tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63849631574072730392024-03-13T21:19:48.633-05:00Bennison's BakeryAn artisan bakery in Evanston Illinois, specializing in croissants, artisan breads, pastries, danish, cakes, cookies, donuts and pies.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.comBlogger168125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-44921732868569472182010-07-16T04:57:00.003-05:002010-07-16T05:38:40.720-05:00my poor fridgeMan it's hot in Chi town! Gets to the point, the bakers are gasping for air, near the oven. I left last night, our walk in fridge had to be sixty degrees. We are very unfair to it. Jeremy Gouduas, member of Baking Team USA 2010, was here the middle of June. It was late, late, Saturday afternoon. He was here doing a practice run at Kendall College. He came to the bakery here, directly from the airport, to mix a few dough's for Sunday's practice run. He opened our walk-in, and said "That redefines a <span style="font-style:italic;">full walk in"</span>. At the last few minutes of the day yesterday, the day crew pushed about five racks of shaped sour doughs' in there, awaiting the oven, for Friday morning. The cooling capacity of that fridge, which is on the roof, was out matched. I was in San Fransisco last weekend. The baking team was practicing there. SFBI, San Fransisco Baking Institute, is a lot of things. It is a school, as well as home to TMB Baking Company. TMB is an equipment supplier. They also bake for their own retail store in the mission district of the city. I was very impressed, they sent a lot of stuff to that store, stacks and stacks of product. Nice product, very nice. Anyway, I'm talking to Michel there, about building a retarder, to hold our product for the next days bake. It will have the ability to have different temperatures, at different times, switching automatically. Sourdough is best, held at fifty two to fifty five degrees Fahrenheit. We could set the retarder to be cold, maybe thirty eight, at 5pm. Forty two, at 10pm, fifty two at 5am, etc. Bread handled that way is awesome! Flavour, texture, crust colour, crust consistency, it's the real deal. I'm gonna make it happen. Just gotta push around a piece of equipment, or two.<br /><br />In spite of the heat, we're holdin' our own here, business wise. Gonna be a busy, farmer's market weekend. Forecast is hot, but dry. Dry is all that matters. I was looking thru orders for the weekend, seems we have a lot of large celebration cakes this weekend. Not necessarily, in great numbers, but a lot of big ones. Oh well, won't be long now, pumpkin face cookies are just around the corner. Very comfortable outside this morning. 'Bout sixty six, at 4am. I drove here with the van windows open. Bein' right here on the lake helps loads. I pulled up and outside I could smell toasty wheat, as they were unloading baguettes from the oven. Residual flour burns quickly, on the hearth. It's an unmistakable, unmatched, aroma. Only smells like that a few times a day. Same when they are fryin' donuts, or baking cinnamon rolls.<br /><br />We took in a lot of fresh blueberries yesterday. We are making fresh blueberry croissants for the markets this weekend. We will fill them with cream cheese filling, and top 'em with fresh blueberries, prior to the bake. The ones we made for Wednesday's markets, were really pretty. Got big plans 'bout fresh blueberry coffee cakes, as well. We'll see how the day goes. They might get pushed until tomorrow. Everyday starts with good intentions. Quoting Vince Lombardi "Fatigue makes cowards of us all".<br /><br />Well, gotta get started upstairs. A lady is comin' from Oak Park, to pick up goods for a memorial service. Can't disappoint her. She claims "You're may favorite bakery". She's "Comin' early to beat the traffic". I answered the phone, when she called. I was just talking to one of the opening retail kids here, about her order. I mentioned to them that "I could tell, she was an older lady". I just realized, she's probably my age.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-634877560393737002010-07-01T04:15:00.005-05:002010-07-01T05:28:12.765-05:00what a day, weather wise<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lrVKj5R3iFg/TCxc1V--LMI/AAAAAAAAAA0/aX2xfgmmMGY/s1600/cherry+flan.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lrVKj5R3iFg/TCxc1V--LMI/AAAAAAAAAA0/aX2xfgmmMGY/s320/cherry+flan.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5488864117361880258" /></a><br /><br />Didn't get much sleep last night, turns out yesterday, we committed to being the lone bread bakery, participating in a "Green market" at Lollapalooza, in August. It will be us, Seedling fruit and Brunkow cheese, at a minimum, from the GCM. It's concerning, it's gonna be a lot of stuff. We're figuring on a lot of smaller bread items that people can eat with wine and cheese. The single reason we decided to do it, is because we have our Koenig machine that will divide and round three thousand pieces per hour.<br /><br />Needless to say, the markets yesterday, did very well. Truthfully the nicest day we've had this market season. It was perfect. We ran out a little early at both markets. I'm sure it's because I have forgotten how much can be sold when the weather cooperates. We have battled the weather more this market season, than any other, in the past. Hopefully the rain is behind us. Forecast for this weekend is in our favor, as well.<br /><br />I posted a picture of a cherry flan. Every trip to France, I can't get enough of the flan, all the boulangerie offer there. The funniest thing, no matter how many books I look at, it's difficult to find any info on the flan I'm speaking of. I've spoken to a number of French bakers, they are willing to talk about it, but I can't find anything in print, or on the internet. Seems every version I find is similar to our custard pie or bread pudding. Which I don't care for, it's to "Eggy". This flan is simply cooked pastry creme, spread into a pie pastry crust and baked in a hot oven to get that deep brown skin. We cool it overnight and glaze it with apricot glace the next morning and cut it. It has been doing very well. We use milk, sugar, custard powder, a blend of egg yolks and eggs, both organic vanilla bean and vanilla extract and butter. This is the first one we've done with fruit in it. Not sure how well you can see, it but it has pitted Washington state cherries in it. I'm glad to see it worked out. Opens the door to trying many other things. Next is gonna be lemon flavoured custard with fresh blueberries. Oh, by the way, delicious! I'm runnin' out of reasons to travel to France.<br /><br />Gotta get upstairs, and get to it. Should be a good weekend, Fourth of July sales, have been doing better, year after year. Last year it fell on a Saturday, we were open. Probably should've opened Sunday and closed Monday this year. Next Tuesday morning, we'll see if I made a good call or not.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-52140661313598699192010-06-28T10:48:00.002-05:002010-06-28T12:16:25.711-05:00ya never don't know where the customers come fromIt has been nearly a month since my last post. We started the Glenwood Sunday market, June 6th and it has been non-stop since. The first day we were out of goods at 10:20. Second Sunday we made it to a little after 11. The third Sunday, 12:20. Yesterday we loaded up, and there was a sunami at 9am. Same starting time as the market. It rained for about thirty minutes, hard. Sideways rain. Like Forest Gump said "Rained so hard, it was rainin' up". I've spoke before of the issues that crusty bread has with the rain, not a pretty sight. We still sold over half of what we sent there. We sent our first truck in the morning, and it was my duty to take the second truck around 10am. I headed that way, knowing that they really weren't going to need the goods I had with me. The market was pretty much empty, 'cept a few die hards. One lady said "I finally get to taste your goods, there isn't any line this week". Last Monday I was in our store fetching a cup of coffee. A fellow was waiting for his turn and he was holding a little girl, maybe two years old. He asked me "Do you have any California bread today". I said "We typically don't put that in our store on Monday's". He explained that he bought one at the Glenwood Sunday market. Him and his wife finished it in one day, and he had to have more. I replied "Sorry, we can have it for you tomorrow". He placed an order and off he went. Upon my return to the office, I saw a loaf of day old raisin fennel and flax seed rye, in the day old pile. I grabbed 'em and I pretty much chased him down the street. Turned out he was carrying a six pack of cupcakes. He was very pleased with what I offered him. I assured him the loaves were day old, and "I was hoping they would get him thru the night". I doubt that would happen at a supermarket bakery. I don't know if he was a "First timer", here at the bakery. The fact that he found his way here, really left me with a good feeling. The Glenwood market has been doing incredible. The lady who runs the market told me "There hasn't been a bakery in this neighborhood for thirty years. Davidson's used to have a store on Morse ave". More support of my belief, the world is starving for <span style="font-style:italic;">quality</span> bakery goods.