can’t get bread here like they had up North,”
Stevens says. Then he adds, with a grin, “OK,
in New York.”
Treasure Coast transplants think the water
here makes the difference, Stevens says, but
he has a different theory: “Baker’s laziness
and inattentiveness.”
That’s what makes his bread better than
others, he says: “Attention to detail.”
And listening, of course, to the dough.
Stevens recently returned from a 17-day
vacation to Brazil to be best man at a friend’s
wedding, and fell in love with the country
and its people. He wants to go back and open
a bed and breakfast, or a restaurant and
nightclub, on the northern tip of Brazil in a
few years.
“It’s a whole different lifestyle there,” he
says. “I didn’t see anyone in a bad mood the
whole time I was there. Everybody takes a
two-hour break in the middle of the day, and
nobody works more than eight or nine hours
a day.”
That’s a bit different from his workdays,
which begin at 3:30 a.m., six days a week.
“It doesn’t leave much time for a social
life,” he says. “But I don’t mind because
people like the food I make, and that makes
it worthwhile.”
5 PEOPLE OF INTEREST
13
Name: Jon-Claude Stevens
Age: 31
Birthplace: Quebec, Canada
Education: Associate’s degree in
resort management from Colorado
Mountain College in Steamboat
Springs, Colo.; Associate’s degree in
culinary arts from the Culinary
Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.
Occupation: Baker/chef/café owner
Personal: “Happily single, but available.”
What most people don’t know about me:
“I love to dance.”
Favorite music: “Latin, or anything with a beat.”
What inspires me: “The reaction of people to the food
I make.”
Future goal: “To marry and have children, but only with
the right person, for the right reasons.”
My proudest achievement: “Being part of a team that
extracted Americans from a danger zone during a coup in
South Africa in 2002. I served as a translator.”