Oven info... part 1

Sharon and Kate discovered Alan Scott of Ovencrafters at a bread bakers conference..we bought the plans,we dreamed about the oven and it's possilbilties, we wanted it so bad that we almost built it before the new building (we'll put it on a trailer!). In the end, it had to wait until a year after the new space was up and running, but we did it! Actually Alan and his dedicated assistant,Julie Lomenda, did it...we offered a workshop and people came from all over and close by ,too, to help and learn from the master himself! It took alot longer and, as you can guess, way more money...$10,000 in 2004...than we thought. it has been an amazing learning experience and has brought us all together in ways we didn't expect. My husband has dedicated himself to the wood gathering, at least as far as the Birch is concerned...we burn a combination of Birch kindling, which grows in patches on the lower peninsula and has a short lifespan, so needs harvesting with regularity, and Alder, it grows in abundance along the roads and is constantly being cleared by the highway department, cut into 3- 4 foot poles which we put on top of the vigorously burning birch to create a hot and long-winded fire. We are currently firing in the afternoon and heat soaking until early morning. It is a retained heat oven, so the fire is burned down to ashes and then they are removed and the brick surface cleaned for bread first, then pastries and on it goes until it's time re-fire. We can put about 40 loaves of bread in it at a time or six sheet pans of veggies for roasting. Cakes and cookies come out amazingly well, as do roasted meats...of course! It took us so much longer to figure it out than we thought, too, which is such an overall metaphor for Bakery life in general! We love it, though, and as we head into fall with so much rain and cold weather, it sure is nice to have a warm hearth in our kitchen!

Raspberry JAM!

I'm not as much of a forager/preserver as I perhaps should be, especially living in a place with so much to offer the hunter-gatherer types. We have a freezer full of rockfish and that's about it...except for raspberry jam. It's a huge staple around here, both on toast in the morning and pb&j's for sack lunches. We need about 24 pints to make it through winter...and if you know anything about alaskan winters you'll completely understand why this is so important! This year was almost a bust in that department...normally we would have been picking mid-august, but it wasn't until a week ago that they finally started to pop. Of course the rain and stormy weather kept me from getting out on Wed. my day off...so, I was relieved to get a little break in the weather to get out today, and boy was it fun! My good friend Jane (owner of the best yard in Homer!) has the most amazing raspberry patch I have ever seen...and in the dozen years I've known her, the berries are always plentiful and her generosity at letting so many of us come to pick is the stuff of legend. The stalks are 6 feet high and the berries the size of my thumb (and then some!) all surrounding a lovely patch of grass looking over the bay with a cottonwood tree so big it has a buoy swing (the alaskan equivelent of a tire swing) hanging from it's branches. The kids run around and play while the grown-ups chat and pick furiously. I got so worked up talking about Sarah Palin I had three buckets full before I knew it! At least she's good for something,eh?
Enough politics...let's make jam!


First we put our clean jars in a big pan half filled with water, put the lid on and set it to boiling. The lids go into a smaller pan also half filled with water and also set to boiling. Then we measured 4 cups of berries and 6 1/2 cups of sugar into our stainless pot and brought it to a rolling boil, stirring most of the time. (daughter Jane was mostly a big help at this) add 1 packet of liquid pectin and boil and stir for exactly one minute. turn off heat. using tongs, pull jars from hot water bath and fill to within 1/4 inch from the rim. Wipe the rim of each jar CAREFULLY and again with the tongs pull the lids out of smaller pot placing them on the hot jars and securing with the screw on metal rings. I like to leave them on a towel at this point until they cool completely when we will check the seals and store away in a cool dark spot.
We got our two cases done just in time to catch our good friend Tom Kizzia appear on CNN to help shed a little light on all this Sarah MADNESS!
Jam is done...back to politics!

