Christy Timon

hristy Timon founded Clear Flour Bread in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1983 in response to persistent requests for regular production of the naturally leavened breads she was baking for her catering business, Café Small. Abe Faber came along a year later for a “temporary” job to fill in the gaps in a young artist’s pay and ended up instead gaining a wife as well as a life’s work and calling. Daily life at Clear Flour was all about consistently producing traditional baked goods on a small scale for their community. Together, Christy and Abe grew the bakery to produce a wide range of European authentic breads, pastry, and viennoiserie in a manner that honored, preserved and nurtured the art and craft of traditional baking. For 35 years they enjoyed the daily challenges of running the bakery, as they acquainted their employees and customers with the pleasure, hard work, and nearly alchemical mix of science and craft involved in transforming flour, water, and yeast, into bread and pastry.

Their personal baking aesthetic was developed through extensive travel and research in bakeries in the small towns and back roads of European countries. Their knowledge was also refined greatly over the years by involvement with activities of the Bread Bakers Guild of America, of which they are founding members.

Christy and Abe have since been recognized nationally as pioneers in the American renaissance of the production of the traditional hand-crafted, authentic, breads of Europe and continue to be involved at the forefront of modern applications of traditional baking education in America.

Christy and Abe used the platform of the bakery over decades to elevate the level of baking skills in America and are proud to note that many former employees went on to open critically acclaimed bakeries around the country. These bakery “alumni” turn out new and exciting lines of bread and pastry, along with traditional products of the highest standards, furthering the growth of neighborhood bakeries where food is produced as locally as possible to where it is consumed, in an open manner that engages customers in understanding how their food is made.

In late 2017 Christy and Abe “passed the torch” of their beloved bakery to a younger generation of owners.