Batter Up: The Making of Village Bakery

Day Off!

2009-09-07T07:42:00.000-07:00

Yup---that's me in my robe, sipping coffee from a mug from my kitchen cabinet & checking my e-mails at 7:45am. Uh-huh, that's where you'll find me all day today. Oh...I may change it up a bit. Perhaps I'll switch to an icy-cool alcoholic beverage. If I'm super ambitious, I may throw on a pair of George Castanza (sp?) type pants (anything with elastic in the waistband). Other than that, however, this is what my day will look like. Perfection.

It's my first day off since mid-June (the 18th of June when my lovely niece, Stephenie graduated, to be exact). Unfortunately, Richard had to go into the bakery for a few hours today to put together the wholesale bread delivery and to get the sign painter all set up for his day of FINALLY painting the name "The Village Bakery and Cafe" on the outside of our building. Now we won't be a secret club that people sort of wander into saying "are you guys open for business??" Hallelujah.

If anyone is still out there and is still wondering: things have been chugging along nicely for us. We hired a great new chef---one who shares our vision for the place and who has been working hard to get things up to speed. We have a small menu, but everything on it (I think) is delicious. Since the signage is going up, we're going to be actively trying to get people in through the doors (as opposed to when we first started----I shuttered a few times when people would look at the old menu that we inherited from the previous owner).

For any of you who are in the L.A. area: please come in and try us out this coming weekend (or tell your friends to stop in). Our address is 3119 Los Feliz Blvd. L.A. 90039. Our phone is 323.662.8600. Website will be going up soon. Really.

I'll post a picture of our new signage as soon as it's finished. For now, though, I have to grab another cup of Joe from my own kitchen! and begin puttering....

If at first you don't succeed...

2009-08-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

Try one million more times. That's my motto for this blog and, I guess, for life in general (certainly for all things bakery related!).

I've been having a heck of a time with my computer over the past couple of weeks. It's not just my little blog that's been suffering, it's just about everything that I try to do on the computer (It can't be me, right??? It must be the machinery). I have a bit of time tonight, so I'm going to try (once again) to post a few pictures.

LOTS has been happening since the last time I posted (oh so many weeks ago). First, we've begun a minor face lift of the bakery---painting inside & out, new table tops, etc. For the past two weeks we've closed the retail business down so that we can do the necessary minor surgery. Here's a before and after shot of the outside of the building:

We still haven't painted the name "The Village Bakery and Cafe" on the outside --- hopefully that's going to happen this week. Right now, we're totally flying under the radar. We're still working out the many (many) kinks so not having the new name on the building is a blessing. A couple of other things that we're going to be doing to the outside of the building is replacing all of the potted plants you see in the photos with herbs and getting new umbrellas made (brown fabric with blue polka dots!).

Now, keep in mind that even though we're painting the outside (and inside---I haven't taken those pics yet), overhauling the menu, hiring staff, etc. we're still continuing to pump out our wholesale orders every day. This also includes selling our bread & baked goods at the Silverlake (Saturday) and Hollywood (Sunday) Farmer's Markets. Here's a list of the items that I bake off between the hours of 4am and 6am on Saturday & Sunday mornings for the markets:Yeah, yeah... I know it's impossible to read---I just want you to be in awe of the multitude of tasks I have at hand at a ridiculously early hour in the morning....

Here's a couple of photos of some of the items that are on that list. First is a few different types of scones:The picture below on the right is of a particular favorite of mine, the Lemon-Rosemary-Almond-Olive Oil cakes (please someone come up with a catchier name than that! Anton?? Sue??). I wasn't sure how these were going to go over, but it turns out that people like them as much as I do. They've been flying out the door when I have them in the bakery and people at the Farmer's Markets are snatching them up as soon as our stand is set up.

To the left is the most important item that we bring to the Farmer's Market, the bread. This is just a tiny portion of the different kinds of bread we bake (they're all seriously delicious, by the way. Seriously.)

The last picture is one of me & Richard. I like to call it "The Goose":
Hope you're all well & that I see you all soon! I'll write more soon. Really.

Random Notes

2009-08-12T21:11:00.000-07:00

Well, alright then. It has been a while since my last post, hasn't it? Oh, right. The pictures. Turns out that I lie, don't I?

