Tablehopping

Turtle Takeover!

So, you know the empty grocery store kitty-corner from Crema Café--the home of Sonny's Ice Cream--on the corner of West 34th Street and Lyndale Avenue South? Early next year it's going to be the home of a whole new Turtle Bread--everybody's favorite baguette-maker, pie-baker, gourmet grocery, etc., etc. And you know the Firstar building downtown, the one with the oval skyway level, connecting the Pillsbury Center, eventually, with the Norwest Tower? Early next year that's going to be a Turtle Bread location, too!

Of course, these locations will have the deli sandwiches, muffins, and soups that make up Turtle's bread and butter. But more excitingly, they'll have the bread and butter that makes bread and butter an exciting thing. Why, I stopped in Turtle Bread the other day and was amazed to find half a dozen artisanal butters from various regions stocked in the refrigerator case: cultured Vermont butter (made with butter that's taken the slightest half-step towards being cheese, and gains a slight robust edge from it); fancy European sheep's milk butter; even fancier D'Artagnan truffle butter; etc.

Those of you who want your butter already in your bread should try one of Turtle's re-engineered croissants. I did, and the pastries are now made with that cultured Vermont butter, which makes them even lighter and airier, full of darling little translucent holes, and gives them a more interesting flavor than plain old mass-market butter croissants--not just sweet, but with a barest shadow of tang. Very nice. And now lots of you don't even have to take the hilly roads to Linden Hills to try them out. Just sit tight, and they'll come to you.

Turtle Bread Company; 3421 W. 44th St., Minneapolis; 612.924.6013.