Thoughts from Judy.
It's ramp time again, for me, a joyful, optimistic time. It is the first vegetable out of the ground in the spring, and it protends planting and tending and harvesting in the fall. Even though I've sold my canning equipment and don't have any dirt around to plant, it's still makes me happy.
So why do we call it Easter? And what’s this about the paschal mystery or the paschal lamb. Why not the Easter lamb? Here is the link between those two words.
Deep-fried balls of dough, filled with jam and topped with sugar which they gobble down at special holiday times of the year. They are called, among other names: Pączki, Awwami Sufganiya, Pampushky, Pishki, Pirashki, Farsang Fánk and Gefullte Krapfen. My favorite, of course, is Gefullte Krapfen (the great, great, great grandmother of Pączki).
This Holiday Season things are going more smoothly and holiday product is better (so far, keep your fingers crossed for the rest of the season). I’m convinced that is because we have been able to hold onto employees who get better and better the longer they are here. We are able to keep them, in part because Alec is such a good manager. (Don’t tell him, but in my opinion he's a better manager.than I am). We also have a strong benefits package which helps.
Though the weather isn’t cooperating as it is too warm, we know that the winter holidays are here because of the long dark nights, the low angle of the sun when it deigns to appear, and our growing need to gather together. All over the northern hemisphere this is the time of year we try to outwit nature’s darkness by lighting bonfires, fireplaces and candles, stringing lights on trees and houses, and turning our attention to each other while we celebrate ancient rituals and memories. We give and receive presents, and begin forming resolutions for the New Year, and eat special foods..
Thanksgiving, of course, it's my favorite holiday! It's about Fall and Food and Harvest. All that hard work over the summer, all the miracle of seeds turning into plants turning into vegetables turning into seeds again. The portent of longer nights and shorter days sends us to a bountiful table, surrounded by friends and family. Thanksgiving signals that growth has ended with the harvest and that the earth is going to take a rest, even as our thoughts quicken anticipating the spring reawakening and our plans and dreams of next year's plantings. I am really moved by the markers and the cycles of the year echoing the markers and the cycles of life itself.
We are in tomato heaven! We have come into a fabulous bounty of heritage tomatoes. Thanks to our friend, Pat Smith, of T.A. Kirklin Farms, we have access to lots and lots of late season, perfectly ripe heritage tomatoes.. She has trained us in how to control ripening so that they are in peak ripeness when we need them. And we want to share them with you, so for as long as they last, which may be as long as two (three?) weeks, we will be having special salads, soups, and other tomato forward dishes.
Music and good food and nice people. That's what I crave on a Sunday morning. Add the New York Times and I don't think it gets any better. Check out the line up below.
In the mean time, lean over the sink while you devour produce - peaches, plums, tomatoes, watermelon cantaloupe - slurp up the juice as you bite down so you lose as little as possible.
Remember last summer? The cursed summer of the Heritage Tomato Crop Failure? We keened and rent our garments for naught. All we could do was wait a year and hope. Well, it's looking good this year, There should be some (at least a few) tomatoes to begin having BLTs by next week!. And there should be a plentitude soon after.
So last Sunday we were treated to a demonstration of Okinawan Karate brought to us by Lia and Emma The (“Tay”), two young martial artists who are representing Team USA at the Martial Arts World Championship this weekend! Their father, Henning Schröder and mother, Yu-lien The are Kalamazoo musicians that performed in the “Raising the Dough Benefit Concert” for the bakery after the fire. In an indirect, roundabout kind of way, Sarkozy Bakery is returning the favor by sponsoring Lia and Emma while they compete. Two years ago in London, Lia won two bronze medals and this year, Emma is competing in the youngest age bracket. We’ll keep everyone updated with how they do this weekend.
I want to bring you up-to-date on some big changes in the bakery’s life, and mine. In the past couple of months I have experienced and been diagnosed with a rare auto immune disease called Giant Cell Arteritis. It has left me with permanent damage to my vision. My left eye is permanently blind, and my right eye has very little peripheral vision. What is important however, is that I still have significant vision in my right eye. I am able to do nearly everything, I just need to be more cautious. I have been forbidden to fall by my doctor. Reading is a bit more difficult, work on the computer is helped a lot by the accessibility features, and I certainly cannot drive.