<br /><br />Since Father's day, things have slowed down considerably, in our store. The campus is empty, and it was miserably hot/humid last week. Father's day weekend was very, very busy. It was NU graduation, so the town was full. Restaurants and hotels were full. Bat 17 and Bistro Bordeaux were doubling their orders, for four days straight. Speaking of Bistro Bordeaux, I had a chance to eat there. Really nice, nice menu, delicious food. They buy our bread and then they serve it in a brown paper bag, stamped with the name of a bakery in Bordeaux. Upset me at first. I asked "Is this bread really from Bordeaux"? The waitress fessed up with the truth, "No, it comes from Bennison's". <br /><br />We purchased whatever it is we need to make Italian sodas. We have a gadget that turns tap water into seltzer water, we add Torani flavoured syrup, and pour over ice. I gotta say, it's pretty tasty stuff. I guess we will start offering French sodas, as well. They are the same thing only with some form of dairy added.<br /><br />Hey gotta get back to it. I have jam on the stove. We pitted a load of sweet cherries, added fresh blackberries, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. The stuff smells amazing. Gonna have to wait until Wednesday to taste it. We are planning on using it to top our danish pastries that go to market that day.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-50691039104192336902010-06-03T04:57:00.010-05:002010-06-09T07:25:39.277-05:00ya gotta be kiddin' meBeen chasin' since my return from California. I came in Monday,Memorial Day, we were closed. Phones rang all morning. We should have been open. I mixed for nearly three hours, used five bags of flour. I had to make all the dough's that sit overnight, feed the levains, and set all the soakers, that were needed for market production on Tuesday. I also missed three days macaron production, so I'm startin' to feel that now. We had a killer macaron day yesterday, sales wise. <br /><br />I drove to work on Wednesday morning, needing the wipers, to get here. We loaded the trucks in the rain, but by time the market opened, it had stopped. In fact, it was pretty nice, sun was out. Last Saturday morning I got a text message from the GCM. "We're out of brioche, pretzel rolls, rhubarb danish, croissants and scones". It was 10:15 or so. Got another one at 11:20, "We're out". Yesterday morning, we went to load the truck, opened one of the metal boxes we use to transport sheet pans, and there were five pans of danish, still in there from Saturday. These boxes I speak of, are pretty big. they hold maybe eight sheet pans. When they are full of product, they are difficult to handle by onesself. So what that means is, Saturday morning, the truck was loaded, driven to the market. The boxes were taken off the truck. Four market kids walked around the boxes all morning. They told customers over and over, "Sorry we're sold out of Danish pastries". The boxes were put back in the truck, driven back to Evanston, put back in the basement. Taken out of the basement, put back in the truck. The box was opened, four days later, discovered and emptied. Neglect, carelessness, stupidity? How do those things happen? I'm comfortable it happens to every business, regardless of industry. I haven't told my dad. If my mother were alive, <span style="font-style:italic;">that</span> would have killed her. I learned and have resolved to a simple belief, "If I'm not willing to accept what goes on here while I'm away, then I shouldn't leave". I think about what it cost the bakery, finding this ridiculous mistake, my daughter's graduation was worth it. In spite of this gaff, we've been struggling to get enough product to this market. Tuesday night we bought a new van. We've been using two, but the older one has two hundred thousand miles on it, can't be long for this world. With a third vehicle, we're gonna find out just how much we can sell at GCM on Saturday's. <br /><br />That new, nananutterchoco loaf, came out nice. Really tasty stuff. May have been a little salty. Stands to reason that some peanut butter will be saltier than others. It's no secret, producers around the world want to sell as much salt as possible. We sold it all. I baked it last Thursday, we sold it all over the weekend. Plan on making more today. Nananutter, pound cake and lemon poppy seed loaf, all today.As well as a few mixes of macarons. <br /><br />Gotta get upstairs, I'd like to get home before the street lights come on. Not only are the Evanston/Wilmette/GCM markets rollin', we start the Glenwood/Rogers Park market on Sunday.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-2495226951324321302010-05-27T06:26:00.005-05:002010-05-27T09:05:36.848-05:00meetin' the person who......The weather is on our side, currently. Yesterday was very nice, Saturday is looking even better. Yesterday, I had to take Patti to Midway airport, down on the south side of the city. On my way back north, I stopped at the GCM, they were doing well. They had a constant stream of customers. I stopped to pick up, baker at the market, Joe. He was there to face his, laminated product followers, and it pleased him very much. Upon a customer asking for a croissant or monkey bun, the market kids would introduce Joe as, "The guy who makes them". People were genuinely glad to see his face, they really had a chance to "Meet the producer". Next week, I think Jennifer Park is going. Folks who buy the danish pastries, flaxseed rye, sunflower rye or honey oatmeal bread, will be in luck.<br /><br />Today we're gonna make a new quickbread loaf. Banana bread with peanut butter and chocolate chunks. We're callin' it, "Nananutterchoco loaf". There's a baking site on facebook, probably not how you say that, but it's "Baking 101". The site is run by my very philosophical baker buddy, Dan Klecko. He posted the formula. I ran down the proper size chocolate chunks, last week. We've been doin' more with these tea bread/quickbread, type loaves. We've gone to a disposable baking mold, a nice crisp looking cellophane bag and a bow tied with Bennison ribbon. It's a sharp looking package, suitable for a small gift. We have them in various spots in the store and near both registers. Keeping with seasonal trends, we made zucchini bread this week. Blueberries are next, lemon poppy seed bread with blueberries and then peaches.<br /><br />This weekend, my daughter graduates from college in California. We are all going so we've decided to forgo the Wilmette farmer's market, this weekend. We will still be at GCM and Evanston. Those of you looking for flaxseed rye, we will have it this weekend at GCM. In fact, I think we are going to start having that loaf at every GCM. I think we will go to alternating sunflower rye and honey oatmeal. It's no surprise, people know what's good. Our flax rye has incredible flavour, and stays moist for a good while. We soak the flax seed in three times it's weight in water. It's really kinda creepy. It gets like aspic, or clear jello with flax seed. They really don't swell, the omit jelling properties. If they aren't soaked before they are added to the dough, the seeds will draw the moisture from the crumb of the loaf, resulting in a very dry loaf. I sometimes think we should reduce some of the rye flour that is "soured", and just add it to the final dough, 'cause man it can get pretty sour, 'specially in the summer. The sour should be held around 55'f, but we only have a small fridge that we hold at that temperature. The sour sits at room temperature, 'round 80'f I'm guessin', and it really gets going. Someday we'll have a grown up bakery.<br /><br />Gotta get goin' here, gotta get ahead on macaroons for the weekend. Yesterday it was lavender and vanilla. Today pistachio and red velvet.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-78006021358007822902010-05-24T04:57:00.006-05:002010-05-24T05:34:13.884-05:00monday morning<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lrVKj5R3iFg/S_pUerTSkOI/AAAAAAAAAAs/qV92tPDbjU4/s1600/rhubarb2+002.