my garden is in!

Garden Update August 20th...peaking out!

Garden update July 20th...coming along!


It's a balmy 65 dgrees...John and I had lunch on the porch! I decided to forgo the big garden this year, too many distractons, and with the many successful farmers in our neighborhood, I'm better off baking bread and trade it for broccoli and lettuce from them! I have a little potato patch in my friend sydney's enclosure, but that and my container garden, well that's it! Sharon has been diligent in the bakery gardens...they look better than ever.

A new bun in the oven!

Kate just let us in on her little secret...She's 11 weeks into baking off a new addition to her family. We are so excited to welcome the, if I'm counting correctly, 9th bakery baby! (UPDATE: I'm wrong...it's baby number TEN! see what happens when you get a bunch of women together? we all start counting wrong.)
Due date is Dec 31st...Congratulations, Kate, Jeff and Henry!

Farmers Market Begins!

Today is the first market of the season! It's been rainy and cold, and yes it's raining right now, but that rarely dampens the spirit of the farmers here in Alaska! We are so ready for anything fresh and green...you saw me last week grinding up nettles for pesto, for pete's sake! (I've gone through 2 jars already!) Last night I baked off a hundred or loaves to send with Irene to sell at the bakery booth. She'll also have apple rhubarb tarts, fresh, hot chocolate bread, cheddar scones...oh, I'm getting hungry!

15 years...

This past May, amongst little fanfair, the bakery turned 15. It's hard to believe I've been doing anything for that long, and it can only mean one thing...My Maya, bakery babe numero uno is also 15! This year is extra special with it being her Golden Birthday, the big day is Sunday (the 15th, yeah) and she has chosen a quiet celebration with a few friends. Her big request to mark this time is to get her nose pierced and by the sound of my husbands voice, he's going to go along with it! wonders never cease! I think she knows exactly how she wants to be seen by the the world (its so much of what this age is about!), and she's right, it would look great on her! Last summer she waited until her father left for Bristol Bay and she dyed her hair purple before I put her on the plane to Interlochen for summer camp. I went along with it because it was a great way for her to try standing out against the rules and regs of camp life and it wasn't permanent...or so we thought, oops! Truly, I am a mother with little backbone, but I sure got me some cute kids...Happy Birthday Maya!

Nettle Pesto!

Spring can be a stinging affair this far north, with temps still in the forties most days (look, the trees aren't even leafed out yet!)...a little wind, a little rain, and yes, a little sun as well! Enough so that my nettle patch, on the western side of my lawn at home, is thriving quite nicely, thank you! It's the perfect time to cut back this itchy nuisance as the ball playing is in full force around here and looking for lost baseballs in a patch of nettles is, well, no fun! It's great that we get to take care of this pesky problem in such a tasty satisfying way! My friends Jenny and Sydney showed me this method...in the past, we've gotten to make many different batches...but this year has been a little challenging to get us all together.
Since I am home today, I think I'll get things started!



I cut about 16 cups of nettles...enough for two batches







Drop 8 cups of the nettles into a large pot of boiling salted water and blanch for two minutes

Squeeze out excess liquid and give them a rough chop...you'll have about three cups



Into your food processor with approximately ( I say this because you can certainly
add more, less or delete altogether any of the proposed ingredients to your liking!)
1/2 cup grated Parmesean
1/2 cup walnuts (I prefer the flavor over pine nuts)
5 garlic cloves-peeled (obviously)
a splash of lemon juice
dash kosher salt
a few turns of the pepper mill
1/2 cup olive oil-the nicest you can afford - drizzle in as processor is running...again you can add more or less depending on how thick you want it!


I like to spoon it into glass jars and pour a little olive oil on top...refrigerate for up to four weeks or freeze in ziplock bags to save for the middle of winter when your dying for a little taste of spring!
This first batch is packaged up and ready to pass out to my friends!

Game on!

It's Memorial Day weekend! Homer is hopping with activities as the Seafest gets underway incorporating the Wooden Boat Festival, the Kayak Festival and everything else nautical...the Blessing of the Fleet is tomorrow, too! Homer is hosting the visiting exhibit of Eyes Wide Open...they set up pairs of boots and read the names of Americans and Iraqis killed the Iraq war. My daughter Maya (ever the activist) is reading for an hour with a couple of her friends...it's being held near the Bakery at Bishops Beach, so hopefully I will be able to slip away from the baking table long enough to check it out. We are catering a party today on top of all the BUSY-NESS! Staying open until 8 has met with an ever growing audience of folks who are glad to be able to get their bakery fix without thinking so much about the time. It's light so late now that it's hard to know when to go home.