Soup Weather

The rain is endless...
Today alone we went through 5 different soups:
Curry Vegetable (pictured above)
Hungarian Mushroom
Borscht
Red Rockfish Chowder
Cream of Mushroom
Almost all of them were made by our most awsome new baker/chef dude Ryan...fresh off a summer on the spit at the Spitfire Grill. We are very Lucky! We also have added Duffy and Natalia to the winter mix.(peaches flaked out to tour asia) Randall and Abby are sticking around also, Thank Goodness! Everyone else has gone or is almost gone...it's a little overwhelming how many people we've said good-bye to! Chelsie was the first to leave for school in Juneau (she had to miss Hesketh...), Irene left right after to meet up with her man in Portland, then Erin back to Portland as well! (a very popular place for Homerites), Brianna is going to travel Europe (she arrives in Amsterdam tonight!), Ben moved to Red Hook, New York to learn from his father how to make guitars (Ben is the talented musician behind Berta) and Haven to California , Emily is off to Stanford, Jenny is going to University of Washington,( Dan is going there, too, I think)! Oh, and Johnny, good ole coffee dude that he is, is hoping to ply his trade in Revelstoke, B. C....Y'all are leaving me with a big hole my tattered little heart, but I wish all of you the very best life has to offer...we'll be here when you get back!

Bye 'rene!

Irene, we couldn't have done it without you! It was a crazy summer...rainy farmers markets, wacky customers, demanding work schedules...Irene weathered it all with signature style and grace. She's one in a million!(I think her new fiance Jake thinks so too!)

Hesketh Island ...a last BLAST!

John Prine drinks Evian...

John Prine came to town this week! Our little corner of the world gets some pretty amazing people coming through and Mr. Prine is a favorite who comes to perform every few years. As usual, we got the catering rider via e-mail from our local promoter and, honestly, as far as 'talent' riders go, this one wasn't that bad...we weren't supposed to be cooking for them, just some deli trays and some very specific beverage requests. They had one show scheduled for Tuesday , which sold out, so they added a second show Wed. allowing the guys to slip in some kayaking or fishing... (good for them! too often traveling performers have to get on a plane and head to the next town, never getting to really appreciate how beautiful it is here.) Since I was off from the bakery on Tues, I offered to do the set-up backstage. Melissa, my delightful right hand girl, had already done most of the shopping so it seemed like it would be kind of fun, and maybe I ‘d get to meet some of the band. I had the kids with me because it was the day before school and we still had a few items on their supplies list to get, plus they are great little porters always ready to help carry stuff from here to there...which is just what we ended up doing on this day! We started by going to the Bakery to pick up the stuff, whip out a deli tray and get the final list for what we didn't have. The sun was shining, one of the rare beautiful days we've had this summer. The kids were chattering (and fighting, let's be honest!) over the next days schedule of events and asking all kinds of questions about who we were delivering food to and why does it need to be Canada dry diet ginger ale and not the store brand? Which, as far as I can tell, after going to every store in town that might even think about carrying soda, is not available here in Homer-town. Given the circumstances, we tried to sub in what we could and left out the things we couldn't. After all this is Homer ALASKA, right? right! So we go the Auditorium with all of our goodies for Mr. Prine and his band. We are lucky to have a beautiful 500 seat theater with nice dressing rooms, etc. attached to our high school. It was fun setting up, we had cut flowers from the bakery yard and put little vases of them out and tried to make it all very nice. As we were leaving, I realized we needed more Ice, so off we went to the store again and raced back to the theater hoping to get there before the performers moved in. We were met at the door by ‘the manager’ and he immediately set about telling us to move everything to another dressing room and fired off a list of things we had not addressed (which were not on my copy of the rider, I might add!). Being all eager to please, I jotted down a new list, the kids and I went back to the store AGAIN and returned to the theater thinking this was the last of our obligations. (All the while Jane and Charles, my kids, are going off about how rude and bossy this guy is being, me, I just want to do good job and get the heck out of there!) But before I could escape ‘the manager’ stopped me and asked what we had planned to feed John for dinner after the show(!) I shrug with resignation and say it’s not on my list, but if John Prine needs dinner at 11:30 at night, I can make that happen…”what would he like?”, I ask. “Manicotti with sausage” was the answer,( “oh yeah and neopolitan ice cream with smuckers fudge sauce and John needs a real plate and bowl and silverware, too”…!) I’m sure this guy was thinking we had some Italian restaurant in town that I could go get it from, but since there isn’t anything like that here, I went back to the store AGAIN and bought the stuff I needed, took it back to my kitchen and made the best darn manicotti ever with sausage and fresh mushrooms and homemade sauce. We delivered it to the theater just as the show was ending. Mission accomplished!
Rather than being paid cash, I had traded the dinner for tickets to the next nights show and took that opportunity to track down ‘the manager’ to see how things went and to gather up my supplies from the night before. When I found him, all he could say was, “it was fine, I loved it! There was one problem, though, John Prine doesn’t like mushrooms, he spit them all out, but, hey, the rest of us thought it was really great!” ...As for the Show...it was REALLY GREAT! And I as watched him stop between songs to drink from his 500ml bottle of Evian (no exceptions!) I felt a certain pride that at least I got the water right!