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lrVKj5R3iFg/S_pUerTSkOI/AAAAAAAAAAs/qV92tPDbjU4/s320/rhubarb2+002.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474781183018701026" /></a><br />We increased the goods sent to the Saturday GCM by thirty five percent over the previous week. We made it until 11:10. The store was very busy Saturday. My buddy Chef Coppidge was here Saturday. The baker guys came and found me and said "A guy named Rich is at the back door". I went to the door and there he was. He said "I couldn't get in the store, they are lined up outside". We didn't do quite as well yesterday. I think the heat has chased everyone to the beach. I was in Hartigan's ice cream shop last night, <span style="font-style:italic;">they</span> were busy.<br /><br />The rhubarb danish in the picture, is what we sent to the GCM, Saturday. We made a change to it. In the center, we piped a little cream cheese filling, under the streussel. I didn't taste them, but they sure look great. Next to pretzel rolls, I think danish was the second thing we sold out of. People know what's good. <br /><br />Matt got our farmer's market listings on our web page last Friday. Our plan is to list our offerings at each market. We're hoping this reduces any confusion/disappointment. This morning I will put up the list for the Wednesday GCM. Starters and soakers need to be prepared, starting this afternoon. Brioche, Danish and croissant doughs, will all be mixed this afternoon, laminated and/or shaped tomorrow, and baked early Wednesday morning. All the other breads, with the exception of baguette and ciabatta, will be shaped tomorrow and baked sometime Tuesday night. We use a spreadsheet that will be taped up on the proofer, this afternoon. Matt has been talking about going to a large, large monitor, instead of what we are doing. Interfacing it, with God knows what. I act like I understand him when he speaks. I struggle with makin' sure there is salt in every dough we mix. We are talking about using it for our nightly production list, as well. Can't tell you how many times a night you'll hear "Donde esta la $**# papel", means "Where is the freakin' list". The donut icer takes it to finish icing the donuts, the guy at the oven takes it to sort out the bread, the bench guy needs it to determine how many more baguettes to scale, and somebody will have it at the sink, tryin' to save it from a spilled cup of coffee. <br /><br />Oven timer is goin' off. I have an apple frangipan tart for 6am. I also have an overwhelming amount of office work for today. Seems I don't do any for two, three days, and I end up, a week behind.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-35817303441994135032010-05-21T06:24:00.004-05:002010-05-21T06:39:39.937-05:00why be stingy<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lrVKj5R3iFg/S_ZwpxwZ39I/AAAAAAAAAAk/Gl7D6-ldQsw/s1600/croissant+003.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lrVKj5R3iFg/S_ZwpxwZ39I/AAAAAAAAAAk/Gl7D6-ldQsw/s320/croissant+003.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473686260148723666" /></a><br />It's Friday morning, don't have a lot of time, but every once in a while, something catches my eye. Something that must be shared with those, less fortunate than the ones who find their way here to shop. I'm not boasting, because I didn't make the croissants in the photo. Joe Falcinelli laminated the dough and a herd of others shaped 'em. Filemon baked 'em. To those in the middle of the country, they might say "They're to dark". To me, carmelized perfection. Toasty wheat notes, slightly sweet, and the need for a vacuum once you're finished eating. Philippe LeCorre told me once "In France, we don't eat croissants, we wear them". The every so slightly present crunch, as your teeth break thru several thin crispy layers on the outside, and an explosion of butter flavour on the inside. For the sake of knowing, we started laminating our croissant with Plugra butter, about four months ago. Makes all the difference in the world. If I had the ability to put more than one photo in a posting at a time, I would cut one open and show you, what I'm sure is incredible open structure, just like a spider web.<br /><br />Gotta get upstairs. We have an overwhelming amount of work today, weather will be nice tomorrow, markets will be cranked up. We also have loads of cakes for weekend parties. It appears graduation has begun. I need to take a break tomorrow around noon. Rich Coppidge, the bread instructor at the CIA, is in town for the restaurant show. I'm gonna treat him to oneadem Bat 17 sandwiches tomorrow. Noble Masi, <span style="font-style:italic;">the</span> Noble Masi will be here Monday.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-21694072970894791012010-05-20T09:10:00.010-05:002010-05-21T07:08:06.804-05:00finally, chocolate macarons<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lrVKj5R3iFg/S_WkrbupvNI/AAAAAAAAAAc/k_7edBJuJq8/s1600/rhubarb.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lrVKj5R3iFg/S_WkrbupvNI/AAAAAAAAAAc/k_7edBJuJq8/s320/rhubarb.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473461988223466706" /></a><br />It's Thursday morning, busy Wednesday market yesterday. The weather was perfect. As you can see in the photo, we had some beautiful strawberry/rhubarb danish. Needless to say we sold all of the danish and all of everything else. The market kids told me loads of folks came looking for our new sweet city loaf, I was glad to hear that. As unique as our bread is, nothing we offer at the market is as unique as that loaf. Carrots, onions, honey, flax, filberts and a hint of coriander, really tasty stuff. When Marc mixes it, he really pushes the hydration. I was helping the gang shape it on Tuesday afternoon, it was almost like shaping foam. It was really spongy. It had great structure after it was baked. <br /><br />I finally made some chocolate macaroons that I'm really proud of. It has taken me, literally, a good year. There was a Northwestern journalism student here yesterday, she is working on a story about macarons. She plans on making them herself. She watched me make a batch, and once they were out of the oven she said "Everyone speaks of how difficult they are to make, that was easy". I was really taken back. I explained to her that I've made hundreds of batches, Countless were unusable. Two or three of our culinary school graduates warned her, but she was unfazed. I'm expecting a call after the weekend.<br /><br />We ended up with a "Short" loaf of miche, from yesterday's bake. We sliced it this morning, if I must say myself, it is truly, very special stuff. We have been struggling with it. As I said before, organic flour is not balanced at the mill. One takes what one is given. Hydration rates and falling numbers, are all over the board. We are blending two different, high extraction flours, to create our loaf. we are down to fifty or sixty bags, won't be long and we will have to learn all over again. That's what keeps this business interesting. That, plus the fact that Hans picked up eight quarters of sliced miche yesterday, to satisfy his delivery route between here and the upper peninsula of Michigan. He has miche and rye bread stops along the way, and more importantly, one on the way back. On the way back he stops at some German butcher, north of Milwaukee. He brings back, absolutely the world's best summer sausage. He also gets landjaeger, little smoked sausages, that are joined at one end, and sold in pairs. He's coming back on Tuesday. I have just enough sausage left, to get thru the weekend.<br /><br />Funny thing happened yesterday. I was on my way home, in one of the delivery vans. They are pretty well covered with our name. I was sitting at a red light, second in line. I was in the center lane because there was a Metra bus in the right lane. The bus was stopped, and I looked to my right, thru the passenger side window, there was a young woman holding up a Bennison's bag, looking back at me. I waved, the light changed to green, and I still wonder what was in that bag. She looked like a cheese danish or sugar twist, type girl.<br /><br />Gotta get upstairs, I have pound cake in the oven and I can hear the oven timer ringing.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-43026117563924139722010-05-17T07:22:00.009-05:002010-05-17T08:29:41.787-05:00my first picture here<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lrVKj5R3iFg/S_FCrgdwNcI/AAAAAAAAAAU/gktz8MBlxJ4/s1600/maple+004.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lrVKj5R3iFg/S_FCrgdwNcI/AAAAAAAAAAU/gktz8MBlxJ4/s320/maple+004.