Our story began in 2002, when my family left Russia and settled down in Texas. A few weeks later I started craving Russian rye bread. I couldn't find any at the grocery store, so I had to experiment. Baking at home and working at several bakeries gave me the knowledge and experience I needed. In about a year I was able to provide my family with bread which was very close to what we had enjoyed years ago and thousands of miles away.

Having mastered a few wheat and rye breads, I began working on cakes and cookies. Friends liked them, and we often baked for special occasions. In 2007, we started Hidden Berry Cakes and Breads. Five years later I received a PhD in Jewish Studies , worked for a few years as a scholar in Georgia and Massachusetts, and finally came to New Hampshire. It soon became clear that bread attracted me more than academic scholarship. I quit all other jobs and concentrated on baking, feeling blessed and happy.

New Hampshire’s Homestead Food Operations Law allowed me to bake at home, but in 2016, our production volume increased and we invested in a small enclosed trailer. With the help of my family and friends, I repaired the frame, installed a window, insulated the walls, added a roof and wooden siding. The window trim and the roof facia follow traditional ornamentation common in Northern Russian villages. The shop was heated with a wood stove in the winter and cooled with a window AC system in the summer.

In 2018, my family moved to Texas again, and so did my bread shop. For two years I baked in Texas, both at Hidden Berry and at a big commercial bakery, until we decided to return to New Hampshire. It was a unique experience, and I am very grateful to all our old and new friends, colleagues, and customers who supported the bakery during these two years. Soon after we came back, the new virus changed our life and plans more than we could expect. Signing a lease and opening a bakery didn't make any sense in times of uncertainty, so I put all our baking equipment into storage, went to a CDL school and drove a truck until things returned to normal again. In early 2022, I signed a lease in Salem NH. After a few months of construction and remodeling, we opened a brick and mortar bakery under a new name: Bread Makery!