Root Beer Man!

John has been brewing his own beer for almost 10 years now and for the past few months has been hooked on the idea of making his own root beer. Last Saturday at a garage sale he found a brand new keg cooler.(only $68.00!) Well that lit a fire under him to finally try a batch of our kids favorite soda! He spent a lot of time testing different amounts of dextrose and extract and after many tastings, I think he's come up with a winner! I'll print the recipe as son as I can get it out of him...I have my ways of making him talk! (p.s. Happy Anniversary, Honey!)

a hard week...

Every one has their bad days...every once in a while they stretch into bad weeks. For me it began last week with news that a gentleman from town had committed suicide. He was a long time local who's kids go to high school with my daughter and his wife, a great customer, has the same name as me...(a topic we often discussed because never has either of us been in a place with so many women named Carri) We got word the way we usually do by people calling up for trays of sandwiches or breakfast things to take up to the family. It begets many tearful conversations and makes it difficult to focus on the tasks at hand. (nothing like consoling a friend over the death of their partner and having to turn around and make a latte for some impatient tourist who doesn't know whats going on!) But focus we must and with wedding season in full swing I had 100 petit fours plus two other wedding cakes to deliver before the weekend was over. Well,my anxiety escalated as the petit fours were a little problematic and my inexperience with the medium definitely showed in the final product. (in other words, they looked like shit...okay, not shit...rustic, yeah, that's it) I delivered them in boxes, hoping the wedding they were being served at was one of those down home Homer weddings where nothings too perfect. My heart sank when I walked into the reception area and the vision before me was that of the most elegant wedding I've ever seen! My petit fours were SO not worthy of the lovely setting...I tried to console myself thinking that at least someone else made the wedding cake and those little gems of mine, while they weren't the most beautiful, they would be mighty tasty! Well, I still had to get myself back to the bakery to frost another cake (to be picked up in 45 minutes)...this one with the couples name and the date written on the top of the cake. I got it done, just in time loaded it in the groomsmans car and off he went. I breathed a sigh of relief...one more cake to go and it wasn't being delivered until the next day. (see the Russian wedding below) My calm was shattered when a very short time later the phone rang with an irate bride on the other end saying I had misspelled her name on their wedding cake! Luckily they weren't so far away, they were able to bring it back for me to fix (while they watched!). crisis averted. right. The next day we delivered the cake out to the village. It's about 30 miles one way, Sunday morning of what is usually a day off for me. I didn't charge extra for the delivery because I knew that money was tight on this event and I wanted to help. We left there happy with the cake and getting to see the village, and I went on to have a couple of fairly relaxing days off. Thinking that the vortex had passed, I went back to work on Wednesday pretty refreshed and with renewed bravado. That lasted about an hour until the women who'd ordered the cake for the Russian wedding came in. I was excited to hear how things went but she handed me the bottom tier of the cake, half eaten, complaining that it was burnt and dry and her mother insisted she get her money back...I was stunned! Of course, I apologized profusely and refunded her without hesitation. After she left we looked over the cake and considering it had been sitting since Sunday, it actually wasn't bad at all! I went upstairs to the office to take a moment to regain my composure and there was an e-mail from a gal who was inspired by our business gushing about how she wants to open a bakery in Talkeetna.(don't take this tale to heart Anita, mostly owning a bakery is all good, you go girl!) That was all it took, the tears starting flowing and could've gone on for days except that I had three more weddings to execute cakes for and one alone involved 15 individual cakes, each one a different flavor! So I set about baking 25 cakes on Wed, crumb coated and mostly frosted them all on Thurs and so it went...this time, all went off without a hitch. Whew!

a Russian wedding

Todays wedding cake adventure involved driving out past Anchor Point to the Russian village of Nikolavesk. The cake was for a wedding that was supposedly going to be filmed by the Today Show. While we didn't see a camera crew, we did enjoy meeting the bridesmaids in their lovely traditional dresses, who were also apparently responsible for serving the food, as they were all there preparing while the rest of the wedding party was still at the church. The community here is very private and outsiders are only welcome if invited by someone in the village. Since I had such an official reason for being there, I decided to bring along John and his visiting mom to see it. While I was setting up the cake John quickly ingratiated himself to our hosts and was off on a tour of the yard and gardens...I tracked him down photographing these gals, telling them how beautiful they look...he's such a charmer, maybe I should marry him, oh wait, I already did! Lucky me!