Checking in

2009-07-31T20:15:00.000-07:00

Oh, don't worry my faithful two readers---I'm still here. Things are ok. No, better than that---things are swell.
I've hired a few people and fired a few people. Both these actions have put me, if not on track, at least within spitting distance of the track.
I'm heading into my weekend thinking that I'm going to be suffering much less than I have been in the past month. As a matter of fact, I may throw caution to the wind and forgo suffering all together. How 'bout that?
I'll try to check back in this weekend as it's my plan to take some pictures tomorrow morning of everything that has to be baked between the hours of 4am and 6am in order to make my deadlines for the farmer's market. (Hint: it's a boat-load of treats.)

How would you like your eggs?

2009-07-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

Hey, Hi, Hello!
Let's be honest, okay? This is hard. All of it. Really. Super. Hard.
Employees. Tough. They're never going to care as much as I am, are they? Do I blame them?

Looking back on it, although I think I was always a good employee, I always relaxed when I went home from work. Never worried too much about the bottom line of the company. I did try my hardest not to be too surly to my bosses, though (Jim, if you're reading this, I'm sure you are laughing). Restaurant work is much different than working in an office, though. It's hard, hot and the hours are long. Tempers are short. Surly behavior abounds.

Bottom line: I'll be cooking breakfast and lunch tomorrow. I've already concocted a menu full of specials that will ensure that I spend a minimum amount of time trying to make a proper omelet (hello!!! I'm a baker, remember??). Salad anyone? Little granola & fruit perhaps? Better yet, let's all have a piece of cake and enjoy the day...

I feel like a hundred bucks...

2009-07-20T03:14:00.000-07:00

Actually, I feel more like $79.95, but I thought I'd round up. Given the value of the dollar these days, I don't think that's so bad considering both Richard & I worked 40 hours this weekend. That's each, not a combined total. Uh, huh...70+ bucks isn't too bad at all.

I have a couple of problems that have led to my low valuation. First, my insistence on wanting to serve only fresh baked goods (no day old scones, please!). This is particularly troublesome on Saturday and Sunday mornings, when we have Farmer's Markets (Silverlake and Hollywood, respectively) to provide for. In addition to all of our bread (which, thankfully, my head bread-baker the fabulous Nicolas is in charge of) I have to get out 3 different types of coffee cakes, 4-6 different muffins, several types of scones, brownies, cookies and a variety of miscellaneous pastries (tarts, danish, etc). I'm trying to bake these items all between the hours of 4am and 7am (the time that my market salesman picks up all the goods & brings them to the market). Oooohhhh...here's the second problem: this weekend I baked all that stuff myself.

Yeah, don't worry. I won't be doing that again.

On Friday night I posted a small "help-wanted" ad on Craig's List. I said I was looking for a baker's assistant as well as a counter person/barista. The ad was posted at 10:30pm. By 5am I had received 97 responses. By Saturday afternoon, I had about 200 responses. I now have over 300. At this point I'm going to have to hire someone just to help me go through all of the e-mailed resumes. The reality of the unemployment rate has certainly hit home...

Staying Positive

2009-07-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

The hardest part about getting this bakery up & running? It's not the aching feet, the 15 hour days or all of the paperwork, phone calls and details, details, details that we have to deal with. The hardest part is trying to stay positive through the exhaustion. I've found that the day can go from difficult to just plain ugly without at least trying to keep a sense of humor about things. Now...those of you that know me, know that this is not a trait that comes naturally to me. I have to remind myself, not daily, but constantly, that whatever my beef is (sore feet, surly employee, unwavering vendor, muffins that do not rise sufficiently) will eventually get sorted out (except for the feet part---those are pretty hopeless at this point. My fingers are crossed that "foot transplantation" will be perfected in my lifetime).

A couple of things that help to keep the spirits up: First, reminding myself that I get to bake for a living. How cool is that? It's actually the time that I'm not baking that I have to work hard to keep a smile on my face. Second, I get to have some people I really, really love around me---my husband, my cousin, my friend. As an added bonus, the bakery occasionally gets a special guest star. I like to think of it as a cameo appearance in a blockbuster movie (OK, I overestimate the bakery's importance just a tiny bit). This week, for example I had a baker's helper extraordinaire---Nick Padovese:
He's coming back to help out tomorrow before returning home to SF, so we'll see if he can handle macaroons (coconut, not fancy frenchy ones) as adeptly as he handled scones. At the very least, just having him in the bakery will keep a maximum smile on my face with a minimum effort...

Wanna Job??