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472228337448400322" /></a><br />The first call came from my son at GCM at 8:30, Saturday morning. The folks at the crepe stand needed more batter. Makin' it is easy, gettin' it down there, not so much. Fortunately I kinda had my wife on call Saturday. It was our first Saturday running three markets, I assumed we would need something run somewhere. I found her, and she came and got two more buckets of batter and off she went. She must have left here around 9:15. My son called again at 10:35, and they were done. The market was still goin', but we were done. When my wife came back, she said she never saw the market that crowded, except during the chef's bbq. They have expanded it to fifty four vendors. It is massive. A long way from what it used to be. On top of what we <span style="font-style:italic;">sold</span> at the market, we sell the buns to Sunday dinner, that they use for their burgers they are grillin', we also had two hundred brioche buns for chef Stephanie Izard, who was grilling something at the market. The Evanston market had two loaves of bread left and we got back eighteen donuts and eight loaves of bread from the Wilmette market. Put that stuff in our store and it vaporized. It was a good day at the markets. No, a great day. Weather for Wednesday is most promising.<br /><br />Here in the store, we are brunin' thru macarons. I've been making two, three mixes a day. we're to the point, I think we can stop freezing them and start keeping them under refrigeration. We are turning them over that fast. I gotta say, they are really nice. It's one of those things, they are really nice, because the are being turned over. And they are being turned over because they are really nice. Thank you, Chicago magazine. I spoke to baker buddy/coupe teammate, chef William Leaman, Bakery Nouveau, Seattle, about caramel. We are making caramel macarons, really tasty stuff, however the caramel could be firmer. William suggested twenty percent milk chocolate, added to the caramel. while it's still warm. Viola! Sharp guy he is. Caramel, what could be better. Sugar, creme, butter and a little milk chocolate. We caramelize the sugar, add hot creme and melted butter, and a little chocolate at the end, my, my. It's somewhere between butterscotch candy, caramel corn and butterscotch ice cream topping. Reminds me of the days at the Dolton, Fourth of July carnival.<br /><br />While I was on the phone with William, he said I need to add pictures to my postings. Today is my first try. If you get a photo of Christmas morning at my house, or an eighth grade graduation, I apologize. I will get it figured out. Friday we took a picture of our maple bacon long johns, being held in a Bennison's midget tissue. That is the picture I am intending on posting. Figured I would cover a few things I've been talkin' 'bout.<br /><br />Gotta get started here. Actually been here for a few hours, sortin' thru the rubble. I have a conference call at 10:30, then it's off to the donut fryer for my final day. Don't know if I mentioned it, but we've had a night baker on vacation for the last two weeks. We've been limping along. Arturo returns Tuesday evening for the Wednesday bake. Jenny is in Philly, returns tomorrow. Vacations are done. I try to avoid anyone taking vacation time between Mother's day and Halloween, aka market season.<br /><br />Oh, Jenny's rhubarb danish Saturday, stellar. Be at GCM Wednesday morning. see for yourself.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-78152621587835909472010-05-13T04:44:00.004-05:002010-05-13T05:42:23.228-05:00printed midget tissueWe started something new for this market season. Every Wednesday, one of us guys, involved with the production of the bread that gets sent to the market, will be at GCM from 7am to 10am. We are working on putting it on our website, titling it "Talk to the baker". People that shop at that market are very "Food savvy", they have loads of questions that can only be answered by someone who knows the production methods we use. A few times yesterday, folks asked "What do you have that is whole grain". simple as it sounds, it's a tough question to answer. All the product we make, is made from grain. Any bread with visible seeds has whole grain in it. I'm assuming they mean "What do make without white flour"? Of course that varies from market to market, day to day. We always try to have our cracked wheat bread on the table. <br /><br />Another reason I went to the market, is to line up suppliers for ingredients we purchase, from the market. Yesterday, I bought some beautiful rhubarb. We will be cooking it into strawberry rhubarb jam, for our GCM danish filling, that we will fill pastries with, for the next few weeks. The strawberries we will use, have been in our freezer since last July, that we also bought at the market. Strawberry rhubarb is one of my favorite flavour combination's. We did a strawberry rhubarb brioche in Paris for the Coupe. my year. It was the only flavour combination that I used from the onset of my road to the Coupe. I used it in regionals and nationals. Of course, it evolved over the process, but the flavour combo remained the same. This weekend we will be making a diamond shaped pastry with the filling we cook. Jenifer will be making them. She does a great job with her lamination work. I'm sure the pastries will be breathtaking. Weather will be nice, she better roll up her sleeves.<br /><br />Yesterday, at the market we unveiled our new "Midget tissue". Midget tissue is what every bakery uses, in their retail store to pick up product, at the time of sale. The new stuff, is covered with our logo. Our retail kids use it to pick up pastries or line small boxes, when weighing cookies. John Roeser taught me the importance of having your packaging stuff printed. EVERYTHING we use, has our logo on it. Took us years to get it done. We did our boxes first, then bags, then moved on to our coffee cups. Now finally, our midget tissue. I had to buy a two year supply. But it only make sense to me. More customers walk here, than drive. The world has become more "Green" conscious. Many, many customers will say "I don't need a bag". So they would walk down the street, holding an eclair in a plain white tissue. Now when they are riding the train, eating our pastry, drinking brand X coffee, people will still see our name. Same with folks walkin' around the markets, eating a croissant. I was a little embarrassed yesterday. The tissue is packed in little square boxes. Turned out the boxes we took to the market were from the first case of boxes we opened, when the tissue was delivered. The boxes had my tear stains on them. This tissue is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. <br /><br />Gotta get upstairs, macaron case is empty. Sold a boat load yesterday. I didn't make any yesterday, so I'm way behind. I need to make two mixes a day, to keep up. Means, I need to make four mixes today, to catch up. Plan for today is chocolate, lemon, caramel and strawberry. How much fun is that? I love makin' macarons.<br /><br />Pourin' here, gonna be tough to keep a crust on the baguettes today.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-42228224536564372442010-05-10T07:03:00.004-05:002010-05-10T15:07:53.221-05:00bat 17 sandwich storyA new high, and low. Yesterday being Mother's Day, turned out to be more than I remember. I made some good notes for next year. We got pasted. I've been in bakeries that were being auctioned off, that had more product in them, than we did, yesterday at closing. What is purchased here today, will be fresh, guaranteed! The low side is how long people had to wait in line.<br /><br />Our bakery occupies two store fronts. We are on the southwest corner of the intersection. We also occupy the space to the west of the corner. In the store window of that space, is where we do all the cake decorating. There is a set of steps there for kids to stand on and watch. We also have a security system monitor in there so the cake folks can find someone they need to speak to, inside the bakery. A few of the cameras are located in our store. Around 8:15 yesterday, I was in there decorating a cake. I happened to catch a glimpse of the monitor, and I noticed loads of customers in the store. I stepped back and noticed the store door was being held open by the line. I leaned forward over the decorating table, which is in the window, and looked east. I could see the end of the line, well outside the building. It was a very overwhelming experience. This was the fourth time I've seen people waiting outside. Two of the four were on a Fat Tuesday, and once on a more recent Saturday morning. But never as long of a line, as yesterday.