WEEKEND!

Group Ride on Saturday, 9am — Donna is leading a 12.5 mile ride with moderate hills (def not flat, but def no mountains) at a conversational pace. Meet up at the Bakery at 8:45, ride at 9.

We have a fresh batch of our Popped Amaranth Corks, this time cut into cubes and packed into handy grab ’n go bags. These guys have the barest amount of processed sugar in them (little bit of chocolate chips), no dairy, no gluten, and lots of nutrition. We pop our own amaranth and that forms the base of these nuggets along with dates, pecans, and peanut butter. Snag a bag to keep in your glove box for nutritional emergencies on a busy day.

Soup is the ever-popular Loaded Baked Potato (v/gf) ask for cheese on top if you want it.

The basement museum will be open for extended hours for the holiday weekend. Explore the piston that powered the old water elevator, and explore the collection of toasters and china dishes from the Golden Rule Department Store. Museum is open all bakery hours, or by special appoint if you contact Robyn at americorps@woodlandswv.org .

Enjoy your day!

Katie, Jeanne, and the crew

You give us lots to think about with your stories and our conversations over the ordering counter. You reach out with thoughts or opportunities and get us thinking about how it all connects here behind the scenes, under the surface, down where the figurative shit hits the proverbial fan. You gobble up all our baked goods so I get six more hours on Sunday morning by myself before the sun comes up, in the cozy kitchen, to think about what it all means. And when that morning light hits like this….

….. how can one NOT feel inspired by all that is transpiring around you. Anyhow, one way or another, we have ended up with a small archive of bakery-related thoughts, and community-oriented ideas and now they are all easily accessible on one webpage place: HERE.

Last week the WV Department of Agriculture posted a short video about our bakery project. I have been trying to figure out how to embed it here without success. Nothin’ fancy, but here’s a link »

This week we start a partnership with a new project going in on our favorite street in Thomas, WV — Spruce Street. Anyone up in that area knows that Spruce Street is the next frontier in Upper Tucker, and Seneca and Curtis are currently leading the charge with their vision for Blackwater Galley. With deep roots in Tucker County, but currently living down our way, they will be picking up fresh bagels every week to bring up to their new breakfast joint. Inspired by the Blackwater 100, and Curtis’ identity as a proud Veteran, they’re bring together a bunch of local partners and lore to serve their neighbors and represent old-school Tucker County to all the new visitors coming to explore the area.

We could not be more excited to be a part of this project. Their soft opening is THIS SUNDAY — May 17th, and they’ll be open for good the following weekend, which is a big one up there with the ArtSpring festivities that take over the community throughout Memorial Day Weekend. They’ll be serving up, among other things, breakfast sandwiches on select bagel flavors and just generally making Tucker County a better place to be.

For our part, we are trying to keep up with the grass during these warm wet days, the demand for pastry and irregular bagels, and getting by on the energy of our young staff, the persistence of our more seasoned staff, the generosity of our friends who bring by their extra rhubarb and eggs, and all the partners on whom we depend to present a great front to you, our community.

Soup this week is Chicken Tortilla, and we are working towards perfecting our seasonal offerings. This warmer weather has re-started the backyard asparagus patch and those little wild blueberries we get from Maine are SO DARN GOOD in the blueberry bagels we really wish we could make them year round. That scarcity makes them all the better though, right now, when we do get to enjoy them daily.

Jeanne has been mixing up Buckwheat Pancake Scones that just have a texture and a flavor that keep you coming back, and we’re experimenting with a Strawberry Chocolate Scone that might rival the ever-popular Blueberry Lemon.

Thanks for coming back to see what we’re working on!

Katie, Jeanne, and the whole bakery crew

This week we had to opportunity to fulfill a large order that was headed to school kids and teachers in the Randolph County Schools this past week. It’s also a pleasure to serve the unknown many — we try to include such a variety that there is something that appeals to everyone — and that understanding is informed by all the personalized orders we make every week for you all who come in the shop.

We have been blessed with a really incredible group of folks who give their hours and their energy to making this bakery tick and I wanted to take a moment, hopefully without embarrassing her too badly, to give a shout out to Lillie Talbott.

Lillie came to us quietly, and early on in this little bakery’s life, looking for a job. As far as I know, her first one ever outside of family gigs. She has grown into this work in such a natural and beautiful way and has made herself a critical part of the operation. We aren’t quite sure how we will manage without her. Lillie makes the bakery better, stronger, tidier, and more fun.

Once she mastered frying the perfect sandwich egg, she moved on to making the perfect sandwich, and now, folks who order specialty drinks specifically ask for Lillie to make it. If we have a job we need to ensure is done right, we ask Lillie to do it. When we bring on a new staff member, we have them shadow Lillie. When I am about to need a certain bowl or tool cleaned and ready to use again, Lillie has probably already anticipated that need and prepared the surface or the item.

