2017 the year of the PIG!

One of the best parts of 2017 for me was finally getting our whole pig program on line.

We are able to get Alaskan pork from Wyhe Family Farms in Sutton, Alaska thanks to Arctic Valley Harvest. It is a treat to work with such great people!

It took 5 of us 5 hours to break it down into cuts for dinner and trim for sausage. 

Coppa Steaks are my favorite new cut!

We also seasoned and rolled the head. Cooked for 12 hours and sliced. 

Came out super delicious. Perfect New Year's Special!

We even salted a ham for 26 days

And Simeon rubbed it with lard and wrapped it to hang.

See you in about a year!

The bakery glowed like a beacon on our last day open this year. 

We are so grateful to everyone who walks through that door!

Happy 2018!

The Rain in Spain

Parabere Forum 2017 was in Barcelona Spain. 

Sharon and I met our friends Lotta and Titti from Sweden for a week of touring, talks and tables full of food and interesting people!

First stop The Jane Hotel in NYC. Also hit The Spotted Pig (crazy place) and Blue Hill (so much beautiful food)

a stop at the Whitney. Lunch there was divine.

Once in Spain find a market and get some coffee with your ladies.

and maybe visit a winery while your at it!

Alaska seafood is everywhere. 

Joan Roca. Love him.

ALL the jamon

Our apartment was in the lower building on the right. great locale.

Gaudi LIVES!

Our new best friend Jessie Cool. She is so cool.

and we ate...

and ate...

and looked

art was everywhere!

digging up a little Catalonian history. prescient. 

more jamon. cant get enough!

Truly, Deeply, MAD

MAD 5 Copenhagen Denmark August 28 and 29, 2016

The trip started with dinner at Noma right after I arrived in Copenhagen on Saturday. 

The most memorable meal of my life. 

The doors to the tent open right at 9. The music is blaring and we scramble to find a close seat. I have latched onto Illiana Regan the highly respected chef from Elizabeth and Co. in Chicago. I am having a hard time reconciling her soft voice and almost petite presence with the article I just read about her in Art Culiaire magazine. She is lovely and I want to be her new best friend. I lead us into a row of seats on the right side of the stage. Everything is right there in front of us, until a camera boom pops up and we are left with this big black iron arm waving through our view. 

It all started off with 

Jacques Pepin and his daughter Claudine.  true masters and a delightful family!

This was an incredible panel: Francis Lam moderating Alex Atala, Kylie Kwong, Jessica Koslow, April Bloomfield and Rosio Sanchez. It was too short!

Parabere Forum meets MAD! So good to see this bunch of talented ladies!

Dinner at 108 Sunday night was off the hook. Rene Redzepi and Daniel Patterson Sat next to us and the word was there were 52 Michelin Stars in the room at that moment. Goosebumps!

We are listening, Rene!

Dinner for 500 under a bridge.  Truly MAD Style!

Final Dinner with Mark Canlis of Canlis Restaurant and John Sundstrom from Lark
bonding over glazed uterus. a little Francis Lam photo bomb. Super fun night!

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Falling Forward

The light floods the kitchen this time of year as the arc of the sun dips below the edges of the porch roof spilling blinding gold on the sandwich board a few hours a day. It's our favorite season here, the summer crowds are gone, the weather is still nice and when the sun is out, you just can't beat these fall days.

We are taking advantage of the slower time and moving ahead with our new test kitchen up and running (transforming a former B&B room to house a cold storage closet, veggie and dish sinks and workstations with a view of the ocean;)
AND closing Sundays!
With football season upon us, the bakery slows waaaayyy down on Sundays. A good time to clean the greasetrap and defrost the freezers, because we do know how to have a GOOD TIME, lol! Who doesn't want to spend their weekends doing that? You can tell we are not football fans!

Homer celebrates the Art of Fermentation with Sandor Katz

     A couple of years back, my sous chef Morgan and I attended the MAD food symposium in Copenhagen. Run by Rene Redzepi and his merry band from the restaurant Noma, it has become the seed of many great collaborations and ideas for some of the best chefs in the world and a way for a small town bakery owner like me to both see what is possible and reaffirm their mission. (I wrote a little piece about it on my friend Michael Ruhlman's blog)

      One of the speakers I was most excited to see was Sandor Katz, (Esteemed author of Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation).  To my delight at the closing dinner I found myself sitting next to him. It was so interesting hearing about his life in Tennessee and fun to tell him how many fans he has up here in Homer.






      Luckily for us, he remembered our meeting when a chance to visit Alaska this summer came up, he got in touch.

      It was with pure excitement that we were able to host him for two events, one was a workshop that included both hands on and lecture with many questions answered thoughtfully by Mr. Katz, the other was a fundraiser for the Homer Farmers Market (a big thanks to that organizing queen Robbie Mixon for bringing it all together) that included readings by local authors as well as a sweet presentation by Sandor.

      The workshop was held at Twitter Creek Gardens, (made famous in this excellent Eater.com article by Julia O'Malley).

What a beautiful day!

HAPPY HOLIDAZE!!!

A Holiday Poem, in pictures. (with allegory)

Here is the Church:

Here is the Steeple

Open the Doors

                                                  And See All The People!

Happy Holidaze!!!!!

Summer 2014...is it really over?

Summer 2014 began with a bang! Little Delaney came into our world at the end of May and things haven't quite been the same around here since. Born to Jill, one of the best managers this bakery ever had...Here she is with Maya, oldest bakery baby who turned 21 this summer. That's a lot of buns in baby years.

We slammed through June pumping out some beautiful catering events along with the nonstop daily routine of feeding everyone who makes their way down to our little corner of the beach.

And the flowers were incredible! Our tables were filled with Homer grown flowers all summer long. 

The produce was the best we have ever seen thanks to so many quality producers in the area, cabbages bigger than a basketball. 

We did our best to make it look real good!