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...........
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.
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.
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:
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????
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.