CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
And Did I Mention We Were on the Food Network?
5 a.m.
WE RECEIVED A VISIT from a camera crew. It was on Monday, when we close early, so no one was the wiser in town. I put on a clean shirt and took my hair out of a ponytail. We’d been cleaning the kitchen for weeks in anticipation. Tim and I even scrubbed the glass of the oven doors. They were going to be on TV too.
The last time I was on television it was a local news thing. Not as fancy as the Food Network. We hadn’t opened the store to the public yet and I was still sleeping, exercising, and sitting down to eat. Just a little puff piece, human-interest stuff. My macaroons had been featured in In Style magazine, and that was a minor deal in these parts.
A reporter and a cameraman came by. Asked me a few questions. Had me talk about my macaroons and the other delights I’d be offering in my shop.
REPORTER:“So, your macaroons. They aren’t the usual coconut we’re all used to? They’re almond? No coconut at all?”
IDIOT (ME): “That’s right! They’re traditional French almond macaroons. NO coconut WHATSOEVER. Just almonds, COCONUT, sugar, and egg whites.”
If you listen very carefully to the tape of my pathetic news debut, you can hear Ray in the background laughing his ass off.
Moving on, our intrepid reporter broached the elephant in the room. Hollywood.
“So, now that you’ve moved from your glitzy life in lala land to quiet Vermont, should we be looking out for an influx of Hollywood visitors?”
And I didn’t think twice; I didn’t think. I just answered with honesty and my usual utter lack of tact and charm.
This is when I choose to be natural on camera: my face squirrelly and filled with disgust, spitting out my dread at the thought of my old life descending on the quiet of Vermont.
I can’t take a decent still either. There’s a little write-up in a local magazine with a picture of me holding some pastries. I knew Ray was looking at the article when I heard him howling with laughter in the back of the store.
“I’ve never seen you smile quite like that.” He’s very tactful. Unlike his wife.
“I know. I was muttering under my breath the entire time.”
And if you know this and you take a look at that picture, you probably have a good shot at guessing what I was saying. As a matter of fact, I think I was up to a word that rhymes with “plucking” in my mantra “take the plucking picture already” when the flash went off.
In the past, with each successive mention in a local paper or a national magazine, we’d get a respectable bump in business. A few more people than usual asking to see me in person; a few more stickies of doom; a few more trips to the office supply store for Post-its. And then we’d settle back into our comfortable groove, having added a couple regulars to our family but nothing we couldn’t handle with good cheer, great pastry, and strong coffee.
But a visit from the Food Network, that’s what every small food business dreams about. And the experience of being on camera, of constantly smiling and simultaneously baking, it wasn’t half bad. The hosts were charming, even when the cameras weren’t rolling. The crew was lovely and respectful of our shop. And everyone brought a degree of enthusiasm to the endeavor that shocked me because I was so used to the “seen it, done it” attitude that travels with movie crews. These people were genuinely excited about food. And they were excited about food in Vermont. And about telling the world about food in Vermont. That made it easy to do something I’d never imagined doing—being in front of a camera. It’s easy to share something, even in front of millions of people, if you love what you do.
Getting in front of those millions of the food obsessed also gives you a huge spike in business. At such a perilous economic time, with food prices up 50 percent for most of our core ingredients, gas prices affecting everything else, and our entire economy in an official recession, it’s a miracle that anyone is making ends meet. This kind of exposure could be the difference between making it another year or closing down after Christmas.
It also translates into thousands of macaroon orders, keeping me in the shop long after we close. High school kids cram into the kitchen after class, helping me scoop and filling the hot bakery with spastic energy. The shop is filled to the rafters with customers who’ve come from all over the country and beyond, even at those hours when we used to have a restful lull. Our regulars are getting pushed to the side, waiting in line when they’ve never had to before. Ann’s popping into the back with a cocktail shaker, to take the edge off. I don’t sit down at three for coffee anymore.