2009-07-10T19:36:00.000-07:00

Wow! That was one long, frustrating week. It has come to my attention that I, for some reason, have less hours in the day than the rest of the world's population (that's you!). Although it seems (to my feet, at least) that I've been standing for 16+ hours a day, I feel like the day is over in only 3 hours. It's not fair, I tell you.

I've been amazed all week by my employees. Some have amazed me by seeming to read my mind and jump to do tasks before I even ask (thanks Sue! thanks Teri & Mari!) others (who will not be named) have amazed me with their lack of any type of work ethic. Here's a tip for any future employees: do not wait until the end of the day on Friday to tell me that I am completely out of bacon and will not have even one strip of it for breakfast on Saturday when you know as well as I do that you ate a big, fat, BLT for lunch. Amazing.

Needless to say, the search for a new cook is on. If it's one thing I learned from my previous year's experience, it's that no one is irreplaceable. I was held hostage for many months in my last bakery by an employee who had me convinced that, should she leave, no one would ever be able to do her job. I was actually scared that that was true, so I put up with a lot of nonsense. Turned out that once she left, we were not only able to do her job, but we got it done faster, better and with absolutely no drama.

Finally, I need to say that I was amazed all week by my lovely husband (awww....) who is working harder than me, yet complaining way less. I suspect that it must be because he's one of the fortunate who have managed to have more than the usual allotment of hours per day...

Muffin Maddness

2009-07-06T21:06:00.000-07:00

Here's my dilemma for the day: the previous owner has an amazing pastry case. Everything in it looks dee-lish. Giant muffins in five or six different flavors, over-flowing from their cute custom "tulip papers" (pictures to come at a later date), four different types of coffee cakes, all cut in giant slabs, cookies with brightly colored sanding sugar decorated with edible flowers. Doesn't sound like a dilemma, does it? Here's the problem: it all tastes horrible. Looks fantastic, tastes like sand. The previous owner never met a muffin mix she didn't like. To her, it was all baked from scratch. After all, she does take the mix out of the gigantic tub 'o mix, add eggs, maybe some frozen fruit and, voila (that's French!) she has a "freshly baked muffin." How bad is it? Oh, let me count the ways.

The reason this is all still a problem is that we agreed that the transition to taking out all the old product and bringing in all new product would be gradual. We aren't changing the name of the bakery officially for a month or so, which means we're still sort of flying under the radar (there's loads of benefits to that: it allows us lots of trial & error without permanent ramifications). We have so many other issues (employee, utilities, health dept., etc. not to mention existing wholesale clients) that need our attention that scraping everything would require us to shut down for a couple of weeks. That's not going to happen. What is happening is that every day I've been introducing one or two of my own items so that the nasty tasting/great looking pastry case slowly changes into what I have envisioned.

Today's goal: come up with a muffin recipe that looks identical (or, at least, comparable) to the enormous offerings that currently take up so much real estate BUT with a twist: they need to be super moist, super fresh and super delectable. Good luck to me. Photographic evidence to follow...

Bread!

2009-07-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

I'm way too tired to try to string together a coherent sentence, so instead I'm sending you pictures of some of the breads we make at The Village Bakery....

Sour Dough:

Seeded Rustic:

Walnut Raisin:

Asiago:

Baguettes:
Black Russian Bread:

Happy 4th...

2009-07-04T04:07:00.000-07:00

Or, as Richard so lovingly calls it, "The biggest mistake in American history day."

Here's a picture of the beautiful Blueberry-Raspberry Lemon bars that Teri made for the bakery today:
the shot was taken just prior to popping them in our amazing oven. Have I told you about our amazing oven yet? Here's a picture of a beaming Teri showing it off:
Yes, I know my photography skills leave a lot to be desired. The point is, though, that the machine is about as lovely as it gets. It's a Pavallier (that's French!) 8 door, 4 deck oven---32 full size baking sheets fit into it at once (that's boat-load of cookies!). It bakes beautiful loaves of bread all night long then pulls double duty all through the day as we knock out delicious things like the tart, sweet lemon bars shown above. We all got a little teary-eyed when we saw them come out of the oven...As Teri pointed out, we have gotten so used to putting beautiful things into the oven only to see them come out looking a bit wonky (refer back to the photos of the beast of an oven we were using just a week ago at our old location). Add to that the positive reinforcement that we're now getting from watching actual customers pay & devour our creations (as opposed to boxing everything up and sending out the door to wholesale customers) and what you get are some extremely happy (and, yes, teary-eyed) bakers.