<br /><br />There is a relatively new program on Sunday nights, on WGN TV. It is called "Chicago's best". Every week, the show has a title and/or theme. Last night they previewed three sandwich spots in the Chicago area. One of them was Bat 17, here in Evanston. Matt has put up a link to the story on our website, on the bread page. Turns out that Bat 17 is a customer of ours. They have bough their bread from us, since they opened. They really do make incredible sandwiches. They are not inexpensive, but worth every cent. They made reference to our bread three times during the four minute spot. Jim and Jim, really take care of their business. One of them is always there. They deserve all the praise they get. To bad they didn't mention their burgers, they are the real <span style="font-style:italic;">highpoint</span> of the menu. A ten ounce patty on a high crown brioche bun, badass, straight up.<br /><br />The power of advertising is unmeasurable. Since the story about our macarons broke in Chicago magazine, it's been nonstop. We make 'em everyday. I made several mixes last Thursday and Friday, so I wouldn't have to make any Saturday or Sunday. I got by today as well, but I won't be so lucky tomorrow. <br /><br />We just put together our alleged production list for tomorrow. opening day at GCM is Wednesday. Should go out and yuck it up tonight, winter break is over. Tomorrow we start working like men again.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-2371350084101946682010-05-08T15:01:00.006-05:002010-05-10T15:19:56.279-05:00maple bacon donutsIt's Saturday afternoon, and as typical I must wait until 4pm, so i can deliver our only wedding cake this weekend. Been a crazy, crazy day. Incredibly busy, I think we filled our macaron case three times today, and it's only 3pm. Markets didn't do so well today. It was bitter cold and windy. Funny enough both the Wilmette and the Evanston market are maybe five blocks from the lake. Close enough to catch breezes off the lake. The Green City Market is right on the lake in Lincoln Park. Hopefully by Wednesday things warm up. Poor Colleen came back to the bakery at noon today, her hands were beet red.<br /><br />Last weekend in Minneapolis, over baker's, dinner conversation, a new donut idea came up, Maple, bacon, donuts. What? Jeremy from Seattle said they make 'em at Voodoo Donuts in Portland, Oregon. So, this week, we gave it a shot. We took yeasted long johns, iced them with maple donut icing. While the icing was still tacky, we laid a strip of crisp cooked bacon, on top. Kinda strange lookin' at first, but really delicious. We made a dozen on Wednesday, sold 'em all. The city of Evanston guys, that are here everyday,bought a couple. They came back on Thursday lookin' for more. We explained to 'em that we needed to pull the bacon out of our freezer a day ahead of time, so we didn't make any Thursday. We made another two dozen on Saturday morning, gone immediately. "Bout the middle of the week we're gonna start again. Oh, another thing I learned at Turtle Bread in Minneapolis, instead of "Store girl" or "Store personnel", we're going to start using "Retail kids". The retail kids asked once or twice, "How many bacon long johns did you make"?, Mark replied "Two dozen". All we heard was "Gotta double it next week". One trick we discovered, by dumb luck, we cook our bacon in the oven on a drip screen. So it's nice and dry of bacon drippings. Really adheres to the donut well. We've been roasting our bacon for our egg sandwiches on the weekend. As my dad would say "Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while".<br /><br />Day is done, it's time to load up this cake and get on the road. We're gonna start pretty early tonite, got alot of stuff for tomorrow. We'll be busy in the store, and a few country clubs we bake for, want mini breakfast pastry items for their Mother's Day brunch. <br /><br />We have one night baker coming off vacation this Sunday, and another going to be off for a week. it's important that we get our guys vacation time off, finished before the market season really heats up.<br /><br />Happy Mother's Day.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-50797454844319022082010-05-04T05:12:00.008-05:002010-05-04T09:13:20.022-05:00them little thingsI made it back to the bakery Sunday night around 10pm. Things look like they do, after a busy weekend. Things were hectic here on Saturday, Wilmette market did well, lots of communion cakes. The Wilmette market sold out of pastries, as usual, had some bread left. Sold loads and loads of macarons, here in the store. French macarons are always best after they set in a fridge overnight and then frozen. I had made a lot, before I left, we're empty. Gonna hit it hard today. <br /><br />Over the weekend, I received word that both Jennifer Park and Joe Falcinelli passed the Certified Journey Baker exam. They took it here a few weeks ago. Jennifer and Joe are both journey bakers here. The title "CJB", is the first step to becoming a CMB. After a few years more experience, they will test for the "Certified Baker" level, the second level on the way to master. The CJB level involves a study guide and written test, not really a big deal. But it is a big deal, to me the thing that it exposes is a persons' desire to improve their knowledge and ability. It tells me that the bakery where certified people are employed, is concerned about the quality of their wares and perception of their business. We flaunt it here at Bennison's, I make it known to our customers that folks here preparing our goods, are certified to the highest standards as the American baking industry dictates.<br /><br />This past weekend in Minneapolis. we made some real progress in the viennoiserie category. I learned a lot myself. At this point I learn small things, endless small things. I heard Jeff Hamelman tell his class, on their first day "In the next five days I will teach one hundred big things about baking. Should you choose, you'll spend the entire rest of your life learning the little things". In Minneapolis we made brioche a tete, a very traditional French thing. Takes loads of time, so nobody really does it, in a profit seeking situation. I've had limited experience with this shape. So we tried a few different ways of creating the round ball with the smaller ball on top. Awesome, just freakin' awesome. Some of the nicest brioche a tete I've ever seen. I was so excited. We are also working on two other laminated pastries and one non laminated. Takes a long time, pick out the shape, get a mold made, balance the flavours, get it done in eight hours and schedule it in the oven around the artistic baker. For the LeSaffre Cup, the pastry guy has to do seven products. This competition stuff, is for the young.<br /><br />Gotta get upstairs. got o couple of those little things to learn today, regarding chocolate macaroons. Thank God it never stops.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-38240627899144396532010-05-01T06:39:00.004-05:002010-05-01T07:23:17.176-05:00bread, pizza and fine diningSaturday morning, sitting in the Culinary Centre here at GM. The windows of the kitchen face east, and the sky is perfect blue, and we are watching the sun rise up over the distant downtown skyline, very cool. I understand it's warm and dry back home, great for the farmer's market. I also understand that we have a lot of cakes for this weekend, sure to create a lot of tension this afternoon.<br /><br />Yesterday's practice was very good. Folks who haven't been thru getting ready for the Coupe, really don't understand this is a long, long, hard process. Every year it gets harder and harder to do things that haven't been done before. It's tough to create products that bake nice in a unit that weighs under one hundred grams and the same shape piece to bake nice, in a three hundred gram unit. On top of that you need to do five different doughs, create seven different products, finish in eight hours, meet your weights and keep clean. Very stressful. Jeremy did a great job yesterday, it's only his second practice. He had two pieces I thought tasted great. One large piece of criteria. He didn't do much finishing of his pieces, but that's ok. All in time, I don't want him to get discouraged. Many have walked before him, we weren't any further along than he is, at this point. Folks walk in here, at the end of his day, and say "This is it? This is what there is after eight hours?". Be there in September, in Vegas, pass judgment on what is presented at <span style="font-style:italic;">that</span> moment. Take a look at what the judges see at the end of his eight hour bake there. That is what <span style="font-style:italic;">really</span> matters.