Staff on!
Everyone is here! Laura, the intern from New England Culinary Institue has her tent set up in the bakery yard, Irene is back from Portland to rock our world. Red has just wrapped up her first year of Raspberry Lane Preschool and is jumping back in the bakery saddle for the summer. Johnny is returned from 6 months in New Zealand (working in a coffee house,now he thinks he's a coffee god,has he got a lot to learn!) . We welcome Brianna to the fold, fresh in from Minnesota...When she stepped into the fray a couple of weeks ago I asked her, "How do you feel about 'baptism by fire'?! Her reply? "I prefer it that way!" I knew she was the girl for us! The die-hard winter folks are, like me, happy to have some fresh horses! Many thanks to Ben, Abbey & Keri for sticking with us! Oh and I forgot about Mr. Randall Pine who opted to work for us instead of going back to the Princess Lodge for the summer...he is a workhorse of mythical proportions who works way past his required hours and adds a welcome slice of dry humor to the mix!

Congratulations to all our Seniors who graduated high school...Haven, Emily, Jenny, Tygan, Gillian and Sophie!

Bakery Band is coming together with Irene, Ben and Haven...we are having fun thinking of names for them!
(my current fave is the 'oily balls'...dough balls, that is!)

Bakery Band Update: Name:The Dirty Rags...genre: Melodic Punk...Name of first CD: Oily Balls...SWEET!

Billy Bob cooks with fire!

The constant firing of the oven gives us many ways to test the possibilities of cooking with fire...these are pans of cabbage and sweet potato being roasted for the focaccia sandwiches that will be made up for lunch today. Sharon jokes that she remembered a show on PBS in New York when she was a kid called 'Billy Bob cooks with fire'...I loved that so much! It speaks to what we are doing every day these days. Fire is such an integral part of cooking, yet few of us have to manage it on such a basic level as to build the oven, harvest the wood, make the fire, then cook the food! It reminds me of a winter I spent living in the woods in Idaho as a very young Carri. The little cabin I rented had only a wood cook stove. Boy did I learn a lot! It must have stuck, cause here I am...CHOOSING to do it this way...just don't call me Billy Bob.

Pizza Nights begin!

Ben is holding our first ever pizza to order! We just kicked off what we hope will be a fun and popular excursion into the evening dining scene here in Homer. I know that there are already a few...okay, several pizza places in town, a couple of them even bake in wood fired ovens...it's just that we have this brick oven, you see, and since we are already there baking bread in the evenings, it seems like the thing to do! We are open now until 8 pm EVERY DAY, serving not just pizzas, but our delicious soups and sandwiches and DESSERTS! The transition to night baking has been a little rough on the bread end as we figure out mixing, proofing and baking times and temps...I have to admit my breads have been a victim of that learning curve, I'll spare you the picture of white trash loaves burnt to crisp on the outside and not quite done on the inside. With the price of flour so high, I'd better get it together quick, or else the boss will 'fire' me!

The little cookie that could...

CHOCOLATE GINGERBREAD COOKIES!

Every year at holiday time we make cookies...LOTS of cookies, a few dozen kinds, every year the list changes, we rotate out the least popular or difficult. By the end of the holiday season...we are so done with those cookies! This is one cookie, though that we (and everyone else) loved so much that we decided to let it grow up and become a real, year round part of our bakery case. I've had a special request for the recipe in time for mothers day...so here it is!
Now get baking Daddy-o!

This is a larger than normal batch...you'll be glad.

1# unsalted butter...soft
1/4 cup fresh ginger, grated
2 cup brown sugar
2 cup light molasses
6 1/4 cup flour
5 tsp ground ginger
4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup cocoa powder
4 tsp baking soda
2 Tblsp boiling water
28 ounces chocolate chips (sometimes we add 1/2 white chocolate chips)

preheat oven to 325 dgrees.
cream butter, fresh ginger, brown sugar and molasses.
Sift flour and spices and salt, Mix 1/2 into butter mixture
dissolve baking soda in water and add to above, then stir in rest of flour mixture
and chocolate chips. Chill dough....roll into balls and dredge in granulated sugar
bake on parchment lined cookie sheet for 12- 15 minutes...um, depending on the size of your balls.
if you make a larger sized cookie like we do, flatten slightly before baking.

What $1700 worth of flour looks like

We took delivery of our first ever pallet of flour on friday...we saved about $4 a bag ($200)

Update on flour prices...I know I'm going on about this, but, I finally looked farther into it than the main media coverage and it looks like quite a combination of factors have led up to this huge increase, a 'perfect storm' , if you will, of high fuel prices, high demand overseas, and the demand that many states have to meet quotas imposed by the government to produce more bio fuels. Incentives to farmers have favored corn and soybeans...it's all so complicated it'll make your head spin! The good news, so the wheat council says, is that in coming wheat crops will exeed any past records of production, provided that the wheat growing areas are not hit with drought.

Spring News...

