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Thoughts on small businesses, safety, and running around downtown

Also, our friend Vera Brosgol is visiting the bakery this week to do some sketching and spend some time with us. In case that name sounds familiar, she also happens to be a bestselling children’s book author and illustrator. If you have any young folks who love her books on hand, bring them by on Thursday and I’ll see if she can sign something for you :)

In baker news, as usual, I’ve been thinking, a lot. Almost anyone I know has already heard me ramble at length about the importance of supporting small, local businesses and farmers. Not only is it the morally superior choice, and the community building choice, but as I often express, the dollars you spend at local businesses are more likely to stay in your city’s economy. As soon as that dollar ends up at a wal-mart, amazon, or starbucks, it’s gone from us forever. It will never be spent at the modesto farmers market by your local barista, or invested in a local wheat farm by your bread baker. Those dollars go straight into the oligarchy, and unfortunately more and more, those dollars evade paying their fair share of taxes, and try to fund elections for politicians that peel our civil rights away from us. I know my strawberry farmer, local cafe, bookshop, and bakery would never do something like that with my transitory twenty dollars. This, is something we easily acknowledge and understand.

The other thing about small businesses that isn’t mentioned enough, is how they make communities safer. I was thinking about this as I walk around downtown often, and have wandered around with my kids so much for the last ten years, that even they are recognized as regulars. When people ask me if I feel safe as my teenager has enjoyed the freedom of wandering our neighborhood. Sure, on H street they know her at the Pho restaurant that makes us soup when we are sick, and at Lucille’s where I send her to pick up a quick iced coffee for mom. On 13th street the Mo Pride center volunteers provide care and needed social time for modesto lgbtq youth. They know us at the Churchkey bar, where we’ve split a few years worth of monthly burgers and a shirley temple. The librarians know us, and the farmers market vendors, especially Patty who let her help sell strawberries when she was 10 years old, and Stephanie who remembers that she loves molasses crinkle cookies. At Penny and Preservation coffee, everyone knows that she likes an iced mocha, at the bead shop Holly has made bracelets with Sophie since she was 5 years old. The State Theatre where she works, Intermission where we drop off focaccia and play cards over drinks and popcorn. The boba shop where they know our order. The Queen Bean where Sam and Ruhi have watched Sophie grow up and she can read poems at open mic night. At Bookish ahse can go to chess club and Most Poetry Small businesses are not just “community” in the sense of a place to gather and bump into our friends, but a watchful angels eye over the youth in our community.

Our kids need safe spaces to be, and the independence to enjoy them. Being a regular at small businesses with my kid has meant more than I thought it would, it’s meant creating a tiny world full of safe, friendly and kind people that watch over them as they meet friends for thai tea, drink coffee while studying, express themselves creatively, enjoy the arts, borrow books and grab snacks at the market. Maybe I live in a bubble, but it’s a very nice utopia inside of here. I sure hope you join us in this fairy tale village that is, magical downtown Modesto. Let’s protect our precious community by giving it everything we’ve got.

What are you reading, eating, cooking, walking, listening to and watching? Reply to this email and let me know if you like! Otherwise we can talk all about it on any given Thursday. All the best -Bonnie

Like a cat in a hammock, so go the days of our lives...

Hi neighbors and far flung old friends,July subscriptions just floated into the shop, feel free to grab one early if you like to. If not, don’t worry, you can still visit us for extras and take your chances!

We’re sailing into June and despite the painful heat, I do still love being a bread baker. I realize now after many years that I need a shirt change and an ice cold shower as soon as the ovens are off, an afternoon cucumber lime aguas fresca, and perhaps a stiff drink in the evening to get me through it. Luckily for me, this dusty town provides for me, while I’m centrally located in the mecca of taco and food trucks just waiting to push out the window a monstrous plastic cup filled with all the cooling cucumber lime nectar I could want, and a 5 block evening walk down to intermission to deliver focaccia and for the best old fashioned in town and all the salty buttered popcorn I can eat, until my oldest kiddo gets off work at the theater and decides it’s time for a starlit walk back to the taco trucks for a spicy late night dinner.

Should anyone live so hedonistically with the crumpled dollar bills from selling baguettes pulled straight from the fires of Modesto’s mount doom? I can’t say, but I’d love to kick off my boots and lay down my aching back at night thinking I earned it all (and hopefully enough more to defeat my own hulking monster, the gorgon that is our summertime power bill).