<br /><br />Last night Harvey McLain hosted a huge party for the guild at his bakery, Turtle Bread. Helluva nice guy, always very giving to the guild, a great supporter of the NBC, in it's day. Harvey is not a baker, he's a corporate guy. He has Solveig Tofte running his bakery. Solveig was the bread baker on the 2008 team. Right now she is very active with the team that we are getting ready, she also sits on the board of the guild. Nice bakery, nice product. In the same building. they have a fine dining restaurant plus a wood fired pizza oven, with seating. Quite an operation. Lots of baker friends turned out, lots of GM folks. Bakers exercise unmatched fellowship. We all know what each other goes thru. It's really tough being a producer and a retailer, especially dealing with a hand made product that relies on the elements of nature, and has a limited shelf life. We are very unique.<br /><br />Gotta check on Jeremy, make sure he's on task. I see he's rounding brioche dough. He has to produce twenty, traditional brioche au tete, plus twenty braided brioche. They all must weight between forty and a hundred grams. But, whatever one weighs, they all have to weigh. Godspeed.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-22858019963465020842010-04-30T07:37:00.004-05:002010-04-30T09:05:05.662-05:00last trip for a whileI'm sitting in the "Culinary Centre", at the General Mills headquarters, in Minneapolis. Once again, being treated like royalty. I'm here working with Jeremy Goduas. Jeremy is doing the viennoiserie portion of the next US baking team that will compete in Las Vegas in September. Currently, the bread guys, the sculptors, and the pastry guys are practicing separately, once the final three are chosen, they will begin choreographing their work together. I mentioned before that they need to share the equipment in a bake shop together and get their day done in eight hours. Lots of issues to get worked out.<br /><br />Turns out Jeremy is the only viennoiserie candidate. left standing. The other two guys dropped out, not sure if permanently, or if they plan on coming back. Bottom line, they're not here now. We all arrived here yesterday. Peter Yuen and I drove up from Chicago. Jeremy, flew in from Seattle, and this afternoon, John Kraus and Philippe LeCorre will be here to critique Jeremy's work. We'll make some decisions and suggestions, and do it again tomorrow. Wednesday before we left, the US received the rules from France, regarding the upcoming LeSaffre Cup. No shocking changes, Jeremy wil have do a traditional croissant, chocolate croissant, traditional brioche in a fluted cup and braided brioche. Plus three other pastries of his choice, one being a "Variety from our country". They do that element every competition. Turns out you can justify anything, the US is a big place. We're making everything somewhere. They also have to down play this competition, because there are a lot of countries that compete, that aren't that familiar with an "Artisan" style of baking. There will be four of these LeSaffre Cup competitions, worldwide. They need to determine nine winners to round out the field to twelve teams for the World Cup in 2012. So many rice cultures and flat bread cultures, it's tough for them to compete in a "Long fermented" bakery world. We see it at every competition, the influence of "Flatter" breads done by the Moroccan team. The South American countries, always have very bland looking product, because that is in their "Culture". It goes back centuries, places that grow inferior wheat, are going to bake "Inferior" bread, by our standards.<br /><br />Things at the bakery have been good. Burnin' thru macarons. The power of advertising is unmeasurable. Like my buddy John Roeser says "The more you make(of something) the better they will be, and the faster you be at makin' 'em". Sharp fellow, that Roeser guy. I'm very proud of our macarons and they way we get them done. I've been making all the shells, but preparing the fillings and putting them together has been a team effort. I think the biggest improvement has been in the caramel ones, really cool. Been makin' 'em everyday, couple mixes.<br /><br />Joe has made huge strides in our pretzel production. We've been at it for a few months now, but now they are really spot-on. Near perfect. Next week, Matt plans on doing a page on our site about them. It is really an interesting process. Joe has determined that making them one day, and freezing them overnight is the ticket. It's all a balance between freezer temperature and percentage of prefermented flour. Very few items we do, are as consistent. After saying this, the next time I walk into the bakery, there will be a pile of lousy pretzels, but that is the chance I take.<br /><br />First outdoor farmer's market tomorrow. Early in the week forecast wasn't very promising, but I guess that changed, supposed to be sunny and warm in the morning. That's good. we'll be ready. Next Saturday, we'll have both Wilmette and Evanston, here we go.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-8365076646942949912010-04-26T13:20:00.005-05:002010-04-26T13:37:40.197-05:00when ya hang with royalty.....I’m currently in flight between Albany, New York and Chicago. I’ve spent the weekend as lead judge for a Master Baker practical exam. The exam was held at the Culinary Institute of America, down in Hyde Park. If you ever get a chance, and you are at all interested in food, ya gotta make a trip to see that place. I have been there several times, and every time I go, there is a new building to see. They graduate a culinary class and a baking and pastry class every three weeks. Consequently, they start a new two year program every three weeks. It is set on the bank of the Hudson river. A big river, creating the big Hudson Valley, surrounded by mountains, incredible. I guess in the scheme of the world, they are really big hills. Growin’ up in Chicago, the tallest thing we see besides skyscrapers is the hill over the railroad tracks on south Western Avenue. You step out of the front door of the school and you look out over the river, magnificent.<br /><br /><br />My hosts this past weekend were dean of the Baking Pastry school, Tom Vaccaro, CMB, and Chef Rich Coppedge, CMB. My fellow judges were Christophe Gaumet, CMB and Noble Masi, CMB. Noble is the godfather of the entire Baking & Pastry department there, he moved with ‘em from New Haven. He is also the figurehead of the whole RBA certification process. I took over as certification board chair, from Noble. He was a judge when I took my exam in 2001. Great guy, great, great story teller. Think of the experience he has had. Thousands of students he has taught. He has traveled the globe as ambassador of the school and the American baking community. Everywhere I go with Noble, he knows the chef. I’ve been to all three CIA campus’s with Noble. When he enters the school, trumpets sound. At the Hyde Park campus, they have several fine dining restaurants. As figured, a French one, Italian, Green, American, etc. Each one is a classroom. Working “The front of the house”, in one of these restaurants, is the swan song before graduation, for each student. This past exam, kinda got scheduled late. Part of the deal is, the judges have dinner together on the first night of the exam. Noble would’ve had to force the school to cancel a reservation, in one of the fine dining spots, to fit us in. He could have done it, one phone call, done, but he didn’t. Instead, the school opened the closed, Apple Pie café, for us. The Apple Pie café, is the “Front of the house” classroom for Baking and Pastry students. It is located right inside the front door of the school. They don’t serve students, they serve the tour buses that stop there on their way to the Vanderbilt Mansion or the FDR library. The café is open two hundred twenty days a year, they do over two million in sales. You wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it. Folks lined up down the hallway, out the school door. Typical day, they close at 5pm, unless Noble needs the place. They staffed it and each fine dining spot, sent over course after course of, Nobleworthy, food. Each if the chefs came over and apologized for forcing Nobleesque folks to eat in the café. Even the wine instructor came and asked Noble about the wine choices. Then each bowed, as they left, I didn’t catch any of them kissing his ring? Surprisingly.