a good starter...

as my bacon cures and my tomatoes ripen in preparation for the BLT Challenge...my attention now turns to naturally leavened bread. I've been lucky to work with sourdough starter virtually every day for the past 20 years...when people ask me: "what do you do to keep yours going?" I say, "Use it!" Use it as often as you can and it will reward you with fluffy pancakes, tasty bread, awsome waffles...it's almost endless! Now, mind you, it wasn't always that easy for me, either. I started working with sourdough in my first days learning to bake, but I always relied on the starter that was already there. When I left that kitchen, I took a little of that starter with me, and so it went...as I moved jobs, my little starter friend came with me and everything was great. Until I decided to open a bakery of my own in an old paper making studio. We had to build the kitchen from scratch and when it was time to move in and start making bread, well, the starter I had didn't like it there so much. You see, it's alive, and if it doesn't like where it's living, well, there is going to be hell to pay! In other words, my little friend slowly died...nothing I did seemed to save it and I was not at all sure how to start over until one fateful day, I saw someone make a starter using a red cabbage leaf on TV (of all places!)...the next day when a friend showed up with red cabbage from his garden, I knew fate had intervened...the secret,( or rather the yeast), was unlocked and, as you can see, our 'baby' is doing just fine!
For the starter and bread formula visit our recipe blog!

Hedwig does Homer

Hedwig and the Angry Inch wrapped up their performances at Down East Salloon this week, culminating in an amazing final performance on Wednesday night when all of Homer's Finest came out in all their glory! (I was sadly not one of them, I'm so sorry!) Sharon and the rest of the crew made it to the fundraiser event earlier in the summer for the Kachemeak Bay Family Planning Clinic. Even Sharon's partner Dale got into character for that one and was last seen that night making out with the drummer...oops! (did i get that part of the rumour correct? 'cause you know I want to get it right!)
Huge kuddos go to Irene and Ben for working so hard on this project while at the same time getting their asses kicked on a daily basis here at the Bakery! Bakers by day, Rock Stars by night...that's why we love them!
And to everyone who performed: Congratulations to all of you....BRAVO!
p.s. if I can get a hold of some video I will link it here...
(Atz Kilcher made for a stunning Hedwig...he may have a future in this, no?)

Busting Out!

My little Arkansas Traveler Heirloom Tomato Plant isn't so little anymore...and it has babies!

Fourth of July weekend brought seriously sunny skies to Homer. a stretch we needed desperately after the rain and cold that dominated last summer. With two wedding cakes on the books,Farmers Market, a Sunday brunch cater and our busiest retail days of the year it was difficult to schedule some time away. I was determined to join my friends the Coyle Family at their camp across the bay for a big Fourth of July celebration. I knew that with a little planning and help from my awesome staff (Irene- Thank You!) I would be able to bust out. All the details fell into place, then at the last minute, my fresh pork belly arrived along with our regular meat order fom the butcher. No time to deal with it, so I put it into a hotel pan and wrapped it up tight and stashed in the fridge until Monday, when I could give it the attention it deserved.
I arrived at the party to a mini concert... 90 people in the yard of the cabin enjoying the singing of a local entertainer whooping it up with her brightly patriotic costume and Elvis impressions. As many were extended family of my hosts, I only knew about a dozen people there, so as my social anxiety kicked into gear and I tried to come up with things to talk about, all I kept coming back to was this porkbelly waiting for me and how I was finally going to make bacon. It's funny how many ways you can fit pork belly into a conversation! When the whole roast pig came out of the box, it only added fuel to my fire, to anyone who would listen I talked about my bacon project. (and the reason for my Bacon Obesession? Here is the Challenge Damn, you, Ruhlman!)
The Party was super fun and went late into the night, with about 45 of us spending the night. The next morning after coffee and breakfast was wrangled for the crowd, out came the newspaper. (everyone was dying to read the latest on Palins resignation!) My daughter took the comics and started working on the Sudoku puzzle, I looked over her shoulder and read my horoscope..."This weekend miscommunications will abound. be prepared" That's all it took to fire up the worry...all the details I had left behind certainly left lots of room for miscommunication! I decided to hang over the point to check my messages and since there were none, figured the best thing to do was to wait until the next morning to get the report in person.
Sure enough, Randall met me at the handwashing sink. "Um...we had a little confusion around the catering order...I wasn't sure what I was doing-so I baked your porkbelly by accident." His words came at me really fast and I had only heard "Problem, Cater, Cooked Pork Belly." I blinked a moment and queried cautiously, "Did the Brunch go out all right?"..."Yes, Yes...It's just that I thought the Pork was supposed to go ,too. I mean it wasn't labeled or anything." I remembered being in a hurry, it's true, my own fault really. Funny, huh?
Luckily, They ordered me another straight away (thanks, Red!) and here I was curing my Pork Belly on Monday, just like I said!

