Caramelized Apple Hearts

The morning is just beginning to break, the light is blue. I’m sitting on my couch looking out the window at the snowy yards with my pup snuggled up close and a warm cup of coffee nearby. Yesterday, I woke without power, boiled my water for coffee in the fireplace and made a vegetable hash over the open flame, the live flames licking the sides of the pan, crisping the potatoes.

I’m coming off a whopper of a weekend...week?....year? Last week, we began our work week focusing on Valentine’s Day. Like all else this past year, however, we couldn't just focus on the work at hand but now had to pay attention to variables outside of our control -- the impending snowstorm, the dreaded frozen rain that Portland is so famous for, and then the possibility of power outages. As you are all aware, most of us experienced it all.

Sales for the holiday weekend set records, and with our Covid-safe protocols and limited staff we had more work than we had hands for. To prepare, I was already working off-hours, in the bakery alone, on my “days off” to prepare for the onslaught of orders. The bakers and I walked into insanely long prep lists, ones that didn’t seem like we could accomplish and yet we did, every day, to stay on track for the weekend orders. Hearts both literal and figurative were bursting with nerves and beauty.

Midway through the week, it became clear that I would now focus on two big events, production and weather. Portland is such a finicky town. Snow, we can (kind of) deal with. Freezing rain, we can’t. An endless list of questions cycled through my mind: Is it safe enough for my bakers to get to work? Once they get to work will they be able to get home? Is it safe for us to go out on deliveries? Do we risk losing all of our product in hopes that we will be able to open this weekend? Do I call the closure so I can hold onto most of the product until next week and hope that customers want to carry their orders over to the following weekend?

All of these questions were exacerbated by the pandemic; staff working in pods, managers managing staff that they don’t directly work with. I’m managing managers that I haven’t seen in almost a year. To say it is difficult under our new normal circumstances is a stretch, this week's new challenge - anxiety inducing craziness.

In the end it became clear that in order to maintain my staff's safety and my sanity, we would postpone our Valentine orders and cancel our wholesale orders. For someone that began cooking because I like to see the joy in someone's face as I hand them something that I made with my own hands it is truly awful to feel like I might be disappointing people. In earlier years of my career, I would have taken on the challenge to power through as to not disappoint, but not any longer. That way of operating has taken its toll on me and I know that I need to make different decisions. However, stopping a fast moving train does not just allow you to turn off the engine. I had layers of work ahead to preserve what product we had in the works.

In the dark, early hours of Saturday I walked the mile in the snow to the bakery at 4 am to bake off the laminated items that had been left there proofing the night before, holding a shred of hope that we would still be open Saturday morning. That of course didn’t pan out. Sunday, I walked again in the dark, early hours to the bakery to meet a wholesale client who braved the ice to take product to his shop so it didn’t go to waste in ours. A plan for the bakers was devised and messaged to all. Emails and phone calls were sent and managed as we stayed in communication with many of you as our plan crystallized.

Gratefully, there were many enjoyable, treasured moments. Stephen made us a beautiful Valentine’s steak dinner paired with a lovely 2009 Saint Joseph. We walked miles each afternoon, in the snow, with the dogs. We stood at the top of sledding hills, hearts filled with joy at the squeals of children flying past on sleds, adults on skis and even a family riding down on a giant blow up unicorn. The dogs were thrilled, prancing through the snow, heads down, tracking smells hidden beneath the alternating patches of fluffy white and ice, chomping on sticks, exhausted after hours of walking. Afterwards, I was too.

And then my kids came back home to me. We settled into our own Valentine’s dinner. We lit our candles and shared our Valentines. We tapped the back of our spoons against the caramelized crust of the vanilla bean creme brulee we made. The next day my youngest and I sled again and again in the park near our house. My middle kiddo and I took an afternoon walk to coffee only to find it closed. We walked further to the grocery store to buy groceries for dinner. We came home to find the power out once again. Rolling with the punches, I walked my groceries over to Stephen’s to cook our dinner at his house. We shared a bottle of wine before I went back home.

And yet, through all of the uncertainty and the seemingly never ending changes, I consider myself one of the fortunate ones. I have a warm home in which to live and the means with which to feed us, a healthy family, a network of wonderful friends and a loving partner. I do work that I love with the support of a dedicated and hard working team. And all of you, who support us and allow us to continue doing what we love so much to do.

This weekend we roll into Valentine's day part deux. We will have all of the preorders baked fresh each morning and many more pastries for ordering at our walk up window. Our Secret Item this week is our Caramelized Apple tart with frangipane on Rouge de Bordeaux croissant dough. The kids and I each ate one for breakfast yesterday; we all approved! Available this week for our newsletter subscribers only, so be sure to join our email list for access to all of our weekly specials.

Thank you again, as always, for the support that you show us and providing us the opportunity to carry on.