A Gold Mine at Deadwood Junction and Tarnish Turkey Cappuccino in Greenwood, BC, Canada

An Ounce of Gold

Bruce Jepsen, the latest custodian of Deadwood Junction and Tarnished Turkey Cappuccino, acknowledges that he has a gold mine.

He makes a very valid point though, about his mine, "How much effort do you think is required to get an ounce of gold out of the mine?" In the case of Deadwood Junction, a surprising amount of effort is required to operate the small coffee shop, tourism stop, bakery, and summer BBQ joint on BC's Highway 3.

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Deadwood Junction is in a place most people, and some would say time itself, has long gone forgotten. Greenwood, British Columbia and the Boundary Country south of the Okanagan, on the US Border may be the last holdout where small businesses can still stand a chance to mine an ounce of gold.

Ask most small business owner-operators in Canada today, and many will admit that it may not be worth the effort anymore. Many have mines that are abandoned, shut down, or the miners are on strike hoping for another time where small business owners and entrepreneurs will be allowed to succeed again without hindrance from overbearing bureaucracies.

Many, like us, strive to live and work in a Utopia where rules, taxes and operating costs are not an issue. Where entrepreneurs are allowed to hang on to more than half of their profits. Where people can be employed, skills can be developed, where they can create value and can focus on making great products and delivering services that are appreciated by the people around them, their community.

If this is you, then maybe this part of Canada with its rich history, simple pleasures and great weather may have a place for your business. Life here is easier. Much slower and a dollar goes a lot further.

Be prepared to hear more about the Boundary Country in BC from the Two Cowboys.

Deadwood Junction was founded in 2009. It is located in the beautiful City of Greenwood right off Highway 3. It is a must stop and comes highly recommended by the Cowboys. Bruce and Katie Jepsen are the current owners of a business that looks like it pre-dated Canada. Knowing the fascinating history of the area, it probably does date from a couple of centuries ago.

They make great coffee. Bruce has been baking all his life and cannot wait to get out of bed at 03:00 in the morning to get your cinnamon bun hot, sweet, sticky, and ready. He and Katy also make a prize-winning Beef Chilli. That is a story for another time.

Their little store also sells antiques and local artisan work. As small businesses do, they support local small town talent where they can!

Observations

Once a baker, always a baker. Bruce claims that he was born a baker. Nothing can replace the joy he gets from seeing you appreciate his baking and his coffee (which he takes great care to do custom for every one of his favourite clients (you know if you are one ;-))

We are proud to feature Bruce's buns this time and hope to have many more stories for you from Deadwood Junction and Tarnished Turkey Cappuccino and the small communities and entrepreneurs in this fantastic part of British Columbia, Canada.

Hendrik van Wyk 

Cinnamon Cowboy

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Deadwood

Two Cowboys Flatwhite

The Junction

The Team

Two Cowboys: Grown Up Cookies With Real Treat and Scotch in Cochrane, Alberta, Canada

Grown-Up Cookies

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Have you ever had your cookie with Scotch? Didn't think so.

Most people outgrow cookies by age twelve and rediscover it when their babies cut teeth. The next time a substantial amount of cookies make into your diet is when little Suzie signs up for Girl Scouts. The excuse is that you have to help her make her sales target. Yeah, right. There are other occasions when cookies feature in our lives. Christmas, birthdays and tea time with English relatives.

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That was before we met Jacqueline Day. She introduced us to grown-up cookies, or rather cookies for grown-ups. Thanks to her we've invented a whole new reason for cookies. Cookies with Scotch! Let me introduce you to her fledgeling cookie empire called Real Treat.

She describes her flavour creations as unapologetically delicious. She is allowed to do that because she's taken flavouring cookies to a whole new level. Without compromise. I mean top class chef quality creations wrapped in a cookie form factor! The layers are there, the textures are there, the pairings are divine. This is no ordinary cookie.

Jacqueline mentioned that Real Treat is serious about ingredients. That is a given. The traditional bits are there. Butter, sugar, eggs, and wheat flour forms the base for most of them. Then comes in-house candied lemon peel, smoked pecans, organic dark chocolate, cinnamon caramel. The list goes on and on with exotics that make it into the recipes.

Anyone can add exotic ingredients and make just another cookie. For Jacqueline, it is not only the quality of ingredients that make Real Treat cookies a real treat. It is rather her processes of flavour pairings that she infuses into the base. It delivers a balanced and delicious surprise every time you let one melt in your mouth.

All her cookies are hand-made and baked in a tiny little kitchen in Cochrane Alberta. She sells them at farmers markets and pop-up stores and selected retail stores across Canada (list on her website). She recently launched her online cookie store to ship all over Canada.

Observations

Chefs are entertainers. 

Everything they do with food and flavour is intended to solicit a reaction. If you want nourishment then cook a steak, make a sandwich, eat some McDonalds and drink Starbucks. If you want to be taken on a journey and experience flavour entertainment, find a good Chef, Chocolatier, Brewmaster, Gelato Master, Winemaker or Barista. These people specialise in olfaction and gustation titillation. 