I’m so inundated with work that I’m no longer capable of complex thoughts; I exist on a mental plane filled with white oven noise and the smell of ground almonds. And though our sales are up, way up, we have to hire more people to keep up with the demand. Which pretty much evens out any financial gains we could make.
I’m also getting emails from home bakers who’ve seen me on television, exclaiming their deep passion for the floured arts. They want to know how I did it, how did I open such a lovely shop without schooling or experience in such things. They want to take the plunge too, maybe get their chance of being on the Food Network!
I don’t answer these emails for fear of stomping on such high hopes.
Because the answer is quite simple: don’t do it! And don’t use me as a guide; I’m not a good influence. My story isn’t uplifting and inspirational. I had meant to go to school for this stuff. Really. But my baking took on a life of its own, and it just happened. If I could do it again, I’d get my ignorant self educated. Because someone at some point would have said to me, “You know, if you go out on your own and open a bakery, you’re not allowed to sleep.” At the very least I would have learned how to manage such a place. So my first instinct is to tell that home baker with the big dream that they should hold fast to the joy they receive in baking for pleasure. And if they must pursue a career in it, go to school. Or work in a hard-core bakery, where the hours are abysmal and the production is monumental. Don’t mortgage your life to bake unless you know what the hell you’re doing. And be careful what you wish for, because while being on TV can give you unprecedented business and exposure, it can also sap you of any will to live and increase your daily gray hair count astronomically. That lady you saw on TV, wearing make-up and a clean shirt, that person doesn’t exist. I just brought her out for a few minutes to appear on the little screen; ten minutes after the camera crew left, she transformed back into a baking pumpkin.
We’re asked, “Are you going to expand? Open more stores? Go national?” But the only relevant question is, “Are you going crazy? And if not, when?” Because this is painful; no one tells you how much it hurts when you succeed. You hear about the failures and how it sucks to lose your dream to low sales figures and bad management. But no one tells you about the travails of having your business double overnight or quadruple or more, because this can cause failure as well. If we don’t live up to the demand from this exposure, we can’t count on getting another break to prove ourselves a second time. So we’ve got to make it work right now, and that means I have to stay here all night if that’s what it takes to get these orders out.
But when this insanity isn’t bringing me to the brink of sobs, I’m as close to Buddha under the bodhi as I’ll ever be, just without the sitting still. Because I’m doing what I was meant to do, and every once in a while I’ll eat a stray macaroon. And they’re damn tasty. Buddha never had it so good. And I’ll tell the home bakers with big pastry dreams, that it is possible. It may kill you, strip you of sanity and finances, but it can also be rewarding. And sometimes—and those times may be few and far between—sometimes it is nirvana.
Passionfruit Healer
I TRIED THIS COCKTAIL for the first time in Buenos Aires. Ray and I went for Christmas for two whole weeks of vacation. A hemisphere away from mile-high snowdrifts and unintentional power slides on black ice. No waking at 3:30 a.m. and to bed at 8 p.m. We ate dinner at midnight. I rode some hyperactive horses with genuine gauchos. We’d have a cocktail to pass the time while we mulled the wine list. I exposed my ankles to the sun and ate grilled meat for breakfast. But what I took back with me as my fondest taste memory was this beautiful concoction.
When we’ve got two seconds to relax and have a cocktail, this little number brings back the ease of Buenos Aires. It’s tropical, mysterious, and a great healer.
MAKES TWO SERVINGS
A drop or two of ginger extract
12 ounces white cranberry juice
8 ounces lemon vodka
2 tablespoons Triple Sec
12 ounces passionfruit juice
Muddle the mint leaves, ginger extract to taste, and a touch of the white cranberry juice in the bottom of a serving pitcher to release the oil in the mint leaves. Ginger extract is potent stuff, so start out timidly. Add the vodka, Triple Sec, passionfruit juice, and remaining cranberry juice. Stir and add ice. Serve in large glasses and behold a miraculous recovery.