The story that stands out to me though is the time that, after an extra long busy day of service, at the end of closing down the kitchen, everyone else had gone home for the day when Jeanne was bringing the mop bucket to empty and finds Lillie with a vacuum, cleaning the door mats at the front of the Golden Rule. Don’t you wish your teenager was like that?

This Bakery project has grown so far beyond what one or two people can do alone. It’s scary that way — we are dependent on others in a way that is scary to those of us who have been traumatized by the anti-collaborative actions of people we thought we could trust. Folks like Lillie restore my faith in others, and give me hope for the next generation. Guys, the Kids are Alright!

Lillie’s favorite pastry of all time is our current feature: the Asparagus Croissant. This photo is a special version we made this week for an order that also included ham, but normally it is a vegetarian pastry. Soup this week is Broccoli Cheddar (gf/v). We will also have some muffins out on the boards this weekend, and family-sized tiramisu pans in the grab n go in case you want to treat Mom, or anyone else, to a special dessert.

Our next train opportunity is coming up on short notice but we are excited about this one! A perfect-length evening train ride on Friday, June 19th will bring passengers from Elkins to Belington where the town is putting on a whole festival. We’ll have music and pizza night at the Golden Rule, and there will be food, exhibits, entertainment, etc., throughout town that evening. Anyone can attend the festival but if you have train tickets, you’ll hop back on that train just in time to catch sunset along the river as you roll back to Elkins.

Buy Tickets/More Info Here

Supported by our Barbour County Commission, the City of Belington, and WV Tourism, the ticket prices are affordable and the experience will be top notch. Snag yours now, before they sell out!

Finally, our basement museum has a new exhibit up featuring the Kitchen Experience provided by the Golden Rule Department Store. Check out the various toasters and find some surprises from the collection of china that survived decades in the bowels of the Building. Museum is open Saturday and Sunday during bakery hours, or by special appointment by emailing Robyn at americorps@woodlandswv.org

Better together y’all,

Katie, Jeanne, and the whole Bakery crew

We think that the easy interactions that seem to happen in this warm and welcoming Golden Rule Building are not a small part of why so many of you enjoy coming, lingering, and returning repeatedly to the Bakery. We’re happy to be an excuse to come spend time in this space!

Because connections seem to happen so naturally here, we have long considered different ways to create a singles-type event, a friendly meetup here at a place that feels so grounded in the brick and mortar real world, maybe a little time-travel throwback to the ol’ Golden Rule department store era of hand written receipts for dry goods, remedies, and utilitarian tools and furniture. Thus far every idea we’ve had feels too contrived and with lots of potential for misinterpretation or veering in unwanted directions. We just don’t want to go there.

But the fact remains: every day here is a chance to make a friend or to meet a neighbor, and when enough of those chance meetings happen, eventually, perhaps inevitably, one of those relationships will follow the path of a dating app type outcome.

In that past life, the one where computers, if you had one at all, stayed plugged in to a wall and internet use clogged the phone lines, it was Thursday evening bowling, burger and frieds at the local joint, or maybe a neighborhood walk or 5K event, or church social that brought folks together. And despite the proliferation of all these modern cloud-based solutions, here waiting for us when we look up from our screens, remain those same real-life opportunities: in-person events, and shared community spaces, and we hope that this place feels welcoming in a way that leaves you comfortable showing up as you are — with a date, your friends, your mother-in-law… or by yourself.

This Friday, May 1st would be a great time to test it out, if you haven’t already! We are open regular bakery hours 10-2, with all our exciting new May flavors. Pizza Night, which starts at 5 and usually wraps up by 8:30 or so, features the last of the fresh ramps and another round of this Tiramisu (gf) and Cowboy Caviar. Christopher Quattro will be playing from 6-8pm. He calls his style “Free Jazz/Surf/Noir/Incidental” which, while I can’t put my finger on exactly what that means, it sounds intriguing and like it would go really well with Pizza. Between Bakery hours and Pizza Hours we keep some extra baked goods from the day in case that’s the only time you are free to stop in. Soup this weekend is Spinach Coconut (df/gf/v)!

More on May options in the next newsletter, but suffice it to say that strawberries are still featured, along with the fresh asparagus I am picking daily (when it doesn’t frost), and some solid, classics along with our regular standard pastry flavors. The May bagel is Blueberry and cream cheeses will be strawberry and a garlic & chive, both at the request of our younger staff members.