For the past 4 weeks we have had the pleasure of hosting Melissa Guerra, owner of Mecha’s, an alcohol and beverage producer in the town of Orange Walk, Belize. She is part of an international exchange fellowship between the Americas funded by the U.S. State Department and helped run by our city’s very own diplomacy organization; Global Ties Kalamazoo.
OK, are you ready for next weekend? Need bread bunnies? We have bunnies, and more bunnies, and also bunnies. We are getting better every year at making them and this year they're so cute that when you see them you can't help but say “They are sooo cute" in a real high voice. They aren’t easy to make because the bunnies before they are baked look nothing like the bunnies after they have risen and baked. You have to develop a sense of what the dough will do, and then compensate for that as you make them.
It's February, our anniversary month. Forty-five years ago on February 25th, 1978, a Saturday, we opened our doors for the first time and sold $21.65 worth of product such as it was. Of that 21 dollars, my college roommate, Bridget Stover, in a loving effort to support my crazy idea, spent $16.00. We got to talking to the first customer who left, went home, and called us up saying, "I didn't pay" so we knew we had a lot to learn about retail. One customer (of a total of about 6) asked, upon viewing our baguettes, "What’s that? A club?" On February 25th, 2012, a Saturday, the old bakery burned down. This year February 25th again falls on a Saturday. Let's hope this year is less dramatic.
Well the projected weather for this week has certainly thrown a wrench in everyone's plans for this holiday. We plan on being open every day no matter what the weather. However we know that weather may complicate when you choose to pick up your order. We are working to be as flexible as possible. The important thing is you have a safe holiday.
Christmas is coming, and the geese are getting fat, but I want to talk about hazelnuts. For this coming holiday season, we are making Hazelnut Balls, Hazelnut and Apple Galette, Hazelnut Biscotti, and Cranberry Orange Quick Bread with Hazelnuts. Don't forget that we have Hazelnuts in our Granola.
Wow, already? Yup, Thanksgiving is already here and we have been practicing and planning to bring you our best. Ordering ahead of Wednesday will help us and you will be sure to get your favorite foods.
Being a bread person, the stuffing plays a major role in the dinner. We use a mix of most of our breads which gives the stuffing a complexity of flavor that will wake up your taste buds after all those years of eating stuffing made with only white bread. We slice the bread into cubes, which creates a huge mess, and then we dry it in the oven so that it will keep practically forever. The seasonings are in a separate little Ziploc bag so you can use them if you wish, or you can use your own favorite mix of seasonings. There is a recipe on the bag.
This will be a short email. I am still moving, or rather, I have been billeted in a motel waiting for Revel Creek to finish being built. Not too fun, but everyone is trying very hard to make things work. The estate sale nearly brought me to my knees. I felt bullied by the operator, which made it worse than it had to be. But I am back at work and ready to support Alec as he is about to take off some time to get married on August 13th. Just a reminder, the Bakery will be closed on the 13th so we can all party. We will, however, be at the Bank Street Farmers Market, having packed things up the night before. We will NOT be at the Portage Farmers Market on the 14th.
My usual long-windedness will have to be cut short because I have sold my house, and I am in the middle of moving to Revel Creek (a CCRC aka Continuing Care Retirement Community), which is part of The Heritage Community of Kalamazoo. Revel Creek is located on the Heritage campus at Portage St and Miller Rd. NO, I AM NOT RETIRING — yet. Simply moving into an apartment and getting rid of most of my “stuff” so that, as I learned in Girl Scouts, I’ll be able to leave my campsite cleaner than I found it. I look forward to not having to worry about the house and garden upkeep (you should see how ratty the yard looks), and cooking dinner lost its charm when I lost Ken. The moving day is Monday, July 25th.
In this sad and dreadful time of violence and hate at least there is some good news for our small bakery community. I am very excited to announce that Alec Wells is now co-owner of Sarkozy Bakery. I’ll send pictures soon. Alec has worked at the bakery since August of 2019 and has been instrumental in improving our product, enacting innovative personnel policies, and enlarging our scope.