Fresh

Salted

Bagged

Fruits of Summer...

Rhubarb Custard Bars were a special request from a customer who was putting together a memorial service for her husband. They spent every other week camping at the Driftwood Inn down the street for the last 12 years...walking down to the bakery for their morning sticky bun and coffee. Apparently he really liked Rhubarb, so we picked some from the yard and morphed the lemon bar recipe using orange juice instead of Lemon and stirring in chopped rhubarb. The result was heavenly!

We got our first shipment from Tree Things! Fresh Figs, Blackberries, Blueberries, Cherries and Nectarines.With morning temps below 40 degrees, it will be a while yet before we have local berries... these make the wait a little less long!

Multitasking

This is the scene these days as we all try to fit our fun and work in all at the same time! I was equally inspired by Sharon and Brianna, who, after a grueling day on their feet at the Bakes, went and ran down and up the Diamond Creek trail. ( a very steep 1/2 mile descent to a wild and lovely beach) There is no time to waste as Solstice is here and, lucky for us, so is the Sun!

Love is in the air...

The first wedding cakes of the season went out his weekend. This lovely cake went out to Land's End Resort at the end of the spit for a local (Sterling) couple. The room was dressed to the nines with white and green being the predominate colors...it was a very serene scene.

Cake number two had to be boxed in pieces to be flown on a small (I mean sits four people small) plane and flown over to the village of Port Graham. This always a little stressful (hence, no photos...I was too distracted!) since the cake has to be completely assembled in the bakery, chilled thoroughly overnight and flowers added (in resevoirs, because they need to stay fresh for 24 hours!) then taken apart again and securely boxed to be jammed around by less than careful pilots only to sit around who knows where to be put together by who knows whom. It is an incredible leap of faith on both my part, in that the cake will be handled carefully by all and the bride and groom's, in that they just want it all to be beautiful and delicious!
I sure hope it worked out...

The Gay part of town...

We heard through the grapevine that there is this whole faction of people who live in our little 'Cosmic Hamlet by the Sea' that won't come down into our neighborhood because, gasp, it's where the 'Gays' hang out! Could it be because we like to dress up in super hero costumes? (It must have been the pink spandex suit that Mira wore on her last day!) Or is it because we are always so damn happy?! It reminds me of the time my kids were watching a television show geared toward really young children. The character was singing over and over, "I'm so happy, I'm so Gay!". Middle daughter Jane turns to her more worldly older sister and says, "Maya, I don't understand what they mean." Maya, matter of factly responds, "Jane sometimes when people use the term "Gay" it means they are Happy! Jane just looks at her and goes, "OH, Okay".
This tells me that times are a changing and awareness levels in our children's lives are much higher than when we were kids. The funniest part of the whole thing is that we are three hetero women who run this business, and while we relish the support of ALL of our customers...it's true we especially value those who know how to love...fully and unconditionally, without prejudice.
Now, you look ready ready for a cup of coffee... Can I get you a stcky bun with that? How do you like my cape?!
UPDATE: Commenter Lorrie from read-n-eat.com says "the Gay part of town is the best part of town!" We think so too! Thanks, Lorrie!

Bench Notes...here comes June!

We are hesitantly stepping into summer here with an uncertainty not characteristic to our nature as an organization (or so I like to delude myself, anyway!). Sharon and I (Kate is still home with babays!) have changed up production schedules, paired back summer hours, tried to keep hiring to a minimum. Now all we can do is wait and work and hope the people come! We were light on orders this week, so it gave us a little time to go over processes and make sure everyone is on the same page. This can sometimes be painful... if there is no agreement on what the ultimate outcome should be, then it's tough to work out a consistent method (fotunately, this doesn't happen too often). With that, we're continually messing with the Mayo formula (should it be thick or thin, garlicky or not-so? it's endless...), though I think we're almost there with the help of some new reading material. We also came together on the white cake recipe...Sharon was using only egg whites and finishing it by hand, while I was using whole eggs and using the mixer for the entire process. The whole egg yolk formula (the cake on the left) defintely won out for overall texture and flavor while the all egg white cake was drier with a finer crumb.

