Bread is the staff of her life

CAMBRIDGE -- When Apollonia Poilane was an infant, her father molded a decorative crib of bread for her. As a girl, she spent Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays at her father's bakery packing cookies in little bags. As a teenager, her apprenticeship as a baker began "to keep me busy over long holiday weekends," she says.

Poilane, 22, a senior at Harvard, always knew she would be a baker. And not just any baker, but the owner of what is widely considered to be among the best bakeries in the world. The 75-year-old Poilane in Paris was started by her grandfather and built into global stardom by her father, Lionel. What she didn't know -- until both her parents were killed in a helicopter accident in 2002 -- was that she would be forced to combine running the iconic bakery with completing college.

Poilane, long hair pulled into a ponytail, sips green tea at Dado in Harvard Square recently, talking about the multimillion-dollar French operation that sends loaves to customers all over the world. "Japanese are crazy about French bread and pastry," she says. Poilane's mother, Irene, was a designer from New York. Poilane and her younger sister, Athena, traveled back and forth across the Atlantic for years, which "prepared [us] for the American college experience."

Today Poilane studies economics and returns home every four to six weeks to oversee the bakery. There are two locations in Paris, one in London, and a large "manufactory" -- her father's term for the production facility -- outside Paris. The bread, which the company requires be delivered within 48 hours of baking, goes to movie stars and moguls. Several loaves a week are shipped to the Harvard student so that she can get her fix of the crust and smell of wood-fired bread, which is started with dough from a previous batch.

Poilane bread comes in big loaves that last a long time because of the fermented starter. Each is designed to be shared, Poilane says, and to go with special foods. "In the mornings, I love brioche with scrambled eggs," she says. Rye goes with seafood; walnut-raisin with cheese; sourdough with pate. An elderly woman goes into the original Paris Poilane every day to buy just two or three slices of sourdough, Poilane says. The bakeries don't sell baguettes, which Poilane scorns as a Viennese import in the second half of the 19th century.

Much of overseeing the business can be done by computer, she says, but the trips back to France are important. Her bakers and other employees need the "human contact," and she has meetings and checks that her father's ideal of "quality over quantity" is carried out. At school, she insists she has a "regular" college life, going to movies and visiting with friends. Besides, she hastens to add, she's not the only Harvard student with her own business. There was the Facebook creator, and she mentions a laundry and cleaning service started by another student last year. Others have projects, she says. "My personal project is my business."

She's also quick to promote her product as a healthy part of the diet. The low-carb diet fad makes her "kind of angry. The bottom line is eat well, in proper proportions, get exercise , and don't overthink it."

After all, says the slender young woman, "I've been on the bread diet for 22 years, and I can stand as proof."

Poilane bread can be ordered from poilane.fr. A 4 1/2-pound loaf is about 36 euros ($46.50).