I have had some beautiful asparagus, gorgeous ramps, and a couple of morels so we know that our season of abundance has finally begun. Strawberries can’t be very far behind.
At my age, many holiday traditions have faded as both my family and Ken’s family have scattered over the years and I’ve outlived the core of my wonderful Kalamazoo extended family (I’m working on finding the next one). When these traditions get established, they seem that they might last forever, but I am old enough to know that life is fluid and ever-changing, that traditions evolve and sometimes disappear. For me and I hope for you, the bakery helps maintain some continuity and reassurance over the years. Babka dough reappears, Russian tea cookies melt in my mouth and Christmas tree butter cookies turn my tongue green. (I know, we haven’t brought Yule logs back yet, but maybe by next year). We love making products that contribute to your traditions.
The Holidays are on the way and I am experiencing a great muddle of emotions. Here we are in the middle of the fourth wave of Covid, and I'm feeling a combination of weariness from the stresses of the past 19 months, and hope that we can begin to celebrate the holiday season as we emerge. Here at the bakery we are still wearing our masks, getting our booster shots, and remaining wary. At the same time, we are starting to make holiday goodies that lift our spirits and are a fun change of pace. So, we can help you celebrate as much as your wariness allows, and all of us can help to bring much-needed light into our lives. I should also let you know that you can dine in at the bakery again. We re-opened carefully and quietly until we were confident that it was the right thing to do. I was very happy that Dr. Fauchi thinks that if you are vaccinated (and preferably boosted) you can relax and quite feel safe for the holidays.
Hello after a long hiatus!
Heritage tomatoes have finally arrived! It is such an exciting time for the pure joy of simple eating. A sun-warmed, almost overripe tomato and a little salt can be a feast. An insanely juicy BLT eaten over the sink can lift my spirits and give me a glimpse of the profound meaning of the changing of the seasons as I begin to mourn the passing of summer.
The only problem is that I wrote that paragraph about two weeks ago so it is really old news and only now got back to writing this email to let everyone know that BLT Season is back at Sarkozy Bakery!
Strawberry season is just around the corner, we will be ready with our “OH WOW Frozen Biscuits". Why don't we just bake the biscuits here, and for that matter why don't we sell strawberry shortcakes?
To me, a strawberry shortcake is one of those simple and elegant marriages of warm and cold, soft and crisp, sweet and acidic, juicy and biscuit-y. It is exquisite and ephemeral. Each year I wait for it with great anticipation and I morn the passing strawberry season. Yes, you can freeze the macerated berries but it is nothing like holding a pint of fresh berries under your nose.
Maple Syrup and Pussy Willows, Ground flowers and Spring Peepers, Ramps and Morels, Fruit Blossoms, Rhubarb, and Asparagus, all come bursting out as if the Earth were as excited and impatient for signs of glorious life as we. Sometimes warm days bring things on a bit too soon, maybe this year. We don’t know yet what these two days of the hard freeze will do to the in-bloom fruit crop. But no matter what, there is so much new and beautiful life I sometimes tear up.
I swear I heard Spring peepers the other night (unfortunately their frequency is very close to the frequency ringing in my ears so I sometimes imagine them when I need to believe they are there). And pussy willows are out, cattails on the way, bud covers are decorating our streets. I hope this very warm weather doesn’t bring out the fruit blossoms too soon. We could still have a nasty cold snap and much of what I look forward to in Summer is Michigan fruit.
Okay, so what's the good news? Well, it's only 60 days until the farmers market opens up. And in those 60 days, we will experience all of the wonderful harbingers of spring. Even a pandemic can't stop me from being hopeful and excited.
Interesting Stuff
Articles and resources.
This article discusses the effect of additives on our gut health. We don’t use ingredients with additives — a huge exception is of course, flour.
Mark Bittman and doctor David L. Katz patiently answer pretty much every question we could think of about healthy food. This is worth a read and fits with Sarkozy Bakery’s approach to food.