I have to say, too that these cakes, as are all of our pastries, are made with Morebread Unbleached White Flour from Pendleton Mills in Oregon. I have, at times, subbed in part pastry flour or used all cake flour and neither produces as moist of a cake as the Morebread. This has also helped us keep flour costs in check ,during the big hike in prices we started buying Flour by the pallet, so keeping things simple was the only way we could afford to do it!

One good thing is, I think I have met the mulitgrain challenge...our most popular bread by far, producing an 80# batch each afternoon seems to be enough! My other challenge was getting my Cinnamon Raisin Swirl to...well SWIRL! Looks like I finally got it...

Up Coming Events:
The Dirty Rags(Irene, Ben and Haven) had their first performance of the summer opening for Camp Awsome (Atz Kilcher and Jane Ferman's new band) last night at the Down East Saloon. This was just a warm-up for what we hope to be a fun summer full of music.

Also Greg Brown plays at the Mariner Theater Sat May 30 at 8pm (whoa, that's tonight!)
one more thing to put on the weekend schedule:
The Kachemak Bay Kitefest is this weekend check it out

Watermelon Love...

One of our very favorite parts of summer...juicy, crisp, sweet, it's one of the reasons we cannot be called true localvores because Homer is definitely not Watermelon country! Sure, you can grow them in a green house, or maybe someone has managed it under row covers in an extraodinarily sunny spot, but with temps in the high 50's and low 60's for the past few summers we've been lucky to get flowers to bloom and cold crops to thrive! Still, the bakery does get quite warm and on those summer days when it feels like you'll never cool off, we like to get a watermelon and cut it up for the staff...it wakes up the senses and cools the hot little mind! Last weekend my friend Celeste showed me another way to cool off with my favorite summer fruit...Marguaritas! So brilliant! Just add a healthy handfull of chopped seedless (or seed-ed!) watermelon chunks to your favorite Marguarita mix...it's a summer treat you'll crave again and again!

Now Showing...

Brianna Bryngelson started working for us a year ago this month. From the very beginning she talked about painting and how she wanted to set up her studio and get a show together for the bakery. I would always respond with a positive 'You go girl!' never sure exactly what her style was or what we were getting ourselves into, really. Then, after traveling Europe for 8 weeks, she came back and made good on her promises...and then some! Her paintings are beautiful, ethereal snapshots of life on the northern coast...so familiar, yet not at all 'Alaskan', therefore, no kitsch. You can get lost in the sea and stars and water and suddenly, there's a bird! Thank you, Brianna, for bringing our walls to life!( And for being so wonderful to work with!)

















Natalia Taeschner started working at the bakery last fall about the time that Brianna left for Europe. Her quiet creativity has influenced all of our holiday decorating and her crocheted hats have been a hit in the retail store, but it wasn't until Brianna started talking about hanging a show for real, that Natalia revealed her true talents. Bri did not have enough paintings to fill all the available wall space, so she approached Natalia about bringing in some of hers as well. Turns out there styles are very different, but compliment each other very well! (just like at work, isn't that interesting?) Natalia's paintings reflect a dainty attention to detail with a healthy dose of whimsy...


We think this would make a great label for the Ring of Fire Meadery's Apple Ciser

A Tidy Package...

May 1st caught us a little unawares as summer starts to roar like a freight train at our heels. Normally, we like to have our summer schedule wrapped up by now in our efforts to prepare for the onslaught. The month of July will bring in as much business as October, November and December combined! For the next 4 months bakery staff will double in size and our output will easily triple. It makes for some very anxious moments as we sift through applicants and returning employees, do we have enough people to stay open late on Shorebird weekend? Sadly, not at this point...by Memorial Day, we hope! We do have Irene and Ben already back with us as Ryan had to head back to Spitfire Grill for the summer. This a very exciting turn of events as Ben made his way from New York and 'Rene from Portland. We also have Haven (I do anticipate a reunion of the Dirty Rags...oh YEAH!) and Emily and Jenny AND Miss Red will be here to help us keep it all together. Maggie Wyatt, daughter of Barb, will be here next week to join us as well. Looks like there'll be room for a couple more, which is always something to look forward to! The female staff would like a few more guys to round out the, um, odds.( I do love seeing how it all comes together!) Sharon has been working hard to wrap up those schedules and get our retail supplies in order...thanks to her, we actually have new T-shirts for this weekend, the very start of our tourist season...way to go girl! Me, I'm trying to get my new bread schedule down and in particular trying to keep this town stocked in loaves of Multigrain! While your waiting for your bread, would you care to have a sandwich?!