Jacqueline is on the same journey. She entertains people with cookies. We predict that today it is cookies. Tomorrow it will be something else. What drives her? The pleasure of seeing the surprise on people's faces when they enjoy her cookie creations. It is this surprise reaction, and her drive to learn, discover and create that makes Real Treat cookies so unique. As with all makers, her cookies contain a little bit of Day personality.

It is this that we appreciate about a Real Treat Cookie paired with our favourite peaty Scotch. They both come highly recommended.

Hendrik van Wyk
Cookie Cowboy

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Real Treat

Lemon Peel

Smoked Pecans

Cookie Nest

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Two Cowboys on a Journey: JK Bakery - Canmore, Alberta

When Others Sleep

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I can still remember the delicious smell from my younger days, of freshly baked bread early in the morning coming from the kitchen on the farm. There aren't many scents that stir up so many good memories as the sweet smell of steamy hot freshly baked white bread, the moment it comes out of the oven. 

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Break it open. Let some butter melt in the snowy-white middle. When you bite into the crispy crust, you get that familiar feeling. The comfortable, at home, happy feeling you used to get when you were a little boy in your Mum or Nanna's kitchen.

These were the days when department stores and Supermarkets we out of reach. When it was too far to zip in for the daily produce. Store bought bread didn't, or couldn't compete with that which freshly baked yeast and sourdough loaves delivered. Butter for your bread still came from cream that was skimmed off yesterday's milk. These were the good old days. Comfortable days. 

As you can tell, I love freshly baked bread. It is such a delicacy that in my home, we make it a point to bake our own bread for special occasions and family visits. If I cannot bake my own, then I have a secret go-to place for it in Canmore: JK Bakery. They still do it they way it used to be done.

Nestled in the Canadian Rocky Mountains is a small Artisan Bakery that produces quality baked goods to its local residents, and to tourists from around the world. The ones that know the secret. You won't find them on the main street. Locals know where they are. In Canmore, we selfishly call them "our secret bakery".

JK Bakery has been quietly operating in the town of Canmore since 1994. They provide wholesome bread and tasty treats to retail and wholesale customers throughout the Bow Valley. JK Cafe, the face of JK Bakery has been operating from their Railway Avenue location since 1999. It is the place for a coffee, pie, cup of soup, great pastries and our favourite varieties of freshly baked bread. A meeting place for the locals.

As with all good artisan bakeries, you have to be there early or risk disappointment. The ciabattas come out of the oven at 02:00. Doors open early around 07:30. They keep things simple. In their bread you will find deluxe bread flour milled from the best grain Southern Alberta has to offer. Pure Rocky Mountain water, salt and yeast are the only other ingredients for the majority of what they make.  Some of their doughs still need to rest for a full day before it is divided and shaped for baking.

JK's bread don’t have the additives and preservatives used by most commercial bakeries for extending shelf life. They don't need it. It doesn't need to last that long. Because it is that delicious, you wouldn't want to leave it lying anyway.  It gives you an excuse to visit often. 

Impressions

If you want to learn about baking, you have to be where it happens. You have to be there when it happens. 

The Two Cowboys reported for duty at 23:30 with the baking crew already well into the night shift. Mike, the head baker and his colleague quickly inducted us into the go-go-go world of midnight baking. He didn't spare us any advice or comment about his continued motivation and colourful career being a baker.

We listened intently to his adventures and stories. What a life. What he does may be considered by many as a dying art. He is one of a handful of "old school" makers. It is amazing to observe how he knows just what to touch, how much to use, how the dough should feel, and what it should sound like when it mixes. And then there is the glorious smell to make the midnight hours go by quickly. When it all aligns and come together, you get that glorious smell of freshly baked bread. Good morning!

Dough flew, ovens hissed, buns rolled, and before we knew it the ciabattas were ready to come out of the oven. Wow! Is all we could say. What a taste experience it is to get a ciabatta fresh out of the oven. You have to try it. By 07:30 it is still perfect. Just not as perfect as the moment it came out of the oven. If there was a way to get it at 02:00 we will be up all night, ready and waiting for our share.

One piece of extraordinary equipment caught our attention. It seems to be the single most important item in the whole bakery. It shows its age: The baker's scale. Everything that passes through the baking processes, somehow makes a pass on the scale. Sometimes, several times over. Firstly as ingredients are measured, and then as the dough is cut and weighed into the right sizes for the different kinds of bread.

We are convinced that JK Bakery has one of the original models. I think it dates from the late last century. Definitely from before batteries were invented. Angie (co-owner) rightly informed us that the day she retires, she will take one item with her. The scale. It is the heart and soul of the bakery.

Maybe it is the one thing she should leave behind rather. Something to inspire new bakers to continue the trade.

Thank you, Samantha, Angie and the crew of JK Bakery for taking us into the heart of a traditional bakery. Nowadays we call it Artisan Bakeries. There was a time when it was just called The Bakery, and every town had at least one.

We enjoyed our ciabattas, and we continue to enjoy your bread and pies. Thank you for baking our bread in Canmore, Alberta the old school way. The good way. 

We are sorry, the secret has to come out now. The whole world will soon know just how good it is to get bread at JK Bakery.

Hendrik van Wyk

Sourdough Cowboy

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Swiss Baking in Canmore

Many Styles

Australian?

More Please

Expert Hands

The Famous Scale