The Village Baker bakery and all it's entities are now closed. Recession blues, and being in a tourist town in the off season took it's toll. My stepson is now out of a job. To say he is bummed is an understatement.
To all my ex-coworkers, I hope you find other employment soon. I know it's not going to be easy here. Especially now.
I'm very sad about all this........not a great thing to happen just before the holidays.
Take care my friends!
Well, kids, my good buddy Rick who owns Cakelava in Hawaii, has asked me to be his assistant in a Food Network Cake Challenge. I'm going to do it. He's the main competitor......I'll just be the dork in the background, but that's good enough for me! I have to be all hushy hush about the details, but it will be a challenge that's right up my alley. I promise I'll tell ya all about it as soon as it's ok for me to do so...........
So go support your local merchant and buy a danish there, won't you?
Remember this post?
Well, after 8 months, the cafe is closing, along with the original one in Poulsbo. Part of it has to do with the recession, and I'm sure there's other reasons too. One being that my kick-ass co-worker, Jewlz, finally found a great job with an easier commute and more money. If anyone knows that it's hard to replace Jewlz, it's me. Her leaving had a lot to do with the decision to close the cafes. Around here in these parts, it's hard to find people like Jewlz and me.
So that's the end of the Village Baker Cafes, but there will still be wholesale bread and danishes coming out of the bakery. And the first of the year, they will be selling the bread and danishes right out of the bakery Tuesdays thru Saturdays. So they are scaling down by closing the cafes but not the bakery. Some of my pals get to keep their jobs, in fact most of them. The ones that are hitting the unemployment line are the ones that manned the cafe counters. It's all very sad to me, since I was involved with the cafe openings from the very beginning.
Since this is a tourist town, recessions really hit us hard. The rumor is that a lot of businesses here won't make it through the winter with the gloomy holiday season forecast.
Here in the Welch household, we are "canceling" Christmas. No gifts this year. We'll spend family time together and have a nice dinner, but that's it. No presents, no stockings, none of it. Our non-spending won't help the economy, but the economy isn't helping us either. Times are really tight for us right now. All I want for Christmas this year is to be less in debt. Besides the last thing I need, or any of us need is more "stuff". I don't have any room for any more stuff anyway. You should see my office.......
So I have this whole section of my garage full of pastry equipment. Should I keep it? Will I get back into pastry again, or what? I have no idea what will happen in the future; I don't know how long I'll be taking care of my mom.....it could be a couple of years or maybe 10-15.........I wish I had a crystal eclair to tell me.
For now I'll just take things as they come and try not to worry about what I can't control.
If you live in Seattle, you lucky people get to taste Jewlz talents at The Famous Northwest Catering Co.
She will kick ass as usual!! Not Mom, I mean Jewlz!
Speaking of kicking ass, someone needs to kick mine. I'm not real motivated lately to do any extra projects. So far I'm just keeping up with the status quo. I feel like I need to do more..........
After all that filming Mom and I did for the commercial, here is the very few seconds of us that didn't make it to the cutting room floor!
Well, Mom and I just got done filming our big TV debut this week. Us, on TV? Yes, amazingly. Turns out that the caregiving company that helped my mom out when she was really sick and whom I use for respite care when I can't make it over there, thought that we would be good candidates for a commercial they are producing for TV. No, we're not actors, we're actual CareForce clients!
It was an an exciting day for Mom, having all the crew come in; sound guy, lighting guy, makeup girl, producer, the people from CareForce and me. It took all day for the filming to happen; most of the time was spent moving furniture around, adjusting the lighting, lining up the shots, putting makeup on our faces, etc. The actual time spent taping was small compared to just getting everything good to go. Mom was a star.......her interview went well and she had fun watching the tech guys do their thing. They interviewed me too, but knowing my luck, I'll be on the cutting room floor.
Which is fine, actually. I see why celebrities have their own trailers on movie sets. Most of the time is spent doing other stuff than actually acting. We didn't get our own trailer, but we did get some free snacks and water. Mom and I will have to work on our CV to actually get a trailer.
Pardon the crummy photos......there were lots of bright lights going on and all I had was my iPhone. Yeah, my husband is a video and photography pro, but none of his talent has rubbed off on me; much like my ability to make cakes hasn't rubbed off on him. Yes, I know, with our partnership, why aren't we making our own cake show? There's enough cake shows on TV now, doncha think? And they all piss me off. If you're a cake pro, then you know exactly what I'm talkin' 'bout, Willis.