But summer is for hedonism, after all. The days stretch so long, that after I’ve scrubbed dough off my arms and all the bakery dishes, the hammock under the sycamore calls me for at 3:30 p.m. reading session, munching through a nectarine. I listen to the leaves rustle in the breeze, I watch the cloudless sky as two red tailed hawks circle lightly and then plunge down into dry creek beyond, my cat crouton leaps onboard and purrs happily on my chest, rubbing her whiskers against my estate sale dollar Steinbeck paperback. 5 chapters turns into an “accidental” nap, drifting in the drowsy thoughts of imagined worlds and stories. I’m currently reading “To a God Unknown”. Steinbeck’s mystical 1933 parable about settling in the fertile valleys of California.

Summer Plans and Bakery Thoughts

Well hello there neighbors! It’s officially June and definitely feeling like summer here in the valley (106 over the weekend? Oh boy!). June subscriptions start this Thursday and are nearly sold out, but you can find the few straggling spots by scrolling down and clicking through to the Alchemy Bread website. If you don’t get in for a subscription, please don’t let that stop you from coming by, we tend to have increased foot traffic in the summer months, so we back more focaccia, baguettes and cookies to accommodate that.

This summer is going to look a little bit different here at Alchemy Bread. We typically open up on Saturdays with a market style bake during the summer months, but this year we won’t be open on the weekends, we’ll be focusing all our energies on our Thursday bakes! Please join us Thursdays from noon to six for all your bread provisions, and whatever delights out pastry assistant Madelyn is whipping up in the kitchen.

If you remember Thursdays of yore, there’s usually a thing we call friendship bake on Thursday evenings. We have picture books out on the picnic tables, kids hanging around in the hammock, I do a story time, and we take homegrown barter items for small breads. It’s a nice time and I look forward to seeing you over at our place.

I’m moving towards a more weekday focused schedule in the bakery these days, and leaving a door opened up for some interesting opportunities in the future; traveling, teaching and popping up at my other friends bakeries, restaurants, cafes and art spaces.

Strawberries, skateboards, and schools out for summer!

We’re closing out the school year here. It’s been a year of adjusting from a lifetime of homeschooling to public school (4th and 7th grade for my sons) and Junior College for my 17 year old (one more year of charter online homeschool for them, and 3rd year of co-enrolling in college courses). Frankly, I thought it would all be a lot harder. The kids have proven adaptable, and emotionally intelligent, which have been key in navigating new environs.

I’m both surprised and not surprised. They wake on time, make their breakfasts, pack their lunches, and after a scuffle about socks, are ready to go before I am, typically. I’m wrapped up in the bakery in those early morning hours, getting ovens to temp, feeding starters, scaling the mix and putting together dough while they take responsibility for themselves. As the year comes to a close, Gabe’s finishing with Straight A’s, Leo’s working well with others and being a great friend, and Sophie is out there engaging in the community and making art, reading books, watching films, and writing poetry like life depends on it, and of course it does. I’m proud of these humans.

It’s also been a year of rediscovering my few extra brain cells that I’m not spending in the deep and heavy work of teaching young folks how to read and do long division and interpret the world around us. I still do love to make time for a read aloud though. (Ocean Vuong with Sophie, The Outsiders with Gabe and Judy Blume with Leo)

Anyway, let’s finish soft and strong in our heads and hearts. Everything we hope to strive for, tabled for a summer of stretching out in the long days in the sun. I’ll leave you with this photo of Leo. Books falling out of his hands, clutching a skateboard, strawberry in the mouth. What else is there?

Midnight hotdogs and afternoon mangonada

This week leeks, and peas, cucumbers and asparagus are shooting up at the farmers market, along with early apricots and piles of berries and cherries. Spring is a lovely time to eat all the green things in abundance. The sycamore tree shading my house is leafing back out to protect us from the coming summer heat and the magnolia trees all down 12th street sigh open their voluminous heady blooms.

There seems to be a quickening and slowing at once, school kids slump towards the ends of the school year, dragging their feet to the finish line. Otherwise, the pace of social invites, summer plans and community activities pick up steam. The runaway train of late bedtimes, lost routines, and sticky hot summer evenings outdoors with our friends beckons us onward!

