And I’ve returned. Where
have I been? Baking chocolate chip
cookies and banana bread at the library.
Good feedback, more on the job later.
Also picking up my kid from the bus stop, and laundry, and I still have
no internet at home, so getting more than 140 characters out of me can be
tricky. I’d save myself a trip if I could
text on a smart phone while driving, but my phone is not smart, and I am, so in
short (not really) it’s much ado getting my pics posted.
These were from a weekend in [March?] when
many dancers convened at The Hemmens in Elgin.
It just so happens that yours truly performed there—ballet, tap, and
tumbling—in my very young days. Recitals
were at The Hemmens, but class was in Bartlett, a ride across town on the back
on mom’s bike, at the park district’s odd little log cabin in a park off Oak
St. It was one of those little clubhouses
where you’d have ballet class on Friday, and someone could rent it for a baby
shower on Saturday, then next Tuesday the township trustees would have a budget
meeting, or something. Anyway, I twirled and tapped
and tumbled, and our teacher would send each of us off after class with one of
those daisy-shaped shortbread cookies with the hole in the middle, just the
right size for a 5-year-old’s pinky, and I’d ride home in my yellow bike seat
pretending my finger was wearing a tutu.
So imagine my happy little sense of purpose to be making pretty ballerina
butterfly cookies for young aspiring dancers.
I had a 'gone-full-circle' kind of contentment.
About the rest of the job.
Firstly, people keep calling me a pastry chef. You need credentials to be called “a chef”
and I don’t have ’em, and “pastry” actually encompasses more than I know. I’m kind of hit or miss on pie crusts for
example. I didn’t take the class, and I rarely
make pie. Never made a scone, croissant,
madeleine, popover, éclair, or benier. I
prefer say I’m a baker, and I’d like to think that because I’ve been baking
since forever, and because my mom always said if you can read you can cook, I’m
sure I can make all the things I just listed once I studied the recipe, and
gave it a try or two.
But what I really
bake from week to week are: cookies,
especially chocolate chip; banana bread, or I switch out the bananas for
zucchini, pumpkin, apple, carrot; bar cookies like brownies and what Grandma
called “hello dolly” bars; “truffles” like brownie- or peanut-butter-pretzel-balls
dipped in chocolate; and the occasional cupcake. Basically the stuff a mom bakes, only I bake
it in volumes to fill the front case.
And
when I stated that I’m the sole baker, that was a bit of a misnomer as
well. If it’s advantageous for someone
else at one of the other locations to bake a couple pans of brownies, then they
bake them. And if they cater a wedding
the weekend I’m having my fantasy butt-lift, they’ll find a way to dip some
truffles. It’s just that of all the
employees, I’m the one that was hired to bake first, and then do sandwich
stuff. And when something fancy is
ordered, like lemon bars for that thing at the library, or some footprint
cookies for a baby shower, it’s my project. And, more often than I’d like because I like
baking all fresh and natural, some of our baked goods are from a boxed mix, or premade
from a vendor, so again, I don’t do all
the baking. But yeah, I’m the go-to gal
for dessert. 
And it’s pretty awesome
that I can bake cookies and sell them at the library. I can’t get over how quaint that is. I get all nerdly about it. Meanwhile, pics at this end of the post are
the ones I had on my phone. I make
something neat at work and realize I don’t have my camera, so i resort to the
cell, then when I’m on my computer, I don’t have the memory card thingy to
upload them. Yeah, baking by the seat of
my pants. And knowing me I probably sat
in brownie batter. Ha!
So next I have some wedding cookies that weren’t
for a wedding, and some evidence of my prowess in marketing. And I will still be making pretty
cookies. And I will still be taking
pictures of them. I just have to sit
down and do my homework.
Till then,
happy lead in to summer, and we got all new fancy coffee at the library, so
come on in…
