Choosing your family

My cousin once told me that you can choose your family. At first I thought she meant as a baby you could choose which birth canal to shoot out of. Of course I soon realized she really meant that you can choose how much you want to interact with the family you are born into. That you do have control of the situation. That it's not just family, some moral obligatory obligation you have no choice but to accept the demands of.

I think a lot about what my cousin said every time my mom would get us involved in a wacky situation. I used to think about this every time I had to call my mom back, knowing full well that I was in for two hours of her blabbing on to get things off her chest, saying things like, "it helps me to talk about it". I thought about this when my brother went missing for a few years while he sorted out some things in his life. But now my mother is gone and my family is different. I still have my brother and my dad yes, but things are just not the same. I think it might be time for me to make some choices, to choose a new family. It is not that I do not want my brother and my dad in my family, it is just that without my mother, my dad, brother and I are a different family. It's just that we are all adjusting to the new situation at different rates. We have to be patient with each other.

So lately I have been investing a lot of energy in my family at work. I spend a lot of time thinking about my employees, their lives, hopes, dreams, and such. I invite them to dinner. I go to parties at their houses. I go for drinks with them. I support them when they need me by giving them days off when they need them. I ask them about their lives a lot. We laugh a lot. I no longer feel as compelled to fall into the destructive behaviors where I criticize them and make them feel stupid for doing something wrong. But i do still do that a little bit, and I feel terrible afterwards. I wish I could tell them the right thing to do more often. That would make me feel good.

And I've also been investing energy in my family at home. I've been cooking a lot, taking naps with the dog a lot even though I know she would prefer a walk. I bath my older cat because he's too old to do it himself anymore. I try to lure my crazy cat out from under the bed for a quick game of fetch. I try to be nicer to my husband and not take him for granted.

For right now, without my mother, these are the families I choose. I am sure, because family was so important to her, that she would be proud that I my family is growing.

Saying no

It's getting to the point where everybody wants more. Dairy free? Vegan? When when when? Customers are h offing me from all sides wanting more. Do they realize we only have a 2 door refrigerator that is so full that we have to store our milk in our display refrigerator. And our hot water heater is smaller than the one I have at home. Shoot, have more amps at my house too. But they keep asking for more. So we try to add more. It's never enough. Then we run out of some things because we have to make less of them to allow for more variety. Then we run out of three types of cookies in one day. Better get those wrists warmed up for some heavy scooping. Then on a Friday all of a sudden all the cakes are gone and people are calling for more. We give a little, but then it's just too much. We have to say no. Can you do wholesale? We would buy at least 50 pieces per day. That would be every day. But were not open on Sunday. And would we be open for a $60 wholesale order that the bakery would get about $5 in profit? And then the dude who wants the wholesale thinks I'm making a big mistake. And the person wanting vegan thinks I'm making a big mistake. I think trying to do everything is a big mistake. There are bakeries that do wholesale. There are bakeries that do vegan there are taco trucks that do tacos.

Bread on hold for now

I made bagels again today for my hubby who is preparing for a 100 mile ride tomorrow. whole wheat. Topped some with cheddar/green onion, some with roasted tomatoes and oregano, and the remaining plain. I'm going to make him 3 bagel/cream cheese sammies to bring. Yesterday, I made some banana/almond/chocolate chip granola bars. They are pretty crumbly but delicious. I basically took my granola recipe and pushed it into a pan. I felt as I was doing so it needed a binder like egg, but I was trying to make them vegan for something we might be able to sell at the bakery.

We've got a few gluten-free products well under way, and customers seem to be responding quite positively. So far, since sweets are my favorite and I love to make my favorites, we've been focusing on sweets, but will soon push out a nice savory item as well. We hired one of our interns part time, so it's a breath of fresh air for me allowing me to focus on product development and growing the business.

My husband wants me to buy a soft serve machine. Ice cream is probably my favorite thing so I'm suprised I haven't ventured there. Sure, I have a really nice ice cream maker at home, and sure, I do use it, but I guess I know I love ice cream so much that I probably don't want the temptation. But it would be cool to offer ice cream sandwiches with our cookies. Like that would be really great...made to order ice cream sammies. HMMMM....????

