Live Blogging Sunday morning...

I'm not a big fan of working Sundays. Lucky for me I had them off all summer. But now that fall is here and we have experienced 'the great leaving' We are faced with having to all give a little where we hadn't before and my contribution is Sunday...(oh, all right!) Here we are only open from 9 am to 2pm, but can pull in as much as we do on a full 11 hour day. (hopefully this answers the obvious question of "why in the hell are we even doing this!)
It's 4:54 am- first things first...Coffee americano. short. with a little steamed 1/2 and 1/2...ok, and a splash of Carolans if we have some (it is...may I remind you, Sunday!)
Time to mix the white Trash for sticky buns and chocolate bread...back in a minute!
on the radio- (quietly, cause we have B&B guests upstairs!)...BBC on NPR is always a whole different view on the world!
5:10 am-Sourdough mixed for bagels and a few baguettes, sipping my coffee and making my list for the day...room 1 needs turning over, the planter boxes pullled, mats washed and kitchen floor scrubbed, suddenly the ice falling in the ice machine startles me. Last week at this time I had a banged up, very drunk dude knocking on my door desperately seeking his girlfriend...I called the poor guy a cab and made him a strong cup of coffee...hoping today the only drunk here is me! (just kidding, we are totally out of Carolans!)
5:42 am- Dry mix for Scones and Biscuits done, sticky goo made and poured into prepped pans...still waiting on rising dough so I check notes from yesterday. Oh Yeah, Sharon and crew had a crazy day. Wind storm blew down our Farmers Market Booth, so Sharon had to run out and take it down in the middle of the busy retail day...boy, it's always something! There was also a big gathering at the beach next door...something about a bunch of people lying on the sand at low tide to form the shape of a salmon in order to bring attention to climate change...(really, you gotta love this town!) All the cars and people walking around just added to the frantic atmosphere. No big functions in the area this morning, so hopefully they will all sleep in a little!
Time for one more cup of coffee...found some brandy...maybe just a little...and a little music, enough about the G20 summit and flooding in the phillipines, How about some Wild Colonials?
6:10- uncover the oven door...the coals, once they are spread out, shimmer with orange and red...I could stare into it all morning! The temp is just right at about 500 degrees. Time to mix muffins and quiche filling.
7:25 am- Bagels are boiling, sticky's rolled and proofing, 7 dozen white trash rolls rolled (16 minutes, in case you were wondering!) Ready for new music...Vampire Weekend anyone?
8:05 am-Scones, Biscuits, muffins all mixed and in the oven, Chocolate bread and bagels just came out...starting to smell really good in here! Danishes are all proofing, waiting their turn in the oven. Quiche is in, as are the sticky buns! (better have those ready by opening time or there will be hell to pay!) Put the IPod on Shuffle...
8:29 am - Barista's are here - Rachel and Natalia...yay! Big oven is cleaned out and all those white trash rolls are safely inside. We are ready to get the day started, doors open in 30...so I should probably go! Thanks for spending the morning with me! Next week I'm off to Clevelandia (as my friend Dan calls it) with daughter Jane to visit the family Coyle (I promised Jenny I would come have a drink with her at the Velvet Tango Room...rumor has it the Ruhlmans are joining us!) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, here we come!

Linda Smogor, the photographer of our lives...

She's been here for almost everything, capturing images of bakery life for the past 17 years with beautiful and thoughtful photos of:
Lucious Bread...

The 'Sisters'!

































Her own daughter on the cover of the Sun Magazine

This photo below was part of a series Linda shot on my last day of work before giving birth to my daughter Jane (who just gracefully turned 13!!!). When she asked if she could submit the image to a magazine, I said yes and completely forgot all about it. Two years later I recieved a large envelope in the mail from her. In it was the current issue of a new publication called Hope. I opened the cover and there it was.

Another year or so went by and Linda called again asking permission to use the photo. I said yes, and again, forgot all about it. Then one day I get a call from a good friend in Portland who says she just got an ad in the mail to subscribe to this magazine and it had my picture on it...my mind swirled at the thought of my naked pregnant belly landing in all those random people's mailboxes. My sister Tarri put it all into appropriate perspective, she says to me; "Hey, big deal, you're on junk mail, it's flying around on the street and people are walking all over you!" I laughed and realized that maybe some of those people would love the photo and be inspired.. over the years we have watched Linda's work crop up in Mothering Magazine and even LIFE...
These images, from her Mars Cove collection, are some of my favorites:


I found this image os Spalding Gray that Linda took in 1988 at the McDowell retreat:

We have a whole new show of Linda's current work up in the Bakery throughout the fall.

