Rising star

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This article was published 12/03/2021 (1945 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Have breadmaking skills, will travel. At least, that’s the case for Kenya Sookermany.

The 22-year-old baker has been making sourdough bread in Manitoba and abroad since graduating from the professional baking and pastry program at Red River College, where she realized her future didn’t have to be tied to one place or one bakery.

“You can be a little bit nomadic with this career,” she says. “I’d like to travel and bake at different places.”

Sookermany embarked on her first culinary exchange in the fall of 2019, when she spent a month learning how to work with artisanal German breads at Akademie Deutsches Bäckerhandwerk in Weinheim, Germany.

“There were, like, 20 different countries represented there and I made a lot of good friends,” she says. “I was gonna go visit a friend who owns a couple of bakeries in New Zealand and work for him… then COVID happened and nothing is the same.”

Instead, Sookermany has spent the last year grounded in the Prairies, living in Steinbach and working at Old Church Bakery, the town’s local temple of sourdough. But adventure is on the horizon again.

This spring, she’ll be moving out to Prince Edward Island for a seasonal position at the farm-to-table restaurant of the Inn at Bay Fortune, a resort owned and operated by chef Michael Smith of Food Network Canada fame.

Sookermany actually landed the job in 2020, but it was another item on her itinerary delayed by the pandemic. She’s looking forward to visiting the East Coast for the first time and baking bread in a wood-fired oven using flour grown on the picturesque property.

“It’s a bunch of stuff I haven’t done before,” she says. “I’m very excited… hopefully it will lead to some other doors being opened.”

Sookermany is at the beginning of her career, but food has long been a staple in her life.

Her dad is an RCMP officer and the family lived in northern Manitoba, moving between Cross Lake and Churchill, until relocating to Niverville when Sookermany was 10 years old. Prior to joining the force, her dad pursued a career in the culinary arts and the pair have spent a lot of time cooking together over the years.

“One of the biggest ways we have a relationship is being in the kitchen with him, even though sometimes it’s stressful, because he acts like a chef,” she says with a laugh. “He’s from Trinidad and so he makes a lot of traditional foods; one of the biggest connections I have to that side of my heritage is the food that my dad made.”

Favourites include pelau, a chicken and rice dish, curry chicken with roti, and doubles, a saucy chickpea mixture sandwiched between pieces of deep-fried turmeric dough; the latter is “to die for.”

Eating is also a family pastime. Sookermany is the youngest of three siblings and growing up, the whole household would sit down for a meal together every night.

“So much happens around the dinner table,” she says. “Even after you’re done eating, you will spend hours talking.”

It’s no surprise, then, that Sookermany likes to share her baking with family — even if it means opening herself up to criticism.

“My mother is always very kind, and I tend not to believe her as much,” she says. “When it comes to my siblings, whenever they say something nice, I’m like, ‘OK, then it must be good.’”

The reviews for her pavlova recipe have been overwhelmingly positive.

Made with crisp meringue, whipped cream and fruit, the dessert has become a centrepiece at family birthday parties. Berries are a common topping, but Sookermany likes to play around with seasonal flavours and whatever’s on hand — the iteration included in this article was inspired by the mountain of citrus she had in her kitchen, paired with the warm spiciness of curried almonds.

The end result “tastes like a Creamsicle, but it’s kind of spicy,” she says. “I always like a bit of savoury in what I bake.”

Sookermany bakes at home at least three times a week, although she stays away from bread, preferring to experiment with cakes and pastries outside work hours. Her creations are usually dictated by a craving and a desire to experiment.

While many approach it as an exact science, she enjoys the freedom of home baking. “Who wants to follow a recipe word-for-word, you know?” she says. “If it fails, then no one’s gonna know.”

Cooking has been a source of comfort during the pandemic. Her roommate is also a baker and although Sookermany recently left her job at Old Church, they’ve shared the same schedule for the better part of a year: up at 5 a.m. for work, home in the early afternoon and then cooking together and talking until the evening.

In the kitchen she can usually be found with a beer or glass of wine in hand, listening to classical piano or Joy as an Act of Resistance by the British band Idles.

Baking has been a global hobby during the pandemic and while Sookermany has offered her share of tips to friends delving into the process for the first time, she’s also noticed other up-and-coming local bakers making a name for themselves on social media by selling their goodies from home, outside the usual channels. It’s something she’s been dabbling in as well, posting artfully iced mini-cakes for sale on Instagram.

“You have to support yourself somehow,” she says. “It’s amazing that people are able to find spaces that allow them to do their own thing.”

eva.wasney@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @evawasney