It was fun being "starlets" for the day and very interesting to see what goes on in a video production. Oh yeah, we'll be on in HD, too! I thank my lucky stars I didn't have a giant zit that day. An HD zit, that would be horrifying. Oh, I know, they get rid of all the yukky stuff in post production, that much I know from being married to a video guy. Hope they make me thinner in post too.
I figure when the commercials are aired, the total time on air will give Mom her 15 minutes of fame because she hasn't had it yet as far as I know. Glad to know I could help arrange that.
Baking? Yeah, I've actually been baking quite a bit on weekends to feed the fam. Problem is, the stuff I make doesn't last a day. Pan of brownies I made on Friday? Gone? Pear crisp I made yesterday? Gone. Two big loaves of bread I made, nearly gone. Tuna casserole I made for dinner tonight? I think that one will last awhile.
It's so nice not to bake professionally anymore, for the time being. Just baking "home size" items satisfies my baking jones for now. But my family eats commercially it seems. I can't keep up with 'em!
And they blame me for making them "fat". Hey, just doin' my job as nurturer/gatherer!
I was digging around in my computer files today and found a picture of this cake....it's one of the ones I'm most proud of:
I have this unusual knack for being able to do things my way and making my clients agree to it. The only thing I'm good at selling is my own skill. And speaking of skill, I ran across this:
- 10 lb passion for your craft
- 6 lb drive to help you through the rough times
- 9 lbs pride in oneself and the team
- 7 lbs vision to look beyond normalcy (or insanity!)
- 2 lbs intelligence
Yield: A life full of joy and satisfaction.
This recipe is for volume skill; for a la carte, reduce ingredients to 70%
How is my mom?
That's me on the left, Marla, the bride, in the center, and the INFAMOUS Jewlz on the right. As women, we kick ass, but as pastry chefs we kick SERIOUS ass. We should open our own bakery. No we shouldn't. We're not that stupid; we like our life outside of baking as well or better than baking itself. WE HAVE LIVES and we intend to keep it that way. But we can't help fantasizing about owning our own place and having it be the rocking-est bakery ever.
Of course, it shall be called "Three Bitches Bakery". Our motto: "If you don't like it, go f*ck yourself". We don't take complaints, not that anyone would complain anyway, except vegans, but we'd kick their asses out the door before they could say "soy". We'd sell t-shirts:
Seriously, put the three of us together, and you are talkin' serious bakery experience and talent. We care about our stuff, and we know how to do it right. That's right, we're talkin' love here. Love is the ingredient that goes missing in larger bakeries, so we'd keep it small and keep our hands in the dough instead of just raking it in. Ha ha! Did I say raking in the dough? Seriously, I know that doesn't happen in the bakery biz. It's just a fantasy.............sigh.
There is a fourth bee-yotch out there that DID open her own place, and I've had the honor of working with her. She rocks too. If she moved up here, we'd call it the Four Bitches Bakery and we'd get along famously. If you're in Texas,
make sure you check out Simply Cakes. You want a woman with experience and knows her way around cakes? That's Robin. Any bride with a brain will get her wedding cake there. Guaranteed satisfaction.....you've got my personal word on it.
Someday, perhaps, Marla, Jewlz, and I will have drunk too much wine and decided that opening a bakery is a good idea. I'll let you know when that day comes. Then the next day we'll have sobered up.
Those of us in the know, will realize the hilariousness of this wine label as it pertains to my life. A gift from Jewlz for my birthday......how did she FIND it????
He told me it came from a website called Johnny Cupcakes.
I actually baked something the other day. Well sort of......does microwaving count as baking? My stepson was jonesing for my diet ice cream and I made these as a diversion. Stay away from my diet ice cream! If I am to lose weight, and I've lost 11 lbs so far, I MUST have my diet ice cream!
These brownies rock, and it's hard to believe they are so easy to make and in only 6 minutes no less!
Annie's KILLER Microwave Brownies
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp vanilla
Beat above til light, then add:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
Blend in. Then add:
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder (sifted)
Stir til all incorporated, and spread mixture into and 8x8 glass or microwave safe dish that's been greased.
Bake in microwave no more than 6 minutes, giving the dish a quarter turn every 2 minutes (if your microwave
doesn't spin on its own.) Microwave times will vary given the wattage of your microwave. These brownies are amazingly good!
If I were stupid enough to open my own bakery (especially now), here's a sign I might just want to use in the front
window.......
I found this lovely little Eddie Izzard bit on one of my favorite sites, Cake Wrecks. I think the next time I have a customer to deal with, I'll ask, "Cake or death?" Either way, I win.