Coming Events: Brianna and Natalia have hung their paintings at the bakery and they are amazing! Look forward to Photos...!
Also, Louden Wainright coming to stay with us on Thurday, Hot Tuna on Friday(!) and then Mason Jennings on Saturday (!!!) It's going to be a FUN weekend!

Quite a week...'literally' speaking!

This has been a big week for our little town of Homer in the Literary World...Yesterday, two of our good friends had book releases...Daniel Coyles 'The Talent Code' finally hit the bookstores...on it's way to changing the world of teaching forever! And Miranda Weiss' book 'Tide, Feather, Snow' a memoir of adjusting to a new life in Alaska, will sure to be in everyone's beach bag this summer! I got a call Monday from Miranda's husband asking for a cake to celebrate...so I channelled my inner Duf Goldman and whipped out a book so good you could eat it! Of course, this was not without it's drama...as I was dismounting the chair I stood on to take this picture, I slipped (you know it had to happen, didn't you?) and drove the heel of my hand into the corner of the cake! Luckily, I had already gotten the photo, right?! Some quick cake repair (after I finished swearing) and all was well once again...



After all the cake excitement was out of the way and my blood pressure returned to normal, we got a sweet e-mail from the author of this book:

He said he lived in our neighborhood a few years ago and would walk his little girl to the beach, stopping by the bakery for snacks. Then he moved back to N Carolina and decided to write a childrens book about it! You just never know when you are going to be someone's muse!
Maybelle, Bunny of the Northis available Here


Related Events: Dan will be doing a reading at the Homer Public Libraryon Friday, May 1st... (Don't worry, buddy, I've got a cake for you, too!) and Miranda will be reading on Thursday May 14th at The Bunnell Street Art Center

Planting Moon...

The volcano still looms in our presence with it's 'lava dome' and 'discreet earthquakes'...enough to make us wary of settling into normal life. Luckily, Mother Nature marches on with or without us, so when Natalia said that this weekend will be a good planting moon, we decided to get together after work and dig in the dirt! We saved tomato cans all week and got some bags of soil and seeds and stuff (I plantd Dahlia corms in # 10 cans). Natalia had bunch of 4 paks and she was very organized, carefully labeling everything. Ryan brought in a pair of waders that he planted Sunflowers in, propping up the boots with alder sticks. Irene brought some lovely little Basil starts and, along with Brianna, helped Kate juggle Calvin and Henry and still get something accomplished! We had to do it inside because the weather kicked up some wind and rain...(what's a planting party without a little of that!) Spring is slowly but steadliy having her way with us, teasing us with snippets of sun and warmth, but at the moment all is still very grey with ash and it's hard to believe things will be green ever again!

...a few weeks ago I was so desperate I planted me some grass, man!

Fresh Bread for Dinner, Toast for Breakfast!

We are borrowing a page from the Tartine playbook and adjusting our baking schedule to fit a little more closely with both the needs of our customers and ourselves. Instead of trying to put out a bunch of beautiful pastries and breakfast and lunch items AND make bread AT THE SAME Time, we are moving the bread bake to mid-day, so as to free up our oven space and give folks a hot loaf just in time for dinner! It is taking a little time to figure out the oven firing schedule and it will take even longer to fully train our customer base, but in the end, It could be well woth the effort...so Thanks, Chad! (I think)

Old is New again...

WWD has a great article about the time Julia Child came and cooked lunch for them in 1972. Julia stressed thrift as being not just about boring food...she was all about transforming the most humble of ingredients into flavorful meals that would satisfy both the senses and the pocketbook. A couple of years ago I found an old copy of 'Mastering the Art of French Cuisine' at a goodwill store on the island of Molokai, of all places! This article makes me want to pull it out and read it again!
I love looking back to our past for inspiration and am always on the lookout for a good thrift store or flea market. When I was a kid we would drive a few miles north from our town in Michigan up to the Armada Flea Market. It was (and I think still is!) the quintessential outdoor market where you park under the trees and shop the local farmers fruits and veggies as well as antique vendors from all over the area. It's one of the things I miss the most about the midwest...here in Alaska, the outdoor markets are just catching on and they are mostly farmers markets...this state is still so young, antiques are hard to come by!
In the spirit of marrying the old and the new, amazing and innovative chef Grant Achatz (who also happened to grow up in the Armada area...strange coicindence,no?) has written an interesting piece for the Atlantic about that very subject.