This past week reflected some of those leanings. Thursday night Sophie and I abandoned the bakery early to my assistant Madelyn’s discretion and took the train into San Francisco for a show at the Chapel. By the time Alchemy Bread closed for the night at home, we were leaning on a sticky bar in the Mission District, chewing on Luxardo cherries. The kids in a shirley temple and mine in an old fashioned. We were there to see Hurray for the Riff Raff, a band from New Orleans that I had first seen in 2009 on the porch of Thai restaurant in Davis. Their new album, some 15 years later, had just been called one of the best of the year by every major music publication. This Thursday night might be the last time to see them in a small venue. Sophie had been listening to them on my old iPod since infancy. It was a great show populated by a crowd of your average aging NPR listener, and one very cool homeschooled 17 year old out late on a “school night”. We ended the night as always with street hot dogs. Wrapped in bacon, charred on a dented sheet-pan placed over a propane burner on the sidewalk, onions melting down in the grease. The hotdog vendor called me and Sophie both “Princesa”. Ah yes, princess of oily midnight sausages on the moonlit walk to the last train home. Can’t think of anything I’d rather be.

The weekend included Porchfest, and we covered about 8 miles on foot from my house, to Penny University, down Magnolia Avenue and beyond. We bought lemonade and rice crispy treats from kids, wandered weaving through friends houses, clinking beers in the street with friends while a cover band plays 80’s classics to a street full of bicycles. We ate mango with chamoy and tajin while listening to grateful dead covers, ate ceviche tostadas and passed by a mariachi group. The weather was breezy, the music and food were great and our legs were a little sore.

Looking forward to more days in the sun, walks in the neighborhood, street food, music. I can’t wait to replace morning school drop off and afternoon pickup with morning bike rides and afternoons reading library books in my hammock!

Motherhood and Cherry Picking

We’re midway through May and in bakery news, the refrigerator is temporarily cooling which is a relief! June’s subscriptions are up on the site if you want to grab next months loaves ahead of time.

On the homefront, as a blended family with 2 moms, mothers day takes on an extra special holiday for my girlfriend Jill and I. We spent Saturday morning at Vanderhelm Farms with our combined 5 sons picking blueberries and cherries in the warm valley sun. Our boys can eat their weight in fruit every summer so it’s a great kickoff to the warmer months that we observe every year on mother’s day weekend, weaving through the varieties of berries and finding the ripest ones under a cloudless sky.

After working up a sweat, we all jumped in the pool to rinse off our salty bodies, dusty legs and stained fingers. I made a lemon and jasmine tea cake and worked up some duck egg pasta dough flecked through with thyme leaves. It’s our third year running of rolling out handmade pasta with the kids together on mother’s day, with my 13 year old Gabe taking an increasingly senior role, the youngest Noah putting all of his 4 year old verve into the cranking on the manual machine, while someone tries to keep him from accidentally heading into reverse and gumming up the works. Sparkling wine, pasta and cake luxuriating under macerated cherries are all very fine with tea and sentimental cards exchanged. We rest, content.

Sunday I spent time with my kids in our neighborhood doing what we like best. Getting coffee at Penny University and looking at a big book of Norman Rockwell paintings in the library. Singin’ in the Rain in beautiful nostalgic technicolor at the State Theatre with plenty of buttered popcorn and crispy icy coca cola. Reading Judy Blume aloud with Leo at home and laughing until we fall into an afternoon nap together. A run to the Asian Market for seaweed potato chips, canned boba teas, and instant ramens. A loop around the nearby goodwill to look at funny shirts (I bought one that says “stay trashy” with a raccoon on it).

Motherhood being a seemingly thankless and never-ending gig is possibly the most common refrain. I know how much it all takes and yet. I truly don’t feel unappreciated by my kids, who have been in this life with me. We’ve done life together, my labor never invisible to them. We’ve sweated side by side wrangling clothes in the hot laundromat, scrubbing and putting away dishes after having friends over, chopping vegetables and making pasta dough side by side, and walked all over to get where we need to go.

I definitely don’t feel unappreciated by my girlfriend who knows all too well the many hours that go into the job. These past 3 Mother’s day with two mom’s have been the best we’ve both ever had. Leaving behind the begrudging, lackluster and occasional ignoring we both experienced in the past. Now we end the holiday feeling nourished, appreciated, and celebrated in our own unique skills we each bring to parenting. I make her a latte, she makes me breakfast. I grill the asparagus while she blanches an artichoke.

Refrigeration, public transit and May Day

It’s May underway here and berries and cherries are ripening in the central valley. I threw those June subscriptions in the shop for you if you like to plan ahead and jump in there, you can go right ahead and scroll down to that shop button.

In bakery news, I currently have a fella named Joe rummaging around in the innards of my fridge to try to make it cold again. Last week I woke up on Thursday and the trusty metal box was sitting at a toasty warm 66 degrees (that’s not right!) and murdered a bunch of product (ouch). I definitely had a stressful and sweaty day trying salvage my hard work from circumstances outside my control.