Luca John Fitzpatrick

Daddy Darren and I became friends when he would rollerblade into the bistro I was running. I think he was 14 at the time, I'd steam him up a mocha and he'd dump the whole bowl of sugar cubes into it and stir and sip as we gossiped away about people around town. Years later he held my babies while visiting the bakery, by that time we could share a beer or two... Then he went off and got a life of his own...marrying the lovely Erica in our newly built bakery yard in 2003, and having little Cecelia a few years later. Now my buddy Darren has a boy of his own. Great job Erica! Break out the Sugar Cubes!

Blue Poppy

On Sunday I had a wedding cake to deliver to Anchor Point, so I took daughter Jane and John's Mom (visiting from Wisconsin) along for the ride and on the way back we visited Norman Lowell's gallery and spectacular gardens...his Lilac 'hedge' is twenty five feet high and covered in blooms...and the Blue Poppies...so beautiful!

View from the baking table 7/19/08

How many pastries can YOU make in a day? The competition is fierce around here as we power our way through July. We had a busy baking board on Saturday with a little bit of everything happening all at once!



Randall and Erin discuss the 'Mutato' and a 'rogue' bear...

The Dirty Rags Debut!

We let Johnny go early to see the show and he returned with a t-shirt and reports that they were awesome! Melissa was slotted to video so if that came out, I'll post it for those of us who missed seeing them! I think that once Irene returns from her trip...she jumped on a plane right after playing...they will be a wednesday night fixture at Alices for the rest of the summer!

Bakery Slam!

What a WILD couple of weeks here...it's always so funny to me how for some, July is vacation time. For us it's The Halibut Opener, The Salmon Peak...in a word,CRAZYTOWN!...Fourth of July Weekend set records for both food made and customers served ,it also set off the thoughts in my head about further streamlining our operation, Which lead to my being completely overwhelmed by the tasks at hand...it's a scenario that plays itself out in some form or another every summer. With the prerequisite crisis thrown in, let's just say, things have been very exciting around here! I am so proud of our crew for their grace under pressure and general humor during these hardworking times...most of our customers are very excited to be here, but we do run into the occasional group who have expectations beyond our offerings. While we do have the cafe thing going, we are first and foremost a bakery, we do not deepfry, or serve diet coke or cook eggs to order...we will, however, feed you something that will nourish and maybe even Suprise you. Comment of the week: "Do you have anything that's 'low carb'?" Dude, you are in a BAKERY...what do you think? We struggle with following trends like that, the wheat-free movement is another difficult area, in that to truly be 'wheat free' we have to completely change who we are...at this moment this rationale doesn't make sense, because, we can barely keep up with wheat based products. We always have a wheat free soup and a wheat free dessert, but bread...not so much! I fear I digress...Crazy times call for crazy measures, maybe it's time for a theme day...everyone could dress up as their favorite allergic reaction!

THE INTERNATIONAL DEBUT OF THE 'DIRTY RAGS' TONIGHT AT ALICES CHAMPAGNE PALACE...7 PM!

Charles in the kitchen

Dad's in Bristol Bay, hopefully catching lots of Salmon, so Charles is pulling more kitchen duty with Mom. He's always asking for stuff to do. (well, except when he's scooting around the neighborhood with his buds) His favorite task is chopping. From the time my kids were old enough to help, they have been cutting up vegetables or fruits for me. It all started with Maya at preschool, they had the cutest little cutting boards and the kids used a slightly dulled serrated paring knife to cut carrots or broccoli or apples. At the bakery we have a smaller chefs knife perfect for little hands. Mostly, though, with things so busy, Charles is helping put away dishes...trust me, he knows right where everything goes!