We're starting to get a bit more of a footing, so each day we're introducing more and more of our baked goods, while phasing out more and more of the, um...stuff, that the previous owner fills the pastry cases with. I'm going to be working on revising the savory items soon (starting with breakfast) but for now, my main concern is getting the front cases stocked with cookies, cakes, pies and scones that I can be proud of .

The real problem has been that we walked right in to the bakery and continued on with the business as it was. We LOVE the bread that the bakery is producing---and so do all of the current customers. Then there's all of the cannoli & cookie business that we brought with us from our old bakery. The two businesses both have a good wholesale foundation and we wanted to keep everyone happy and all the orders fulfilled without a problem. As if that's not a big enough job, we also have a retail space that needs to be revamped. That's the part that we decided needed to be done a little bit at a time. Easier said than done for me, as I've always felt that instant gratification takes WAY too long. So...I've been tweaking the time-line a bit which explains why I've been getting in to work earlier & earlier every day.

I'm off to try to knock out a few red, white & blue goodies (thank God for berries).

Have an icy drink and some bbq for me!

I promise...

2009-07-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

Bacon scones tomorrow morning. Really.

So many crazy fires (thankfully only figuratively, not literally) to put out this morning that I couldn't get around to my new reason for living: the bacon scone. I'm going in extra early tomorrow and I'm going to get a jump on 'em...

NOW the work begins...

2009-07-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

Very short post today as I'm rushing in to my second day at the bakery.
Great news---we were told that the name "The Village Bakery & Cafe" is officially ours. We'll probably be switching everything over in August (an estimation that I just made up off the top of my head...). There's MUCH work to be done on the retail side of the bakery---what is currently passing as scones, coffee cakes, pies and cupcakes make Starbucks seem like Chez Panisse. The bread, on the other hand, is sensational. That is the part that I'm not touching (ok, maybe adding a few items to the repertoire but that's it). I have to do things a bit gradually, though, as the previous owner is still on board for 2 weeks to train us on how her business works (invaluable insite on her wholesale bread clients).

I'm off to make some bacon scones!

Bye-Bye Bad Oven

2009-07-01T06:04:00.000-07:00

Last day at Villa Rosa was a whirl-wind experience...We baked all day to fulfill all of our orders for the week, and it wasn't until 5pm that we got a chance to start packing up all of our "essentials" to take to our new digs. Favorite bowls, spatulas and whisks were thrown into boxes. Batters and doughs that we're going to be testing out in our new oven were packed into Teri's car, while Richard concentrated on making sure everything that needs to be delivered today was together and ready to go.

Neither Richard nor I got much sleep last night---we're pretty excited about our first day! We're meeting our new, inherited staff this morning at 7am. Teri, Meri & I are then going to be getting lessons on operating all of our new, fancy (in comparison to what we're used to) equipment. Richard has the unfortunate job of taking care of all the mountains of paperwork that we have in front of us---things like insurance, van registration, utilities and every kind of permit you could imagine. Glad I'll be in the kitchen baking!

Here's a last picture of us with the noisiest, hottest, most unpredictable & frustrating oven on earth:

Last day of an era

2009-06-30T06:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our last cannoli making extravaganza in our old location. After making 7,000 cannoli in 8 hours, Richard (who is visable in the background of the picture, rolling out dough like a champ), Mary (pictured, rolling cannoli dough onto the pins) and I stayed on a couple of hours more to start on our orders for today.

After all that frying, baking & packing, Richard & I dashed over to our new & lovely bakery to take the final walk-through before escrow closes. TONS of work ahead of us---I can't wait to get started!

We'll be back in Arcadia (boo!) today for our last official day. I have a feeling this is going to be a long one. Tomorrow we officially start our new adventure...

2009-06-28T19:07:00.000-07:00

I'm neither a writer nor a technological wizard, which I'm sure anyone who is reading this will be able to figure out before the end of this, my first blog post.

What I am is a baker. A baker with little time on her hands to keep in touch with friends and family. A baker who, because my new bakery/cafe is scheduled to open in 3 days, has given up the possibility of sleep anytime in the near future and instead has taken to staring at the ceiling at 3am. This blog is my idea (formulated at about 3:30am this morning, so it might be a bit dim-witted) to make this early morning "spare time" productive and to keep everyone who has been so supportive up to date. I'll try my hardest to write, even briefly, about our adventures so if you're interested, here we go...