After 11 years coping with the unpredictable ebb and flow that is a foodservice life, I guess I’ve developed a kind of wry “I’ll take what I can get” attitude. Although there’s always the initial sting that makes me want to cry like a little kid over a dropped ice cream cone for a second, I ultimately stood tall in my big girl boots, remade a ton of dough, sweated it out, and finished the day with commiseration and a beer over at Penny University. Good enough for me, and thank goodness for my friends.

Currently I’m reading The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck which is one of his more under appreciated novels. It’s sort of an anthology of vignettes of all the people who intersect with each other at a bus stop in the valley halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. It’s kind of a perfect choice for me right now, who has been absolutely preoccupied in mind by public transportation. I never made it out of the valley to a big city, the best I could do was move to downtown Modesto where really old houses are cheap and my neighbors are a transmission shop, and electrical substation and a cremation service. For me, walkability was my main goal.

My oldest is turning 18 this year and spent most of her life walking and biking everywhere with me, and she has no desire to drive a car. Totally reasonable! A car is very expensive and can be dangerous. I showed her how to use her MJC student ID to ride the bus for free, and find routes going where she wants to go. Sophie got a job at the theatre, an easy walking distance from our house. I’ve been taking her on excursions on the BART around the bay area to show her how to get to concert venues, art museums, iconic book stores, and historic theatres.

I notice how commonly other adults ask my kid about driving. I don’t typically think of myself as someone who is particularly against the grain, until I talk to people who find my lack of concern with the teen driving rite of passage strange. I keep thinking back to when Sophie was 12 and we got to go to Paris together. As a lovers of baked goods and art, we were in heaven on earth there. Louvre and boulangerie not withstanding, I couldn’t stop remarking when I came back that my favourite thing in Paris wasn’t the mille-fueille, it was the Metro Stations. This May Day I want bread and roses, but also, beautiful public transit.

A Baker's Christmas List

Recently I have been getting frequent messages online with requests for good gift ideas for bakers. If you are gifting to an aspiring or hopeful baker, you may want to start them out with my book for beginners and it’s accompanying techniques video class and head over here to my basic materials and tools list. However for this list, I will assume that we are talking about what an established baker (aka me!) might love for Christmas.

!. A giant tub of Maldon Sea Salt Flakes! These are my favorite flaky sea salt for sprinkling on the top of focaccia, or on top of chocolate chip cookies just before baking. They have a unique shape that is beautiful and this tub might last a whole year! Affordable luxury.

This is one of my favorite chocolates the flavor is beautiful, I love the little bean shapes. They look great in a cookie, fit nicely into pain au chocolat, and are fun to eat directly out of the bag too. There’s also a 6 pound bag if you really like someone.

More salt? Yes! Grey salt has the nicest flavor, I don’t know if I represent all bakers in saying this, but I have an obsession with different kinds of salt. I love using this salt in my pastry doughs, I feel like I can really taste the difference.

Tea is an extremely important part of baking for me, it’s the perfect thing to do “in between” activities. I love loose leaf tea since it doesn’t make any waste. This chai is one of my favorites, especially with sugar and milk.

Vanilla bean paste is another one of those things that is a a bit pricey when considering buying it for yourself, but just the right price point for a special gift.

Buckwheat flour is one of my favorite specialty flours to work with. Buckwheat is beautiful for adding to brownies, chocolate chip cookies, tart pastry, and for making beautiful crepes. The gift of experimenting with new flour would be welcome to any baker.

Baker’s live their lives by timers, and I have used SO many different ones. I now know that I like a timer without batteries, with a mechanical twist to set (pushing a button 45 times to set a timer for 45 minutes? NO!) a loud alarm and a magnet so I can stick it on the oven/mixer/fridge etc. This timer meets my many demands! Merry Christmas!

Bakers tend to get up very early in the morning, and cozy socks are an essential part of staying motivated to get up and turn the oven on. Socks for Christmas may seem sad, but I absolutely love colorful, friendly, warm socks.

If you are new to baking you might not yet have noticed that Birkenstocks are kind of the unofficial footwear of bakers and homebakers alike. While I prefer my leather Birks for production work since they are easy to clean and extremely comfortable to work in, these shearling felt gems would be amazing for cozy home baking with my kids through the winter.

Well, that’s my baker’s Christmas wish list if I was buying a bunch of little things for myself! I hope you find something for someone you like or just for yourself! Have a happy holiday! I’m an Amazon Affilliate, so if you order items through my links, I receive a few cents commission for recommending things that I like at no extra charge to you.

Bonus Secret Item that I really want….

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