Wednesday, April 30, 2025, at Provision Farm Collective in Gilmer. (Les Hassell/Longview News-Journal Photo)

At Provision Farm Collective in downtown Gilmer, the Trimble family has combined a healthy measure of family, with a dose of science and a dash of art to spread love for an ancient form of  bread – sourdough.

Stacy Trimble developed a love for cooking from scratch after she and her husband, Eric, married some 22 years ago. They eventually bought some land and started homesteading. They added in four children whom she home schools (or schooled since two are adults now), and they started a farm where they grow their own food.

“We just try to grow all our own food, raise our own meats, and we do the work, but we know that God provides, and that’s where we got the name ‘Provision,’” Stacy said.

Somewhere in all of that life, Stacy tried making sourdough. She didn’t like its tangy flavor at first.

With the arrival of COVID-19 in 2020, a lot of people began baking bread, she said. After reading and studying more about making sourdough bread, she tried it again.

“Now, I love it and it’s the only bread I eat,” Stacy said. ““I love the crispy crust.”

But she also loves the way breadmaking provides her with a way to work with her hands.

“It’s a craft, so I guess that would be the main reason why I love to do it – the shaving, the scoring, the baking. It’s just really a creative outlet,” Stacy said.

Baking sourdough bread requires first making the key ingredient: a starter of flour and water that is allowed to ferment. The starter is occasionally fed more flour and water. Some of the starter is used in every loaf of bread.

Some people think sourdough bread is only white bread, but any bread can be made with the sourdough process, Stacy said.

“My breads are just different combinations of flours,” Stacy said. She makes bread with different “inclusions” – jalapeno cheese or rosemary, for instance.

Early in the morning each day, Stacy and Eric play a kind of game of tag at their store in downtown Gilmer. Stacy mixes up the next day’s dough, while Eric bakes that day’s loaves. She begins with a simple mix of flour and water that has been fermenting – the starter – and adds more flour, water and salt.  Time and temperature are important factors she watches, with the dough’s temperature determining how long it ferments.

“In the summer, I have to use really cold water, because I don’t want it to ferment too fast because through the fermentation process, that dough strengthens,”  she said.

The dough has to be manhandled a bit, too.

“It’s called stretch and fold,” Stacy said. “We would do that with the dough to strengthen the gluten. It’s just like working our muscles to make them stronger. It’s the same for this artisan-style bread.

“We’ll stretch it and let that ferment for a time period. Then, we’ll shape it.”

The loaves go into special bread proofing baskets and rest in the refrigerator until they’re baked the next morning.

Eric, who is also the preacher at The Church at West Mountain, puts his mark on the loaves by the way he scores the bread before he puts the loaves into the oven.

Stacy had been just baking at home for her family when she started selling it out of her house in 2024. The business grew quickly after that.

Stacy sold by only pre-orders at first. Then, they added a farmstand at their home. Stacy also landed a wholesale order from a dairy farm owned by family members.

“I went from baking about 15 loaves a week, with the pre-orders, to 90 loaves a week, with the pre-orders plus the wholesale orders,” she said. “So, I definitely outgrew my Dutch ovens. I could only bake two loaves at a time.”

They moved into a small building downtown that opened at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

People would start lining up at 9:30 a.m, and the bread would be sold out within two hours.

“We definitely outgrew the space,” she said, explaining they had one oven where they baked all of their bread, sourdough cookies and granola.

“I thought, ‘if we’re going to stay in this building, I can’t continue, because it’s so tiny,’” she said. “So I had already decided in April, when my lease is up, I’m going to either quit or we’re going to scale up.”

They moved to 103 E. Marshall St. in Gilmer, where a pizza restaurant previously had been located. They expanded offerings in the larger space, where they now sell coffee and carry other local vendors’ products, including grass-fed beef and pork, eggs, honey and other products. That’s when the business’ name changed to Provision Farm Collective.

The store is open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m Tuesday through Friday.

“Even on our slow day, it’s double the amount of customers (from the previous location),” she said. The store sells about 350 loaves of bread a week.

Stacy said they have plans to possibly add more menu items in the future, and a collaboration with her brother’s barbecue restaurant is helping both businesses.

Osborn started his East Texas Rust BBQ as a food truck. He opened a restaurant in downtown Gilmer shortly after his sister opened hers.

He created a sandwich using her jalapeno and cheese sourdough bread that he named “The Sibling.” The sandwich is filled with his sliced brisket, house coleslaw and cheese.

It’s his best-selling sandwich, Stacy said.

“It’s really been a neat experience for both of us,” she said.

Those family connections are really what’s important to the Trimbles.

All four of their children are involved in the business in some fashion: their oldest son Evan, 21, is married to Hannah and has a 17-month-old son, Rhett; their younger son, Gracyn is 19; Anna Claire is 17; and Ella is 13.

Stacy said she didn’t want to do this any other way but with her family.

“We just do life together,” Stacy said.