Ahhhh...Fall

my sweet peas are basking in the long slow sunsets:

You can tell it's fall when...
-you start to recognize the faces in the line...the locals are back because they know they can get a seat!
-the food delivery shows up before 6pm...fewer places in town to deliver to!
-you can find a parking place on the spit
-the flowers on my porch are finally in full bloom:

-and you start to see other people 'in the biz' out and about...and they are smiling!
...on that last note: we had a lovely visit from the new owners of the Fire Island Rustic Bakeshop...Janis Fleishman and Jerry Lewanski opened their bakery earlier this year and are a rousing success. They are a hardworking couple enlisting the help of their whole family to make wholesome organic baked goods out of a cute little house near downtown Anchorage. It's always so inspiring to talk to people with such passion for what they do..and truly an honor for me that they love our place so much! We wish them a successful winter, and I can't wait to get up the road to check them out.
One more such source of constant inspration is the duo of Michael and Donna Ruhlman. Donna has gotten such great feedback from her classic and elegant photos on her husbands site, that she has started a blog of her own where she answers questions and talks technique about how she approaches a certain photograph. It is full of valuable information for beginners (like me) and pros alike and a visual treat to boot.

She has also launched a lovely website at ruhlmanphotography.com where you can view her gallery of work, purchase high res images and even get medium res photos to use for free.



Parting shot:

These strawberry plants refuse to give up...I like that.

Guilty Pleasure blog of the week:
Adrian Moore...he's the concierge at the Four Seasons George V in Paris and according to Women's Wear Daily, the hottest food blogger in the city of light. Don't you wish he were your best friend?

Raspberries are in!

It's a little like waiting for a lover to return from a long trip out to sea, (a feeling us fishwives find all too familiar!) It's a time filled with breathless excitement and more than a little aniexty. This year, my perfect day to pick raspberries was Saturday. What I assumed would be the busiest picking day of the week. Now I know that every year I feel this way and every year there is always plenty for everyone...it still doesn't help. I don't know what i would do without our annual stash of summer in a jar. It is also the wonderful by-product of living in a small town for so long that my family has had access to the most amazing and awesome patch of raspberries for a dozen years or more. That patch has given us many a small but bright spot in the middle of those cold dark winter mornings...after all who can be crabby after being presented with toasted bakery bread with that brilliant red smeared all over and glistening like a jewel! Lucky for me, on this day, there was not a soul around. The morning had rained some, but as we pulled down the driveway to my friend Jane's (the funny and generous keeper of the patch) the sun came out and blessed us with perfect picking weather!

When my kids were small, we had picking parties... the little ones would play for hours on the tire and buoy swing while I and the other moms chatted and picked. Now that the kids are older they can pick faster than me! This year, it was my friend Celeste and I. I was picking for jam and her berries provided for our evening refreshment...raspberry marguaritas!

...So, with 4 quarts of raspberries picked (with one left behind for our wonderful hostess) and a case of jam done and cooling...you can bet we were ready for a little refreshment.
And just in time for sunset!

A little local inside tip: people here guard their favorite picking locations very closely, if you don't have one (or haven't befriended someone who does) there is always Mossy Kilcher's Seaside Farms. Mossy has herself a little slice of heaven there on the bench above Kachemak Bay. She also rents cabins and runs a hostel along with a great pick your own raspberry patch...it is a lovely spot!

Wedding season is winding down...

We are down to our last few weekends of wedding cake madness. This cake started out on paper as a much more elaborate creation breathlessly related to me by the bride just a couple of weeks ago. While setting up, I casually mentioned to the mother of said bride that it seemed like a last minute affair. In a quiet voice she assured me that it had been planned for quite some time, they were all just secretly hoping the bride would change her mind! Well, she did change her mind on the elaborate detail of her cake when I told her what it would cost. Once we got a grip on how much she could actually spend, we were able to come up with a nice simple design and along with some late blooming flowers right from my garden...I think it reflects the moment and the setting perfectly!


