RICHARDTON, N.D. — Once a week, Brother Alban Petesch gets up at 3 a.m. to bake bread.

It’s so dark and still outside that even the crickets seem asleep. Even so, Petesch is already at work in the immaculate commercial kitchen of the Assumption Abbey, located about 75 miles west of Bismarck. He proofs Red Star yeast in 120-degree water to create a thick, bubbling brew, cracks saffron-yolked eggs into a bowl and warms chicken broth on the stove for the shiny, braided challah he’ll make later that day.

It’s no small task to make all the bread for this community of Benedictine monks, who live, pray and work in a beautiful, old monastery on the northwestern edge of Richardton, N.D.

Petesch has been their official bread baker for 35 years. He also bakes the bread which travelers buy as souve

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