<br /><br /><br />The candidates did well, instructors Lee Ann Adams, Hans Welker, Staphane Weber, a cereal chemist from Cargill, Tim Christensen, and Jim Clohessy, who works for Wolfgang Puck in Atlanta. Peter Jacobs from the LeSaffre yeast company, in Montreal, came to make up one segment, that he failed at the test in Chicago, last August. The instructors had several students there watching. The labs were closed, but the students can watch thru the windows. The made posters for each of their instructors, and tapped them on the windows, cheering on their teachers. “Go chef Adams, Good Luck chef Welker, and Bon Chance chef Weber”. I would guess Stephane Weber is the favorite of the young girls. He is a very fit, bicycling Frenchman. They all did well, not sure yet if any passed. Noble doesn’t allow any discussion between the judges. Sure we make our comments, but no grades are discussed. We send the score sheets to RBA headquarters, and they are tallied there. We will know before the candidates, but we will hear the same way they do.<br /><br />I’m leaving the exam weekend with a good feeling. Not sure who passed and who failed. I have my own ideas. One thing for sure, the baking world is better because of the process, because the exam exists. Each of the five candidates tried something they never tried before, baking in a different surrounding, working under close observation by their peers. Being graded on how much flour they get on the floor, or how heavy the string ice a breakfast pastry, how they score a baguette, or how long it takes to ice and decorate a sheet cake. Rest assured American pastry purchasing public, our offerings just got a little better.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-83685389466517346932010-04-20T05:57:00.006-05:002010-04-20T07:05:34.824-05:00macaronsI found the macaron article in the April issue of Chicago magazine. Matt has it on our website, as well as all over the bakery. Needless to say, macaron sales have gone thru the roof. It is a single page story, nice picture of macarons from Vanille, a pastry shop in Chicago. It also mentions the restaurants Ria and Nomi. It mentions Sarah's Candies, as well as Vanille. But it also says, "The best we've found so far, are at Bennison's, where they dissolve upon contact with your tounge". Ours was the only address given. Puts us in some pretty tall company. Not sure who is doing the work at either restaurant. But I know Dimitri at Vanille, very talented guy. He was a member of the United States team that won the world pastry championship in 2008. He also teaches at the French pastry School, here in Chicago. It was quite a feeling when I read that. Not quite winning the Coupe, but close. <br /><br /><br />This weekend I'm off to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. I'm the lead judge for a Master Baker exam weekend. I think we have five candidates for CMB and two for CB. Four of our production folks here, took their written test, last week. Zach, Jennifer and Joe tested for their Certified Journey Baker and Marc tested for Certified Baker. Marc already passed the practical exam last summer at Kendall College. I'm looking forward to returning to the school. Hyde Park is where I did, my practical exam. I've been there a handful of times since then. Rich Coppidge is the lead bread instructor there. I met Rich, my first trip to the National Baking Centre in 97'. We tried out for the baking team together. He has since written a book about gluten free baking. Heck of a nice guy, great instructor.I spoke with Tom Vocarro, the dean of the pastry school, last week. He told me they have an <span style="font-style:italic;">eighteen</span> month waiting list. More impressive is the fact they graduate every three months. Not sure of the enrollment, I'll clarify that this weekend. It's really quite a place. It's also my favorite place to do an exam because of the food. We have some amazing dinners there.<br /><br />Gotta get upstairs. Got a lot of macrons to get ready for this weekend. Bat 17 also has us working nights. They have a huge party Friday. No wonder, if you've ever tasted their sandwiches. <br /><br />Just got an email from my buddy Laurent le Daniel, in Rennes, France. He sent me his vanilla macoron filling recipe. The ones I had this past trip to France were better than what we have been making. I just wanna keep makin' things taste better.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-42606957310525364222010-04-16T06:59:00.005-05:002010-04-20T05:57:17.290-05:00eierscheckeOur second find during last Saturday's Green City Market was a pastry idea I saw in Nice. Very simple, sixty grams of brioche dough, rounded up and elongated, placed in the fridge overnite. Saturday morning we took it out and "Creased" it pretty deep with a dowel rod. So the two outside edges were very thick and the middle was paper thin. We egg washed 'em and placed twelve on a sheet pan. We used our pastry creme, flavoured with a little orange flower water, and piped quite a bit down the center of the crease. We proofed 'em and baked 'em. Once they cooled a little we brushed 'em with melted butter and dipped 'em in vanilla sugar. Done. As Kim Montello would say "Deeeeelicious". We only sent twenty three to the market, so it was the first thing we ran out of. We baked our second run of sweet city loaf, carrots, onions, flax & honey. Really, really nice.<br /><br />I also mentioned about cocoa powders, natural or dutch. Dutch cocoa is treated with alkaline, to neutralize some of the natural acids in the cocoa. In doing so the colour changes as well as the flavour. Ice cream manufacturers use natural cocoa in ice cream, because it imparts better chocolate flavour. It is also the choice of powdered hot cocoa mix producers. As bakers, typical devil's food cake is made with buttermilk. Not because of flavour profile, but because it is rather acidic. We also add a high percentage of baking soda. The soda reacts with already alkalized cocoa and produces richer colour, by enhancing the Maillard reaction. The acidic buttermilk is needed to counteract the excess baking soda, otherwise the cake would taste very "Soapy". It's all cause and effect. Kinda like the song "I know an old woman, who swallowed a spider, she swallowed the spider to catch the fly.........".<br /><br />Thursday morning I woke up at 2:30am. Within a minute, I had an idea for a new macaroon flavour, red velvet. I had to be thinking about it while I was asleep. Yesterday, I tried it, very cool. I filled them with a cream cheese ganache, made with white chocolate. I'm told there is an article about our macaroons in Chicago magazine, but I haven't found it yet. We are really burning thru macaroons lately, so it must be true. Macaroons and sandwiches. We've sold out of sandwiches three days in a row. I guess it makes sense, nice days, folks can sit outside and eat lunch.<br /><br />Yesterday we made a pastry that we haven't made in years. "Eierschecke", is an old German pastry, that we haven't made in twenty years. There's a fellow that works down the street at the locksmith shop. I don't see him very often, but every time I see him in the store, he asks me about it. We start with a thin layer of yeast dough. We make cheese filling, not to sweet, spread that on and sprinkle on raisins, toasted, sliced almonds and streussel. We then make a topping that starts with pastry creme, we lighten it by adding soft butter and egg yolks. We whip the egg whites with sugar and make a soft meringue, and fold in the custard part. We spread that mixture on the sheet and bake it. We're gonna cut it to today, it's Friday. We have enough folks cross our threshold on Fridays, we'll sell the whole sheet today. Less the piece that my dad eats, two or three the store folks will eat, can't ask them to sell it until they taste it. I gotta take a few down the street to the locksmith shop. <br /><br />Anybody been shoppin' here as long as he has, deserves it.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-63256885521540827942010-04-13T04:47:00.007-05:002010-04-13T05:37:50.634-05:00natural cocoaInteresting end to the week, last week. The first two days after Easter weren't much. But the end of the week was very good. We had that huge order for chocolate brioche and "Beer bread", as we called it. The market went well Saturday, sold out by 11:45. Market was open until 1pm. The theme was cheese. They had six or eight small, artisan cheese makers there, drew quite crowd. <br /><br />We made this "Beer bread", for the Sheraton hotel. It was pretty nice. We started with the formula that Craig Ponsford used in 1996, for the Coupe, in Paris. He used spent grains,from a brewery, that he ground thru a meat grinder and roasted. We were given some dry, malty, grain blend that was rather sweet. It was obviously hops and malt, blended with some other grains, maybe barley? The bread had better aromas than flavour. They were using the bread for the charcuterie course, so I'm comfortable it worked out fine.