The days are sufficiently long enough that we are ready to introduce our Summer Blend Tea. The black tea base is an Indian-style Assam, that has been mingling together with toasted coconut and cardamom seed for the past couple months. It brews quickly (1-2 minutes), and goes great straight or with milk, hot or iced. Super refreshing on a summer day — I like a mug of it hot in the cool of these mountain mornings as the sun crests over Laurel Mountain. Order a cup it from the kitchen or take a jar home with you while they last.

Thursday, May 7th is our next Trail Day. Join us as we embark on a new trail segment. Work will begin around 3pm at the walking bridge over the dam overflow area. Bring work gloves and any nippers or loppers that you might have. Light refreshments and drinks provided at the end!

Someone took us up on our request for bike ride leaders—and you win! Elkins’ Donna Smith is not only the other baker that provides goodies at TipTop but she’s also a bad ass biker who is a member of the All Bodies on Bikes team and has been challenging herself to some of our new Barbour County routes since they came on line last year. Donna is going to lead a ride of the Beaver Weaver loop on May 23rd — a 12.5 mile trip with rolling hills. So save the date, get your bikes in for a tune up, and get ready to roll with Donna and crew. Anyone else is welcome to reach out and call a ride — holler if you want us to promote it!

FINALLY, but not least of all, we have a new train opportunity on the summer schedule. We are partnering with Woodlands Development & Lending and our friends at the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley Railroad, to bring you a West Virginia Day/America 250 Celebration Sunset Trip. This evening trip starts and finishes at the Elkins Depot. Historic reenactors will join you on the trip and depict characters from the early days of West Virginia. The train will drop you at the Golden Rule right in the middle of our WV Day festival — music, food, and a festival atmosphere from the middle of town to the Golden Rule on one of the longest days of the year. Enjoy the festival and then chug back to Elkins along our favorite river at sunset. Funded in part by WV Tourism and with support from the Barbour County Commission, the tickets are a deal for this type of trip — so grab some for your family now, before they sell out.

We also do a lot of completely ordinary things at the bakery: We use simple concepts, combined with hard work, plenty of time, and even employ the help of those once-tadpole humans that lived inside me, to create croissants, bagels, sandwiches, soups, and more, out of basic molecular building blocks like flour and butter and salt. Any one of you could research recipes and methods, spend a few weeks making mistakes, and stumble into perhaps an even better formula to create a similar outcome. There is no magic here, but it is still pretty magical that it works — that they rise every time, that they brown and caramelize and blend into that je ne sais quoi that brings folks through the door week after week..

It is still magical to me that you show up, week in and week out, sometimes even in the middle of the week, hoping in vain that we had figured out how to accomplish mid-week hours for the shop.

The most magical thing about the bakery though, is the community that has intertwined itself with our space. Its really multiple communities woven together with the common ground of shared space, an openness to whatever we are baking, and a willingness to let us all be imperfect versions of the humans we are. You show up for irregular bagels, ever-varying pastries, and the peace of mind to correct our errors or celebrate our successes with love and understanding — positively ordinary everyday magic!

This week! Can you believe it’s our final week of April flavors already? Come stock up on ramp bagels and pastries, tiramisu cruffins, and those strawberry lemon danishes. Maple cream cheese and ramp cream cheese will phase out too.

Soup this week is Split Pea, made with a miso broth (gf and v). We have had some of our seasonal salads floating around our grab ‘n go cases too.

Coming up next week is our May Pizza Night on the 1st, with Chris Quattro playing music starting at 6pm. This is Chris’ first time playing in our space and we’re excited to host him.

Our trail work at the Reservoir is coming along. The crew is antsy to keep making progress so our next trail work day will be Thursday, May 7th from 3-6pm. We will have a graphic to help you remember by next week but save the date if you’ve been trying to make it. We provide some simple snacks and drinks. We are also lining up some bike rides and another train trip but we are not quite to announcement stage on those things yet. If you know someone who will want to hear about those opportunities, consider forwarding them this newsletter and they’ll be able to subscribe by tapping this button:

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Always a pleasure,

Katie, Jeanne, & the whole Bakery Crew

We were able to do a bunch of these last year — anything from super chill riverside out and backs to wildly rugged and adventurous tours around the county. This year, our staffing situation has not allowed us the flexibility to host these sorts of rides ourselves, despite the many folks who inquire at the bakery window.

So here’s where you come in because, while bake staff is critical to running a bakery, it is really not necessary for a bike ride. The community aspect of the Golden Rule is not the exclusive purview of Bakery staff — you are a part of our community and therefore you are hereby empowered to initiate a ride — and we’ll be here to hear your tales when you return. It is relatively easy now; we have curated gravel routes designed to start and finish at the Golden Rule that are hosted on the internet (info at the bakery) and short rides, runs, walks could be led by anyone slightly familiar with our area. So think about it: could YOU be a ride leader?

