Eugene weekly., October 13, 2005, Page 30, Image 30

bread they want will be ready. And they
come to hang out with Bill.
After 17 years, he’s a legend in this
small town of just more than 4,000. He
started the bakery with a partner back in
1988 but, “The bakery wasn’t making
money that first year and we had to decide
who wanted to keep the business,”
Hotchkiss said. “And I definitely did.”
Fit and wiry, with a prickly gray stubble,
Hotchkiss, 57, greets his customers by
name as they walk through his door. He
glides across the room to give a quick hug,
then moves back to the tasks at hand: He
walks briskly from the Hobart where the
dough for yeast-free French bread with sun-
flowers is mixing, brushes yellow cornmeal
off the wide, flat boards he uses to slide the
bread in and out of the ovens, then walks
over to the piles of dough he neatly meas-
ured just minutes before and shapes them
into loaves.
In the early ’80s Hotchkiss was living in
Massachusetts and delivering bread for the
Rising at Sunrise
Baker Bill Hotchkiss feeds more than the body.
STORY AND PHOTOS BY MELISSA BEARNS
T
he bell above the door of the
Sunrise Sourdough Bakery in
Philomath chimes and an-
other customer walks from
the crisp chill of a sunny fall
day into the 100-degree heat of the room.
The young woman pauses, inhaling deeply,
breathing in the sweet, yeasty smell of ris-
ing dough mixed with the aroma of the
whole wheat, yellow potato and oat bread
that’s baking in one of the three wide black
ovens.
All day long people drop in, the chiming
of the bell marking their arrival — men in
business suits, moms with kids in tow,
young men in ripped jeans, old friends in
town for just a few hours. They come for the
crusty loaves of vegan, organic, sourdough
bread that Bill Hotchkiss carefully lines up
on a metal rack, the shelves filling up with
7
‘I’d rather chase
time than money.
Because that’s the
only true freedom
there is.’
different types of bread that he slides out of
the ovens throughout the day. They come in
the morning for the sticky, gooey whole
— Bill Hotchkiss
wheat cinnamon rolls, loaded with sweet
raisins, made with apple juice
and brown sugar. Then they
come back later for the
pumpernickel rye with caraway
seeds or the garlic onion bread.
They come to warm up in-
side the sunny room where the
walls are painted with bright
yellows and splatters of red,
decorated with intricate batiks
and small tapestries. They stop
Hotchkiss has customers make their own change
by to check the black chalk-
out of a cigar box he’s had since he opened the
board on the wall with today’s
store. He adopted the honor system from
“menu,” and to ask when the
farm stands in Iowa where he grew up.
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6 • WHAT’S HAPPENING Corvallis
What's Happening Corvallis is
looking for Corvallis-based writers
capable of covering news, music,
performing arts, politics and
other topics of general interest in
Corvallis. Writing experience and
knowledge of AP style preferred
but not required. Applicants inter-
ested in covering Corvallis and
Corvallis only, send cover letter
and resumé to Melissa Bearns
by email or snail mail:
melissa@eugeneweekly.com or
1251 Lincoln St.,
Eugene, OR, 97402.