Dave Dahl
I had to pay the bills and get some fresh bakery experience after 20 years of cooling off. So I started by filling in for absent bakers, de-panning thousands of loaves of Nature Bake bread, mixing batches, etc. Everything felt fresh. I was learning to bake all over again. Soon I was working full time as a mixer, and day lighting as a product developer, reformulating Nature Bake's packaged cookie line to contain neither trans fats nor animal products. I also added a new cranberry-oatmeal variety (these cookies are still sold at Trader Joe’s under their brands). This was in my first few months out. I was on a mission and had several more new varieties of cookies in mind to develop. But Glenn wanted me to focus elsewhere. He felt we didn't need more cookies at the time. He wanted bread. Of course, Glenn knew the bread had to be really special, but I think he was hoping I wouldn't come up with anything that cost a lot to make. That wasn't to be the case. One of the reasons my bread is so good is that I didn’t formulate with cost in mind. My first bread, Blues, was the costliest sandwich bread ever produced at Nature Bake. It was also Glenn’s idea to call it Dave’s bread. I never would have thought of putting my own name on a loaf of bread. Names I had in mind? Blues Bread and Killer Bread. I wasn’t so sure about using the name “killer”, especially with my history (although it makes great rumor material), but one day I sketched a loaf of “Killer Bread” and then I started calling my 2nd bread creation “Killer Bread” and the name began to gather momentum. It really did seem to describe the bread to a tee, in one word. At some point it became obvious: it all had to be Dave’s Killer Bread.
