“Dipinti di Pane” (literally ‘Paintings of Bread’) was born as a tiny bakery in Collegno, just at the gates of Torino, and as the founder Laura Cavallo tells us: “That is how it should stay. The dream is to make bread alive in the community’s everyday explaining its goodness and poetry through shapes and colors. In order to do it, the best way is to welcome the customers in a sort of warm nest, in a location where they have all the necessary time to appreciate the quality and the dedication required for its production. Through this peculiar exercise we all recover a human dimension in the trade relationship, that is actually upturned by the consumerist logic of the large-scale distribution”.
Here is one more beautiful example of “Handicraft”, which comforts and supports us throughout our journey in search of artisanal expertise. But let’s step backwards in Laura Cavalli’s life, who, since her childhood, had been thinking of a future in a Hotellerie School (a small seed…), then oriented to studies in Accountancy and a Degree in Science of Education. Diverse interests, all of which important to her, merging together in a professionality expended in the public administration. A demanding commitment, working for the “public affairs”. Laura is a woman of ideals and at the beginning she had a strong motivation, but excessive fatigue often becomes a fertile ground for a change. And this is how, as it often occurs, an apparent random baking class opens a new path forward to be followed with passion.
In life all experiences build up and reveal their usefulness: then a new project of self-activity takes shape, based on a consolidated know-how needed for the business start-up. In recent years the public attention for cooking has increased at all levels, but Laura is mostly interested in the chemical aspect of cooking and bread-making. From a birthday gift class stems the passion and the plan for the realization of a workshop. In the wake of this great energy the bakery “Dipinti di Pane” opens: an unconventional bakery, since then growing in terms of customers and staff. Laura is truly proud to be able to offer new employment posts, as, for her, a commercial activity is not only business. “It’s great – she states – to have been an answer and not a solution. I work a lot with clients also on a human basis. I feel their economic or working hardship and I love to collaborate with my stuff in harmony”.
Let’s focus back on the heart of the project: “My aim has always been to reintroduce bread in the people’s everyday. It was longtime lost. It has more and more been considered residual and devalued. I try to reinstate bread dignity, by means of some selected simple products (keywords), that all together are again protagonists of our daily life. This is my commitment”.
In this tiny “nest” my customers stop and buy, reserve or just quietly think about bread. And the added value is the maximum quality in the search for row materials. Bread is made of long-ripened sourdough one day for the other. This means managing low quantities of product. But, why “painted”? “This represents the other aspect of the project, the conceptual one: the coincidence of the ideas of Beautiful with Goodness. The creative flair involves also bread and helps me entering the beautiful in the everyday.
The aesthetics is another value too much neglected in our frivolous society. I believe we need to surround ourselves of true, substantial Beauties, born to effort and fatigue. We have been among the first ones to paint on bread by cocoa or turmeric. Now I do less of them and I focus more on creative carvings, all but easy to obtain. We must be ready to cut it, as bread inspire us to do. Moreover, bread has a strong evocative power, unchain a tender olfactory memory, reminding of grandparents, of childhood. Bread is life.” We are now very curious to smell and taste these products. Which ones are the most sold and appreciated? “Two durum wheat loaves, the Sicilian one is the easiest, the other one named Princess Timilia is a feminine loaf; then the ‘Se mi vuoi’ bread, made of soft wheat with a great blend of seeds: the walnut-bread, very rich in walnuts that I purchase from a high-quality Veneto-based farm. I work on big format, from 1 kg above, with exception of the small ‘biova’, coming from Piedmont heritage. Furthermore, here there are the flatbreads, very simple, too: from the traditional ‘focaccia ligure’ to the colorful vegetarian, always garnished with fresh vegetables. The ‘panbrioche’, the ‘kanelbullar’, a typical Swedish cake in the shape of clew with honey and cinnamon flavored stings…”.
Enjoy!!!
DIPINTI DI PANE
Corso Francia 251 bis – COLLEGNO
TEL. 3518947135