Too much turkey?

Before the memory of gorging on Thanksgiving Day turkey and fixins' fades, an even brighter possibility beckons.

Imagine the sandwich possibilities.

It's Romi and Jean Dupre's business to envision the sandwich potential for customers of their 12-year-old Dupre's Baking Co., in Grass Valley.

"Personally, I like an open-faced turkey sandwich warmed up on the stove, with toasted bread cut up into little squares," said Romi Dupre, 45.

Bread, specifically sourdough, is the Colfax Highway bakery's most popular item, followed by Swiss-German bread, she said.

The bakery goes through more than 1,000 pounds of bread a day in preparing orders for local grocery stores.

Dupre's features croissants, danishes, pastries, cookies and pies. It's a local staple for grocery stores and restaurants that feature the bakery's bread.

"We have people taking it off our carts before we can get it on the shelves," Dupre said.

Nearly 90 percent of Dupre's bread goes to wholesale establishments such as BriarPatch Co-op, SPD Market, California Organics and Natural Selections, Dupre said. Country Rose, Friar Tucks and both Northridge restaurants also use the bakery's bread, she added.

While it's a community success, Romi didn't go to college with the intention of running a bakery. She earned a bachelor's degree in small business administration and accounting from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

It was her husband, a French-Canadian "ski bum," who helped turn her into the baker she is today.

The couple met in Santa Barbara when she owned a hairdressing salon, and he was working as a consultant for a French wholesale bakery there.

Their courtship began with Jean Dupre, 49, leaving pastries on her doorstep in the morning.

"His English wasn't very good," Romi Dupre said. "It was love at first bite."

After marrying, and her husband missing opportunities to ski in Southern California, the couple decided to make a move to Grass Valley to be closer to prime ski slopes, Dupre said.

A few years later, they opened the business, which now employs 12 people.

"When God gives you a baker, you open a bakery," Dupre explained.

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To contact Staff Writer Greg Moberly, e-mail gregm@theunion.com or call 477-4234.

Sandwich tips

Jean Dupre, of Dupre's Baking Co., offers these ideas:

• Open-faced turkey sandwich with sourdough bread: Warm and toast the bread, cut bread into squares, pour on gravy and drop on the left-over turkey.

• Turkey sandwich with Swiss German bread: Serve cold with turkey, cranberry sauce and mayonnaise.