We know there’s interest in bike riding, but if that’s not your thing, please don’t feel left out. We are happy to help promote or put out a call for a walking or running group, a journal club, a bridge club, or a rock polishing group. Is that even a thing?

Now, on to what is already planned. First off, this week Jeanne is making a Green Chicken Chili — creamy with white beans, shredded chicken, green chilis, mmmmmh! its going to be the perfect accompaniment to this dose of summer that arrived this week. We hope you can make it in to try a bowl, or grab a quart to take home or to work with you. There’s also ramperoni croissants.

If you swing by on Saturday, you’ll be able to check out our Spring Artist Market from 10-2. We have all sorts of artists coming, from Belington-based weaver Lara Lawrence, Tygart River Woodcraft and Tygart River Pottery, to Montrose’ Bea Stowe and her niece with their amazing Pysanky eggs and Philippi’s Mindi Rockwell and her brother Benji Bowman. Come meet and get to know these wonderful artists who feature incredibly affordable ways to bring art into your life, or to stock up on beautiful gifts for your loved ones. Philippi’s Phil Bowers will be playing music starting around 11am.

Next week on Thursday, we are gathering a group of volunteers to work on clearing brush to open up some newly planned trails at the Mill Creek Reservoir, just up the road from the Bakery. We are in the early stages of developing an 8-mile trail system up there. The property has some awesome rock features and variable topography that will allow the system to have a wide variety of trail types to allow all sorts of uses, from gentle walking trails on a flat grade to rugged mountain bike type terrain. Curious? Come join us between 3 - 6 pm on Thursday, April 23rd. Bring your favorite pair of work gloves, a long sleeved shirt, and a pair of nippers or loppers if you can. We will provide guidance, encouragement, sweat equity, and some refreshments.

Next Pizza Night is Friday, May 1st and we are excited to welcome Chris Quattro as our live musician for the night. For the menu, we are going to stick with a similar lineup from April since the goodies are all still in season and it was all just so darn tasty last time.

Keep in real and hope you can find where you stowed the sunscreen at the end of last summer, and, if you enjoy this newsletter, consider inviting a friend to subscribe as well:

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Till next time,

Katie, Jeanne, and the whole bakery crew

A dear friend, so the story goes, spoke these words to a stranger at an art fair, and invited the stranger to visit here in Belington. The stranger did visit, and then, was no longer a stranger. Thus began a decades-long friendship and ideas/cultural exchange.

We’re so surrounded by beauty here that its easy to forget — as we run late in the morning, or have too many errands to get home before dark, sports practices, obligations, and rain, so much rain. And in March, when everything is a shade of grey or brown already and the earth just can’t accept any more water and the laundry won’t dry and its hard to even imagine the sun.

But even in the dampness, the melancholy gloom of a dreary day holds an undeniable beauty. And the variation and contrast creates the climate, the ecology, and the most incredible light. Don’t even get me STARTED on the breath-stealing beauty of a summer day on the Tygart River, if you are just able to take a moment to visit or at least to notice, as you drive along the highway.

This beauty is our every day and it shows up in highlights like our kids’ senior photos and family reunion locations but that beauty also bears witness to our toughest days, and holds memory of our deepest sorrows. These hills and creeks, rocks and rivers, winding and switchbacked roads are the glorious backdrop to our regular every days and in the same way that you can’t truly appreciate your health until it is missing, it is too easy to take this place for granted.

With the steady trickle of new customers through the Bakery, we get to experience the wonder of the Golden Rule, the Tygart River and Tygart River Valley, Laurel Mountain and the Mon Forest again and again as we meet folks who are meeting these things for the first time or with fresh eyes. Join the Tygart Watershed Association for their Spring Cleanup Event this Saturday from 9-noon — and stop by the bakery afterwards for a free bagel and cookie. Register Here »

We continue to feature ramps this weekend as we celebrate the undeniable arrival of spring with these pungent little buggers. We’re calling this pastry Ramps in a Blanket and they’re a taco wrap of our homemade pastry dough along with a dollop of whipped cream cheese and shredded white cheddar. Strawberry Lemon Curd danish are holding down the sweet side of our seasonal pastry options and they were very popular last weekend. Of course you can snag some chocolate, almond, pepperoni roll, spinach feta, or other standard flavors as well.

Ramp Bagels and Maple Cream cheese are your seasonal options on the bread side of the sales racks and soup this week is Loaded Potato Soup. And we still have bags of those Big Bagel Chips for sale. Hoping you enjoy them as much as we do!

We had a beautiful time last weekend at pizza night — packed inside and out. The Infamous Collective Open Mic brought us a bit of everything from punk rock to poetry… to this...

Hope you have a moment this week to appreciate the season and the wild world that surrounds us!