Local baker goes from Mexico to Oslo to Texas to Owatonna

Although many people may not know her name, Haydee Segura has become a fixture in downtown Owatonna at the Farmer’s Market in Central Park and now at the Zamboni Event Center’s indoor market.

Segura has lived in Owatonna for two years and is known primarily for her home-baked sourdough bread, although she has been expanding into salsa, butter chicken sauce and other items.

The seemingly unusual combination of foods makes sense when you consider that Segura is a graduate of the culinary school in her hometown of Mexico City.

Cooking, she said, was not her first career. In 2001, she received a degree in graphic design and went to work for a magazine about lifestyle and tourism. When the magazine closed, she said she needed a job so she began thinking of other options.

Since her father was a retired general in the Mexican army, she said, she could continue having medical insurance under his policy as long as she was single with no dependents and continued to take classes. When she was working in graphic design, she said, she continued to take classes in a variety of topics including Italian, English and French pastry.

The French pastry class, Segura said, made her think of becoming a chef.

It took five years of classes at the culinary school to complete the training. Although she was older than most of her fellow students, she believes that was an advantage because she was more serious about her studies. Among the classes, she said, was one on international bread.

After graduation, Segura opened a restaurant in Mexico City, she said, and one of her customers was a Norwegian named Christian Oeien who rented an apartment nearby. The two eventually married and moved to Norway.

During the four years they were in Norway, she was a chef in different restaurants and again decided to open her own business. She started catering, she said, and found success, as Mexican food was not yet well known. She worked as a caterer for the Mexican Embassy in Oslo and also for the newspaper Afterposten.

Her husband worked for Cisco, she said, and after several years, he was transferred to Plano, Texas, which pleased Segura as it was closer to her parents in Mexico City. Over the next eight years, she worked at several Mexican restaurants, sold bread and cookies at farmers markets, and eventually began catering again. She also gave private cooking classes.

After Cisco laid off engineers, Segura said, her husband was offered a position as an engineer at Bosch in Owatonna. So the family, which now included two children, packed up again and moved.

Segura now has a cottage food license and is currently selling directly to customers.

“My next goal,” she said, “is to open a bakery in Owatonna.”

It would be small, she said, but also sell sandwiches similar to those she saw while in France last year.

Segura is taking classes again, this time to help her learn how to best build her business in the United States.

She said she is looking into the new business incubator planned on Rose Street in downtown Owatonna,

For now, Segura said, she would like to hire someone to help her with baking. She spends Tuesdays and Wednesdays making jams, sauces and salsa, and on Thursdays, she makes sourdough bread. Fridays are devoted to bread, cookies and other baked goods.

Segura sells on Saturdays and spends Sundays preparing for the new week, with–hopefully–a break on Mondays before starting all over again.