It is coming fast and furious...spring in homer is a dizzying affair. One minute it is snowing, the next its raining. It makes driving treacherous and me mad at my husband that he took the studs off my car so soon! We are seeing the signs of life that come first in the spring rush...daffodils and tulips are showing buds and I bet if I sneak over to the old house where Raspberry Lane preschool used to be there is a big patch of crocuses blooming brightly under the porch. I should go and dig up just one and bring it to the bakery garden...my own little gem. The pussy willows,too, are just popping and the rhubarb looks like the alien is ready to give birth! We are saving our coffee grounds and spreading them for compost on the gardens. It seems like it will help counter all the salt in the soil from being so close to the ocean. Gardening here has proved to be a huge challenge! We all were excited to have a yard here at the new building, but our proximity to the onshore winds and constant people, dog and MOOSE (they mowed down the roses!) traffic really test both our plants and our patience. When the wildflowers bloom...yarrow, tiny violas and the regal and spectacular fireweed, I wonder why I think I can plant a more beautiful garden than mother nature...left to her own devices, she does a spectacular job! The shorebirds are coming...Both the Shore bird and Wooden Boat festivals begin May 8th and we have Bruce Cockburn coming to town to kick things off! He'll be staying with us upstairs...We try to accommodate as many of the visiting musicians as possible...we trade for tickets to shows and in turn we give them a nice cozy room, beautiful views, great food and a authentic 'local' experience. Plus, we get to meet them! It's one of the fun parts of the job, for sure!
The Bakery itself is coming together, though we are still waiting on the refridgerator that needs to be installed before we can bring in the first pallet of flour...it's always something!

Our Websight is temporarily down!

I didn't know it could happen like this...they say they are working on it, but it's been 24 hrs already! How do websights get broken anyway? We are bakers, not techies, so we'll keep baking bread and all those other yummy things...while they wrench away in cyber space! With luck it won't be too long, but if you are looking for info on the Bakery like room rates or reservations, or catering and cake menus, just call us and we'll take care of your needs...we are there from 3am to 7pm every day.
The phone number is (907)235-2280. Otherwise, keep checking back...I'm sure those nice people over at Value Web will have us up and running real soon!

Spring Birthdays and Espresso Machines...

We were so sure we wanted to buy a new espresso machine...remembering last summer when the coffees backed up and the poor Astoria couldn't quite keep up...(and then there was the 'Andrew incident' when the lever popped up and sent him to the emergency room with a cut brow!...BUT, after pricing new ones and looking at some old ones, suddenly this little beauty looks pretty good! We think with a little work and better training of the people using it, it should work just fine! Best of all IT'S PAID FOR!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ALL THE SPRING BORN BABIES OUT THERE!
Sharon, Kate, Carmen, Rachel, Celeste, Randy, Sarah, Sydney
Rosemary, Darren, Jane...have I forgotten anybody?
oh yeah, ME! ;-)Carri!

It's not social commentary...it's just bread

White Trash Bread...the story is when the bakery first opened way back in 1993, we took on one wholesale customer, a local restaurant that was also revamping an old space. We made their desserts and developed a bread for them. In the process of finding out what it was they were exactly looking for in a bread,one of them said, "you know, like that trashy white bread you get in Texas." We thought," OK, we get it"...and when he picked it up we told him," Here's your white trash bread!"...and that was it, no judgements or social commentary...just soft, flavorful, slightly chewy white bread...silky in texture and a little bit sweet (just like the Texans we know!). It is by far our most asked for recipe...

White Trash dough

mix together in a measuring cup and 'proof' to test the liveliness of the yeast
2 pkg active dry yeast
1 T(ablespoon) sugar
1 cup very warm water (not hot)

when this bubbles and looks healthy...hopefully in 5 minutes or so, transfer to a mixing bowl.
and add:
1 1/2 cups of warm water
1/2 cup milk-whole fat
1 T olive oil (melted butter would be great, also)
1T Honey
5 cups unbleached white flour
mix this by hand or in a mixer until it just barely comes together..
.then cover and let rest for 20 minutes or so...this is referred to
as an 'autolyse' and it allows the flour to absorb the moisture without
the salt hampering the process. After time is up, stir in...
1 T salt and another cup of flour
the dough should be coming together now and may need the addition
of up to 2 more cups of flour.It should be a medium soft dough that
stands up to kneading but is not too firm. Knead until silky in texture
and thin bands form when pulling it apart.
.
Let rise, covered, until double in bulk.
You may now either form it into loaves to rise again and slash and
bake at 350 degrees for about an hour or until internal temp is 195.
OR you can make dinner rolls or bread sticks...
this is also the perfect dough for STICKY BUNS!

I'm flaunting the oven, I know...I can't help it, though it has been slow to make a place in my heart, I can say it: I love this oven! The paint came out beautifully and we fired it back up again last night to bake in today. We hardly turn on the propane oven on days like this, and now that propane has gone up like everything else, it is finally more economical to fire the wood oven. A big part of this is the fact that my husband, bless him, has taken on the job of finding us birch trees that have already fallen or need to be thinned. (Birch and alder are our main fuels) He bucks it up hauls it to our house where the kids use the wood splitter to chunk it up...it's a family affair! Some families play monopoly, we split wood. It has paid off, in many ways, not the least of which is the consant operation of this oven...in a sustainable and affordable way.