The Rise of Daily Bread

Hi, there! I'm Laura, owner of Daily Bread. Not so long ago, I baked the same way a lot of people do, for fun. I grew up baking cakes and cookies of all sorts in my mother's kitchen, and loved every minute. By high school, my neighbors looked forward to seeing my face at the door during the holidays, because I was usually bearing a plate of fresh cookies. I experimented and grew, learned to make bread, and continued tempting friends and family with my contributions to parties and potlucks. But like a lot of baking enthusiasts, that's as far as I ever intended to go with it.

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Here's the tricky thing. I was born with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that makes it difficult to be on my feet for long stretches. I held several positions in food service over the years, and loved the fast pace and constant interaction with all sorts of people... but by the end of the day I could barely stand. In January of 2010 I left my last job when even prescription pain-killers couldn't keep me on my feet all day anymore. I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to work again, but my husband had a good job, we had insurance, we were okay.​

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Economic Collapse, enter Stage Right. Before I knew it, we were barely scraping by.  We moved across the country to consolidate households with relatives who were also struggling, because it was the only place my husband was able to find a reliable job. Selling off belongings to pay the bills, and come November 2011, now there's a baby. Oh, there are jobs to be had in the area, but they're all of the sort that keeps a person standing and going the whole day with a thirty minute lunch and a fifteen minute break in there somewhere if you're lucky. Meanwhile I can't tolerate more than an hour or so on my feet without a level of medication that I'm no longer able to take, because now I have a nursing infant. It was time to get creative.

 

​Thing is, "getting creative" is a lot easier said than done. I tried ... well, everything, over the next year. If it was even remotely feasible, I gave it a shot, but nothing stuck. And then, just before Easter 2013 I took a loaf of bread to an anniversary celebration at my church, just a simple loaf of bread. I was embarrassed because I could offer no better gift, but determined not to arrive empty-handed. Everyone loved it, then someone asked me for the recipe, and I did something I'd never done before in my life. I said "It's simple... but I sell this bread." A friend commented that she could eat my bread every day. Three days later I sold two loaves. I spent the week drawing logos, making flyers, and dreaming. Listening to that still, small Voice telling me to focus, push, this was the right time, the right place, the opportunity is now. A stranger at my son's pediatrician saw me working on coupons and ordered bread. I built a Facebook page. I took pictures. A loaf shared out at an evening get-together netted me four new orders. I bought a second dutch oven so I could keep up. And before I knew it, I was baking cookies again, and handing out business cards. Every new day seems to bring an order, an idea, or a contact. It's dizzying, let me tell ya, but exhilarating and fulfilling and wonderful all at the same time.​