It’s the end of an era for Breathe Bookstore Café.
The New Age bookstore/café has been a Hampden centerpiece for the past decade, but owner Susan Weis-Bohlen has decided to start a new chapter and close up shop at the end of this year to focus on Ayurvedic and vegetarian cooking classes out of her new Reisterstown home.
“I had the bookstore for 10 years and the café for a year-and-a-half,” says Weis-Bohlen. “It was taking over my life, and I couldn’t continue to do all the things I love—I knew I had to pick one.”
Weis-Bohlen, who held cooking classes out of her Mt. Washington home for many years, wants to focus on her culinary passions.
“For years now, I’ve wanted to buy a house with two kitchens,” says Weis-Bohlen, “and you can imagine how hard that is to find.”
This summer, she stumbled on a property in Reisterstown that had her dream space. “This house was owned by a woman who had cooking classes here in a 600-square foot kitchen,” says Weis-Bohlen. “When I walked in here, I had tears streaming down my face—my husband knew it was a done deal.”
Weis-Bohlen’s new business will be called Susan’s Kitchen and, to her knowledge, will be the first cooking school in Maryland devoted solely to vegetarian cuisine.
“We are going to teach Aruveydic cooking and bring in cookbook authors to do demonstrations. Aruveyda is the Indian science of health and healing, and the primary tenet is that food is medicine,” explains Weis-Bohlen, who lost 50 pounds following an Aruveydic diet. “I want to teach people how to eat properly for their own mind-body constitution.”
Guest speakers on her wish list include well-known vegetarian cookbook scribes such as Yotam Ottolenghi, author of the highly hailed Plenty, and Vegan Cupcakes author Isa Chandra Moskowitz.
In addition to cooking classes, Weis-Bohlen will also offer lifestyle classes, and meditation workshops.
Canton’s Dangerously Delicious Pies will take over Breathe Bookstore Café’s Hampden space.