{"id":15594,"date":"2017-01-06T07:52:26","date_gmt":"2017-01-06T14:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=15594"},"modified":"2017-01-09T10:43:48","modified_gmt":"2017-01-09T17:43:48","slug":"french-baker-to-set-up-shop-in-downtown-billings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/01\/french-baker-to-set-up-shop-in-downtown-billings\/","title":{"rendered":"French baker to set up shop in downtown Billings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Judd\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Baker Francois Morin, seen in the Kibler & Kirch design studio on the second floor of the Stapleton Building. He plans to open a bakery on the ground floor. Behind him are works by Judd Thompson.<\/p><\/div>\n

Having spent most of his life working as an information technology expert on three continents, Francois Morin has a new home and is embarking on a decidedly different new career.<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old Frenchman is planning to open a small bakery in downtown Billings this spring, concentrating on a handful of simple, traditional French breads.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main thing is to get as close to natural as possible,\u201d Morin said. He intends to use Montana wheat as much as possible, and though he envisions breads with added ingredients, like walnuts, he will stick mainly with flour, water and yeast. And he won\u2019t be in a hurry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe slower you go, the more flavor in the bread,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He hasn\u2019t come up with a name for the bakery yet, but he does have a location\u2014on the ground floor of the Stapleton Building at Broadway and First Avenue North. He\u2019ll be on the First Avenue side, tucked in between the Big Dipper Ice Cream shop and a doctor\u2019s office that is just east of Rockets Gourmet Wraps.<\/p>\n

Morin will be leasing the space from Jeremiah Young, who runs the Kibler & Kirch design studio<\/a> on the second floor of the Stapleton Building. Young met Morin a few months ago, through a mutual friend, and the gears soon started clicking.<\/p>\n

Young had already been thinking of an event he would call \u201cBreaking Bread,\u201d bringing artists and serious collectors together in his Stapleton Gallery<\/a> over a good meal based on good bread.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just love to eat with people,\u201d Young said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very intimate thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n

The dinner, in early December, was a big hit. It featured Jeremy Engebretson<\/a>, the chef-owner of the Lilac caf\u00e9, and\u00a0Morin, who created a different bread to pair with each of Engebretson\u2019s dishes. Invitations to the dinner were in the form of miniature loaves of black charcoal bread, dusted with the Stapleton Building logo.<\/p>\n

Based on that event and a few other affairs at which Morin\u2019s loaves have been available, Engebretson said, \u201cthe response has been just ridiculous for his bread.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when Young found out Morin wanted to open a bakery, he had just the spot for him. Voila<\/em>, you might say. Young described it as \u201ca narrow, intimate, wonderful little space,\u201d perfectly suited for a small bakery.<\/p>\n

The space still needs to be renovated, a doorway will have to be cut into the exterior wall and a baking oven is on order. Morin is also looking for a big mixer. Asked when he hoped to open, he said, \u201clast year.\u201d As it is, he\u2019s shooting for sometime this spring.<\/p>\n

Morin is connected to Billings through his wife, Marmee Connell, a Billings Senior High graduate who is the daughter of developer Marty Connell. After college, in 1990, Marmee went to Paris to work in IT for the same company that employed Francois.<\/p>\n

\"Breads\"<\/a>

Stapleton Gallery<\/p>

A selection of loaves Morin baked for the “Breaking Bread” dinner at the Stapleton Gallery.<\/p><\/div>\n

Long story short, they were married in 1994\u2014at \u201ca big wedding in Red Lodge,\u201d Francois said\u2014and then had three children, all born in Paris. They moved to South Africa in 2002, where Morin headed the same company\u2019s IT department, and after five years they moved to Singapore, where Morin was in charge of the company\u2019s IT operations in Asia.<\/p>\n

After five years there, he was going to be transferred back to Paris, but he and Marmee decided to stay in Singapore, where he worked on his own for four more years. They decided last year it was time for a new adventure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was time to change countries, change environments, try something different,\u201d Morin said.<\/p>\n

Over their years together, Marmee had come back to Montana with the children every summer and Morin had been here regularly, too. So Montana it was. As for work, Morin decided he\u2019d had enough of the corporate world, and he wanted to try something he loved.<\/p>\n

During all their years abroad, Morin said, he learned to make bread, and good food generally, for a simple reason: \u201cThe best way to have good food when you are away is to make it yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

His passion for bread-making deepened in Singapore, where he met a Malaysian man who made superb French breads, made them so well that Morin studied under him. When Morin opens his bakery in Billings, he\u2019ll be using the sourdough starter he acquired in Singapore.<\/p>\n

The bakery will be a one-man operation, at least at the start, and though he may add a few items like croissants at some point, he will focus solely on bread to begin with\u2014classic baguettes, sourdough bread and country loaves, some made with rye and buckwheat.<\/p>\n

He will sell everything fresh, which is absolutely essential with breads like baguettes. In Montana with its dry climate, he said, \u201cyou cannot keep it (a baguette loaf) three days because it\u2019s going to be hard as a rock.\u201d<\/p>\n

He will take orders through a website, which will guarantee people bread when they need it for special occasions and will help him plan which styles of bread to make on any given day.<\/p>\n

When he and Marmee moved to Billings last summer, Morin said, some people said he would do much better if he opened his bakery on the West End. For him, there was never any doubt that it would be downtown.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been coming downtown for 25 years and it\u2019s improved so much,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

With a growing population of downtown dwellers patronizing an ever-growing number of cafes, coffee shops and craft breweries, he said, and with so many other specialty businesses downtown, a French bakery seems like a natural fit.<\/p>\n

And after nine years in Singapore, where it is perpetually warm and quite humid, he\u2019s even enjoying the recent streak of Arctic weather.<\/p>\n

He laughed and said that might change, depending on how long the streak persists.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe after three months, we\u2019ll see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Windows\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Do you see those four windows set into the brick wall on the ground floor of the Stapleton Building? Morin’s bakery will occupy the space behind the two windows on the left. Don’t worry, a door will be added.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having spent most of his life working as an information technology expert on three continents, Francois Morin has a new home and is embarking on a decidedly different new career. The 55-year-old Frenchman is planning to open a small bakery in downtown Billings this spring, concentrating on a handful of simple, traditional French breads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[5338,1433,2262,647,5339,4569],"class_list":["post-15594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-diversions","tag-francois-morin","tag-jeremiah-young","tag-jeremy-engebretson","tag-lilac","tag-marmee-connell-morin","tag-stapleton-building","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}