Michael and Wendy London own Mrs. London's, the much loved, groundbreaking Saratoga pastry shop where everything has always been made from scratch with real food ingredients.

Through my reading and conversations on artisan bread making, I had been tipped off to Michael's wide-reaching influence on the course of artisan bread baking. I would chuckle, for the couple resides less than 3 miles from my Washington County home.

Baking has been the ongoing quest and journey in Michael's life. While he learned the art of pastry making by working with masters, he considers bread making his inner path. "Most of my breads have come to me through dreams," he explained.

His vision inspired a generation of bakers.  He tells me that he's one of less than a handful of gurus who pioneered crusty bread, and names just two others on the east coast, Dan Lider of Bread Alone in Ulster County and Noel Labat-Comess of Tom Cat Bakery in Long Island City.

Like many bakers, Michael had a woman in his family who was a wonderful baker. In Brooklyn, his nana was famous for her baked goods and gefilte fish. When he was away at school, she used to send him huge care packages with her prune and nut roll and other favorite creations.

Michael dates his own experiments with baking (he recalls making a white onion bread) to 1968. Michael remembers that year, during which he was a national teaching fellow at a small black college in Little Rock, for Martin Luther King's assassination and a friend's birthday present to him of a Forschner bread knife.

After one more stop in academia at Skidmore, where he taught literature and poetry for 2 years, he waited tables at a Mexican restaurant in Greenwich Village and baked bread at home. Michael’s boss liked his wheat soy loaf so much that he asked Michael to make it for the restaurant.

Michael went on to develop subscriptions for his bread. "Unbeknownst to me, Wendy [his future wife] was also biking her own bread around the Village."

One of the few places Michael could turn with his baking questions – like where to buy whole grains -- was Ananda East, the city's largest natural foods bakery, inspired by the Sufi movement.  After several months of inquiry, a baking job opened up there for Michael. 

To move beyond the limitations at Ananda East, Michael also sought out positions with more traditional bakers. He'd need to join the International Confectioners Union, but he wouldn't be able to get in unless he found a bakery that wanted to hire him.

But Michael's favorite bakeries kept on rejecting him. The gracious owner of Patisserie Bonté said no, pleading an overly cramped workspace. At William Greenberg Jr. Desserts, the proprietor told Michael, that he was "out of his gourd."

Months later, Mr. Greenberg did hire him as a union apprentice for the holiday season. Here was his lucky break, but Michael had to get out of jury duty to report for work on his first day. By coincidence, one of the many scattered along his baking journey, the Master of Jurors had previously been bakery manager at Sutter's, and he released him.

After the holidays ended, Michael moved on to Éclair Pastries, a Viennese bakery with a shop on West 72nd Street. He spent about six months as a union apprentice, while still baking at Ananda East, which was growing fast.

The natural foods bakery had opened another retail shop in the East Village and taken over a former Italian bakery in Astoria Queens, where they baked some of the first croissants Balducci's ever sold. They were sweetened with honey, as Ananda East didn't use white sugar. 

To lighten his load, Bonnie wanted to hire Wendy to be Michael's apprentice, but Michael felt, "Her arms were too skinny. I couldn't imagine her lifting a rolling pin, let alone a bag of flour."  Bonnie had the final say, and Michael and Wendy ended up working side by side.  The two ended up falling in love, and they tied the knot between batches of cake. But with their busy schedule, they had to delay their honeymoon four years.

The couple chose April Fools Day, 1977, for their big move to Saratoga Springs. Ignoring warnings that they would starve in the long off-season, they invested their meager life savings plus money borrowed from their families to start the first Mrs. London's, then located on Phila Street.

After days of baking, they opened on July 4th, and were "wiped out to the last crumb." After the second day, they had to close to catch up. They had stayed in the bakery for 54 hours straight. "When we got down to a 24 hour shift, we were on holiday," Michael recounts.

About seven years later the city closed their street on and off for five months to put in a storm sewer and prevent flooding. Mrs. London's lost $300,000 in sales, and went out of business.

The Londons had fled Manhattan dreaming of life in the country. In 1983, a week before their daughter Sophie was born, they moved to an old farmhouse in Greenwich.

At Mrs. London's, Michael and Wendy had become "like two ships passing in the night," working different shifts. Now they contemplated a slower life centered in their new home. Wendy told Michael it was his turn to decide their next move. He chose his first love – bread.

In 1983 his mother, who was living in Monterey, California, suggested her son try her favorite local sourdough bread. Michael made the acquaintance of the Italian baker who made it and then traded instruction on making brioche and croissants for his secrets of sourdough.

A few years later, the original Rock Hill Bakehouse was born, taking the historic name of the London's stony rural property. "That fall I baked bread every day and Wendy critiqued it." Soon they had hooked up with a smokehouse in nearby Salem that made weekly deliveries to New York City. The Londons sent down bread samples to gourmet stores like Dean and DeLuca, and Balducci's, and "103 percent of the time, we’d get a call the next day, wanting our bread eight days a week," Michael said.  

With demand building, Michael's oldest son Josh; Adam Witt, Josh's childhood friend; and Josh's half brother Matt Funiciello, a.k.a. "JAM," joined the business and eventually took over baking. They started a bread route in Vermont and later got a booth at Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan (where Rock Hill still sells today).

With the addition of JAM, Rock Hill grew production to 8,000 pounds of bread a week and baking six days out of seven (up from two) -- all within a 500 square foot kitchen!

"It was all choreographed. Balanchine would have been proud of our bread dance!"

Meanwhile, Michael launched Rock Hill Consulting. Through the business, he, later with Wendy, and finally Adam Witt, trained bakers around the country and licensed the breads Michael had developed to their bakeries. At the high point, thirteen licensees around the country were using Rock Hill recipes and methods.  (Among them -- Zingerman's in Ann Arbor and Whole Foods.)

With a commercial bakery in their kitchen, Wendy had moved cooking to an extension of a windowsill off their bathroom, where she heroically prepared meals from scratch with only a two-burner hot plate, a small toaster oven, and a little espresso machine. Dishes drained in the bathtub. After seven and a half years, she kicked the bakery out with four or five months notice. Rock Hill Bakehouse moved to Gansevoort, and Matt Funiciello ended up buying out the others.

Although consulting was stimulating, the Londons missed the satisfaction of serving their own community. They would re-open Mrs. London's, but first Michael insisted he needed to spend time in France to deepen his knowledge.

On a trip to Paris, he fell in love with a new pastry shop run by a Monsieur Mulot. Through four years of visits, Michael hopes of getting an opportunity to work there were consistently turned down. Then, on a day that both men had their daughters with them, his persistence paid off.

A half-year later, when Michael began his coveted position, a French book on bread was released. It didn't hurt that Rock Hill was one of the only three American bakeries included.

During his two months with M. Mulot, Michael was able to take 1,000 photos. Then he was able to do a stint at Fauchon, another renowned bakery, thanks to an introduction by a friend, the food writer at Vogue.

These experiences, plus the purchase of $17,000 worth of small wares at a Parisian pastry supply store, enabled the couple to re-create many of their old recipes, and thus take the new Mrs. London's to a higher level.

After over 35 years as a baker, Michael's primary role today is running the two family businesses, the bakery and his younger son Max's restaurant. He also serves as Mrs. London's holiday baker, specializing in seasonal delicacies like Stollen, Panatone, and Columba Pasquale.

While contemplating his next step in his lifelong pursuit of perfect bread, Michael plans to introduce more locals to his breads and pastries at the Saratoga Winter Farmers Market, where Mrs. London's will be selling for the first time.