Bread 101: Part Deux

After a busy morning in the bakery, I realized I had forgotten to make my second week's baguette.

In fact the whole week was really busy as we'd had several large orders and I was frantically working on a new logo to send to the printers before we ran out of stickers. I was on antibiotics trying to finally kill this bronchitis that was cramping my style. I hadn't been to the gym all week. My brain was pretty much at the end. So I let my animal brain take over and sloppily put together my second week's baguette.

This time, I added a touch more yeast (now a total of 3/4 tsp). I also followed the proportions of flour and water a little more closely so the dough was quite a bit more stiff. I didn't do an autolyse, but had wanted to add the salt right before kneading; however, I forgot to add it until after I kneaded a bit, so I ended up adding the salt about half way through the kneading process.

It was tricky to get the salt incorporated into the dough which felt a little bit like it had just come home from the beach. When I stopped feeling granules, I stopped kneading and let the dough rest for a little while while I jumped upstairs for more work on the new logo.

When forming the baguette, you're supposed to form it into a rectangle and then let it rest for a few minutes to relax the gluten. I was in a rush so I just tried my best to roll a perfect cylinder. As I was transferring it to the sheet pan, I realized it was probably too big, so I cut it in half and tried to tidy up the ends. I thought about starting the reforming process again, but decided against it. I let it rest for about 30 minutes, then slashed it and sent it to the oven.

As you can see,I'm still not getting the slashes deep enough as there are a couple of blowouts at the base of the baguette. Also, what I suspected would happen is the salt, not having totally dissolved, made little salty spots on the dough. What's different is I sprayed this with water before loading it into the oven so the color is a little better, but the exterior is still not even close to what I want.

The flavor is good, a little chewy, but not quite light enough to be the baguette I'm wanting. We're officially out of stickers, but the logo is not ready. Will have to figure out a way to get just a few more stickers printed (not my usual 10,000).

Bread 101: the first loaf

It's time to make a commitment. I've waited long enough. It's time to learn how to make bread. I've read books. I've tried recipes. It's time to do the work. In order to learn how to bake bread you have to bake bread. I've casually made baguettes, brioche, wheat bread, ciabatta, focaccia and then some. It's time to do this for real and learn something. I present my first real baguette.

My favorite thing about this baguette is that it sucks. That sets the tone for some serious improvement.

Bakery Style French Baguettes
12 ounces biga
1/8 tsp instant yeast

Mix above and let come to room temperature and then add:

1/2 tsp instant yeast
4 ounce water (used tap water)

stir to combine. and then blend:

10 ounces flour with
1 tsp salt

add flour mixture to yeast mixture and mix in stand mixer. The dough seemed too dry so I added more water, and then it seemed too wet. I let it sit for 30 minutes trying the autolyse method and then kneaded the dough in the mixer for a bit and then moving it to the bench for a little hand kneading. It still seemed a little too wet so I added more flour. (I know this is a no-no but did it anyway.) Let rest for 2 or so hours until doubled.

It seemed a little shy of doubled in bulk when I poured the dough onto the bench. Also still too wet so I tried to incorporate a little flour into the dough. Let it rest for about 10 minutes and then proceeded to form the baguette.

The dough seemed a little wet and difficult to transfer from the bench to the parchment. I let it rest (uncovered) a bit longer then got the oven all heated up and got to slashing. The dough seemed pretty fragile and got a little ruffly when I scored it. So either it was still too wet or my blade was a little dull.

In to the 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes. I pulled it out and set it down for a bit. A little bit later, I picked it up. Heavy! and it sure seemed underdone! So back in the oven again (also a no-no). It took another 20-25 minutes or so to be done.

You can see that the scoring was not deep enough because it also ruptured to one side. The bread was a little dense, but the flavor was there. Almost a little sweet. The crust was good, but I think I should have hit it with some water.

Irwin's Bakery & Cafe

I suppose I've been thinking about pie for the past few weeks with the opening of High 5 Pie up the street from the bakery (which I have yet to try). I had stumbled on Irwin's back before we opened the retail shop. I was looking at location a few blocks away and thought I'd check out the neighborhood and walked into Irwin's and grabbed some sort of apple turnover thingy. It was delicious and I decided it would be best not to open my bakery near another great bakery.