Upcoming Events:
Kachemak Bay Family Planning Clinic is having their annual Iron Chef Competiton at the Saltry Restaurant in Halibut Cove on Sunday, September 6th. It is their biggest fundaraiser of the year and a truly great event where chefs from around the peninsula compete and everybody wins!

Waking up with the cranes

A morning at home brings a special treat this time of year...

A few groups of Sandhill cranes have adopted our yard as a way station as they gather to fly south...we'll see them again next spring when they come back up to nest. The lighter one is a chick born this summer...and I thought my kids were growing fast!

The Golden Glove Awards and the week from hell...

The week before last was definitely one to remember...and not necessarily in a good way. It began on Monday, coming in to find the esspresso machine was only working at half power, the credit card machine was not sending, the oven door had broken and the deli case had gone down in the night packed to the gills with chocolate mousse, lemon bars, brownies and lots of other desserts. All of it had to be thrown away (the case had been a relic from our old days and we hoped to get one more summer out of it, but sadly, no.). To top it all off we were cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner each day (delivered and set-up) for 38 people as a special catering project we had decided to take on months before (when things were kinda slow). As the old saying goes, when it rains it pours and the week continued to offer a few more awful suprises...The sweet little preschool run by our own 'Miss Red' was displaced by a terrible fire and one of our own young friends (and off and on employee) was diagnosed with a life threatening illness...it really felt like it wasn't going to stop. We had one thing to look forward to, though, and that was last sunday's Golden Glove Awards. To help cheer us all up 'Sister' Kate masterminded the event and with much help from Red put on an award show to beat them all. They set up the yard with tables covered in cloths and flowers and laid out a fireweed red carpet...we even had podium and a microphone! Brianna showed up in a platimun wig and everyone donned their finest duds. Natalia brought us a beautiful spread of wood fired pizza from Finn's and we toasted each other with Vouve Cliquot (Thanks Michael!!!!). The presentation was hilarious as we were each honored for our summer performances matched up to appropriate movie titles. I'll publish the list as soon as I can find it...but the most important thing I hope everyone got out of it (besides a hangover), is that no matter how many times the grease trap blows up in the middle of lunch, or the toilet backs up on a busy sunday...We ARE ALL WINNERS!

...a little baking music, please!

I said to my friend Rosemary Fitzpatrick as she rosined up her bow "You don't mind if I roll my buns while you play, do you?" She smiled back with playfull wickedness "Why, no, Carri, not at all!" and with that exchange the Kenai Peninsula Orchestra Summer Concert Series was underway on the porch of the Bakery, right outside my baking table window. Rosemary played along with violinist Kaari Bouma and were enjoyed by a whole yard full of music lovers. This is one of my favorite events of the summer season!

My BLT... from scratch!

With my tomato ripe (finally!), bacon cured and bread made from scratch, I was ready to make my sudmission for the BLT Challenge put out by Michael Ruhlman. I went ahead and gathered the rest of my very special ingredients: The lettuce is from a box on my porch that I planted bibb lettuce in last year...it started growing back all on it's own this spring, something I've never seen happen this far north! The egg for my mayo came from our friend Samantha who collects food scraps from the bakery and feeds it to her chickens...she then brings the eggs to us in trade for credit. (it is a sweetly sustainable relationship!)

I whisked my mayonnaise together and toasted the bread lightly on the grill. The bacon came out salty and slightly sweet, I cooked it in a cast iron pan until it was barely crisp, so it still had a little chew.

We enjoyed it with a nice frosty homebrewed ale by husband John.
For a sandwich that took all summer (and lots of spirited discussion) to make, it was delicious!

This baby is almost grown!

My Arkansas Traveler heirloom tomato baby has grown into it's own. I have faithfully watered, fertilized and trimmed...even going so far as to have a friend come and tend to it while I was up in Anchorage for a few days. All that care and attention has led to this:
and with the ripening comes the inevitable time to pick and eat and, well, be fully realized.
Along those very same lines, 16 years ago I nursed a different sort of living thing into the world...a human thing. I wasn't at all sure how to care for this living being at first, but I faithfully watered, fed and nurtured, going so far as to enlist the help of a whole town (it takes a village, you know). And now all this care and attention has led to this:
Saying goodbye to her for a whole year while she goes to school in the Netherlands to grow and learn and, yes, start on her way to becoming fully realized.
It's good thing I have the bakery to keep me busy and two other young humans to nurture, or else there would be tomato plants everywhere!

Sexy White Bread...

"It's only when the tide goes out that you discover who's been swimming naked" - Warren Buffet
Years ago, Sharon and Kate attended a bread conference in Sausilto (later this gathering became known as Camp Bread)While there they were lucky to meet Alan Scott (the gentleman who eventually came here and helped us build our oven) along with a host of other bakers who, through their great enthusiasm and inspiration, truly helped solidify our commitment to the craft. One of those bakers was Dave Miller, my favorite story they brought back from that trip was about the talk Dave gave about flours and grains and his referral to the pale loaf we enjoy with our peanut butter and jelly as 'sexy white bread'. Now, I can totally see where he's coming from... it's all silky and smooth, soft and chewy all at the same time...I like to think of our White Trash as not quite PG13 material, but the bread that really comes to mind for me as sexy is our ciabatta...now, I know...there's a bunch of y'all out there clamoring for the recipe, however, if you want to make the ciabatta...if you truly want to experience the butter dripping through the lovely holes and the amazing chewy crust from your own bread, you will want to go out and get a copy of Artisan Baking Across America by Maggie Glezer. In it you will find (it is like a treasure hunt, no?) Craig Claiborne's Ciabatta recipe. Don't be daunted like I was by the technicalities. I have to give my more scientific sister, Sharon, credit for working this formula out for us, here at the bakery, (the very wet dough had me freaked out, but once you get it, it's a revelation!)...I have spent the last eight years or so trying to get it right. I may almost be there!
p.s. for you insatiables...Here's more Bread Porn...(oh yeah), courtesy Donna Turner Ruhlman

Eating Alaska...and then some!

With my husband and daughter finally returned from 5 weeks of commercial Salmon fishing, I was glad there were still lilacs blooming in the yard for them to enjoy. (yeah, in August, only in Alaska!) The fireweed has also come on strong this year. Whole hillsides are covered with jawdropping color...it makes driving a little hazardous, all this rubbernecking! It is one month of beautiful that cannot be equalled, and truly, one good reason to let your flower garden go to follow Mother Nature's whims... I took advantage of a Saturday morning off to play with flower jellys. I had just enough of the lilac blossoms for one very excellent batch
Of course, the fireweed will be blooming now for a couple of weeks, lots of opportunity to cash in, it will keep me occupied until the raspberries get here!
We are all working hard to put away a little extra for this winter, with the anticipation of a 'ripple effect' on the Homer economy over this next year. We have faired alright...at least as far as the bakery and it's supporters go. We are not nearly as desperate as those folks in the midwest, counting on big business to make their wage. It brings home a few interesting points of how we will sustain ourselves in the future... some of which have been explored in a couple of documentaries that have come out this year. One is an alaskan tale, called Eating Alaska by director Ellen Frankenstein. It is a humorous look at trying to eat the right thing, in the right place, at the right time. A special screening was shown here at the Homer Family Theater on Earth Day...it was a benefit for the Homer Farmers Market and the Fox River Cattlemen's Association (I totally have a crush on that guy!) We are lucky to have such great resources here in our little spot at the end of the road!
The other movie that is being shown nationally that covers this issue on a much broader (and SCARIER) scale is Food inc. . Writer Michael Ruhlman gives a heartfelt review on his blog and the New York Times called it the scariest movie of the year!

The Wedding of the Summer!

This was one crazy week...we've covered it all: new babies getting ready to be born (go Emma!) the loss to cancer of one of my oldest friends here in Homer (We'll miss you, Patsy!) and then, yesterday...Irene and Jakes wedding! The scene was set for a lovely outdoor soire but mother nature intervened with rain and wind and wildness! We were unable to move the party indoors, so plucky Alaskans that we are, Three Legged Mule put trash bags over their electronics and we danced our (sweet) asses off in the rain! The cake got VIP treatment with a nice dry spot in the house until cutting time!

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 Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery make a starter using a red cabbage leaf on Martha Stewart's PBS program (I have learned so much from her shows!)...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?)