John and I were in the neighborhood yesterday so we decided to stop by. We were more in the mood for a full breakfast, but we picked up some goodies anyway.

Top Left: I think this was called a Feta Herb Muffin. It was super eggy and I wasn't sure if it was a bread or a quick bread. The flavor of the cheese was really intense and delicious and there were these little orange cheesy pockets sprinkled through the interior. The top was crunchy and delicious. I had half which was plenty big enough for me.

Top Right: This is a slice of their marionberry pie. It's a little "wedgy" for me, but I can understand the need for a decent amount of thickener in a professional pie environment. (otherwise, it just gets too juicy and some customer gets ripped off.) But the filling seemed like it could have either a little more sweetness or maybe some acid so that the thickener didn't seem like the predominant flavor. But the crust was absolutely delicious, flakey, and with a generous sprinkling of granulated sugar on top. It was a perfect portion, slim, tall, and elegant.

Bottom Right: This was a apple pecan scone that puts our blackberry oat scone to shame! Well, not really, but it's in the running for an absolutely amazing scone experience. It's filled with slices of cinnamon sugared apples sandwiched between a voluptuous and rustic scone exterior. And my favorite again, sprinkled with a generous amount of cinnamon sugar and topped with another apple slice. I'm not getting the pecan part of it so maybe there's not enough pecans. I'd actually be fine without the nuts, making it a more pure apple cinnamon experience which is right up my alley!

I will be back!

Other People Do Get Inside Your Head

The bakery is my life. It consumes me. It makes me have insomnia. I am here in the wee hours of the morning surfing the internet on my laptop. I tried really hard to get back to sleep. I tossed and turned, I snuggled with the cat, I shifted the covers, I let my foot hang on the edge of the bed, but here I am, wide awake downstairs with the light on, watching my other cat sleep on the chair across the room. I suppose I was thinking about other people, and wanted to get them out of my head.

Last week was really long, and in some ways I'm glad it's over. I would like to start the new week, and maybe if I get some sleep, I can start the new week feeling fresh. But it looks like it's going to be a groggy start. Luckily tomorrow is Sunday.

On Tuesday of last week I interviewed 8 people to fill a new barista position. This is a new way I'm doing hiring at the bakery. I used to call only 4-5 people, ask them a few questions to decide whether I'd bring them in for an interview, but then bring them in anyway, because what can you learn about somebody over the phone anyway, I thought. The interviews used to be very spaced apart, over several days, so by the time I was done, I could only remember the last few people I interviewed, and one of them would get selected for the job, just because they were the most familiar. Some good and bad choices were made by that method I suppose.

I've run the gamut on hiring mistakes, from hiring people I like to hiring people because of their credentials only. What I've learned, and this keeps coming up in my life over and over again, is my gut is by far the best judge of character and performance. Having all interviews happen essentially at the same time is a way for me to force my gut to react.

But it has another weird side effect. At the end of the 8 interviews, I've realized I've gotten into the minds of 8 people I just met. They are telling me their life's story, their hopes, their dreams, who they are at work, who they are at home, little bits of what they like to eat, and so on. It's very intense. It's like 8 very good short stories, and rather than read them one by one, I've read them all at once.

For somebody like me, who spends a lot of time thinking about her life, someone with a big personality who dominates most conversations with her own stories, her own daily conflicts, her own successes and failures, this is like jumping in an ice cold lake.

Those people you meet, they become part of you. You are hearing their stories and you can't stop thinking about them. You forget about your stories which is weird because you're always thinking about yourself. All of a sudden the world seems so monumental, even though you knew all along it was a huge place, and that you could never ever meet everybody in it, and hear their stories. You can't even really replay your own stories in the short span of your life.

This reminds me of something that Bill Viola said, that if you were to record your life on video, you could never watch it because it would have to be in real time and you would have too much footage.

When I can't sleep, I seem to be trying to replay footage from my day, my week, my life. I am trying to watch it again and again, trying to reinterpret it. Maybe if I never slept again I could catch up.