<br /><br />We had two real "Finds" last week. The chocolate brioche is really cool. We made our typical brioche dough, took out part of the butter and added our own "Fudge base", along with semi-sweet chocolate chips. This summer we are gonna bake it for our markets, in a round "Crimp" pan. The end result will be a round slice of brioche. Will make the most bad ass French toast. "Fudge base", is something we make in house, for two reasons. Of course us bakers can buy it, from our suppliers. The problem is, when you read their label, it has everything but chocolate. It has soybean oil, cocoa and lecithin. So, it makes things a nice chocolate colour, but no flavour. There isn't any cocoa butter. You can't capture true chocolate flavour, unless there is cocoa butter present. When we make our chocolate base, we use natural process cocoa, vegetable shortening, melted chocolate liquor and vegetable oil. It's so much better than anything we can purchase, because it has <span style="font-style:italic;">real</span> chocolate in it. The chocolate liquor, bitter chocolate, is a blend of cocoa butter and cocoa, and it has incredible flavour. It is also very expensive. So few bakers use it anymore, that you can't even get it from the local supply houses. We buy all of our <span style="font-style:italic;">everyday</span> chocolate from Blommer chocolate, here in Chicago. By everyday chocolate, I mean chips, cocoa, liquor and pokies(easily mistaken for M&M's). They sell semi sweet slabs, which we use for mousse, but I'm not a fan. I prefer imported chocolate for mousse. The second reason we make this stuff in house, is the cost. In 1970, my dad figured every time we made fudge base, we saved a $100. Forty years ago, $100, can't imagine the difference these days. <br /><br />The down side is, it's kind of a pain to do. When little Arturo is done, he looks like a coal miner, or like he's been workin' on an oil rig. We make it in large batches, in a 140qt mixer. It's almost like we have to take turns holdin' his ankles when he scrapes to the bottom of the mixing bowl.<br /><br />But our customers are worth it. Tomorrow I'll tell ya 'bout our second find last week and give ya the poop on "Natural" cocoa.<br /><br />Oh, we use melted chocolate liquor to chocolatize our brownies. No cocoa powder here. Go ahead mention that to the girl behind the counter of your local grocery store bakery. Our brownie formula is one of four that we haven't changed since my dad bought the bakery in '67.<br /><br />Stupid us, we even put honey in our brownies. Yeah, real honey. <br /><br />Another one of those ridiculous Downer beliefs.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-44523564016092878262010-04-09T05:09:00.007-05:002010-04-09T10:26:08.922-05:00aville market, you're in for a treatJust ate a plain cake donut, a fresh one. Spectacular. We routinely filter the oil, in our donut fryer, three times a week. A few years ago, we bought a new fryer. Our old one was old, a long time ago. It was also way oversized, so we didn't get the proper <span style="font-style:italic;">turnover</span> of frying oil. For all practical purposes, donut fryers come in three sizes, small, medium or large. The larger the fryer the more oil it will hold. The more oil, the larger the filtering unit one needs. A pretty simple process, hot oil is drained into the filter tank, that is fitted with a paper filter. The hot oil is then drawn thru the filter paper, via a pump, that pumps the oil back into the fryer tank. Once the oil is drained into the tank, diamatcious(not sure of spelling, neither is Bill Gates apparently, I'm still getting that red line)(<span style="font-style:italic;">ed. note - Diatomaceous, thanks for the emails everyone</span>) earth, is added to the oil. This fluffy powdery substance, I'm told, is ground up seashells. Don't know if it's true, if I can't get the proper spelling, I certainly can't look it up on Google. Anyway, this magical powder draws all the discoloration and strong donuty smells out of the oil. Since our old fryer was so big, we had a big, big filter. Very difficult to manipulate thru our crowded bakery. Consequently, we didn't filter as often as we should have. When we bought the new fryer, a more proper size to our production, I demanded a fryer with a built in filter system. The thing works great, no more rolling around a picnic table size filter, just open the drain and start pumping. It made an incredible difference in our donuts. The week before Easter, the switch on the pump went out. Matt, our in house I.T. department, can fix anything, website host, network guy, had time to fix it, but we couldn't find the <span style="font-style:italic;">room</span> for him to work. During the day we push racks/mixing bowls, in front of the fryer. So for him to work on the fryer we would have to find a place for whatever we bury it with, during the day. We had to wait until after Easter to repair the pump switch. So Monday, he changed into his mechanics clothes, brought up the tool bag, drop light and air hose. Everything in the bakery has flour on it, so the first thing any repair guy needs to do is blow the flour out of the way. He found a "Soft" breaker, in the fryer. A small circuit breaker that he couldn't get to stay in the "On" position. It kept springing back to the "Off" position. The pump switch seemed fine. He started blowing flour of the pipes and burners, opened up a few small panels and started checking continuity, etc. Turns out, enough flour had worked it's way down into that small circuit breaker, that it wouldn't allow the arm to go far enough into the on position, for it to stay there. How do those things happen? How can a few grains of flour work their way down into a switch, to the point that it is inoperable? <br /><br />We've filtered the oil, twice since Matt fixed the pump. Donuts are much better. No greasiness whatsoever. They don't have that strong "Fried" taste, either. A few years back, we would filter once a month. Never bothered me, until I learned what a difference it makes. Same thing with our neon sign, on the corner of the building. It has two rows of vertical, chasing lights, like an old movie theater. For thirty years it didn't light. Didn't even have power to it. It has "Bennison's" horizontal, across the top. "Bakeries", vertical, down the middle, and a double row of chasing bulbs on each side of the "Bakeries". Once we got it fixed, I realized what an incredibly beautiful, valuable piece of our advertising it is. When we first got it working, I used to circle the block, at night, just to look at it. So now I keep count, when there are five or six bulbs burned out, in the chasers, I dash for the ladder. When a section of one the words, is out, I don't sleep. <br /><br />Moral of the story, things that gradually deteriorate, are un-noticeable, until you realize how good they can really be.<br /><br />Gotta get upstairs. There's a few hundred pounds of chocolate brioche screamin' to get in the oven. By the way, the idea of chocolate brioche worked out really well. You folks that shop at the Aville market are in for a real treat. We are gonna bake chocolate brioche in a round crimp pan. You all can slice it real thick, make the most bad-ass French toast on the planet. June 23rd, gotta wait until then.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-41168589486345075592010-04-07T05:48:00.006-05:002010-04-07T06:31:17.322-05:00chocolate briocheWell the Easter/Passover dust has settled. I've taken it kinda easy the last two days. The Sox opener, NCAA final game, the Cubs gettin' shelled, it was all part of the crazy holiday weekend. <br /><br />Got our pan washer motor back on Friday. mid-day. Works great, much quieter than the old motor. we had stuff piled up all over waitin' to get washed. Don't tell the health department. We had stacks of lamb molds, but they got soaked over the weekend and now they look great. We never did find our large egg cake molds. We had to run over to Tag's bakery and borrow theirs. I'm figurin' ours got buried in the basement, last fall, behind stacks of farmer's market tents/tables. We'll find 'em just in time for Mother's Day. <br /><br />Markets start May 8th, Evanston. May 12th, Green City, and others, mid June. The gang is gettin' stoked, to start workin' like men again. They have lots of plans,i.e. new bread and pastry varieties they want to try out. I have one new idea I saw in France, a very simple brioche pastry filled with pastry creme. They made a chocolate brioche yesterday. Looks really cool, it's proofing as I type. Actually got a call yesterday from a French chef friend of mine, turns out there is some huge beer/brewers party at the Sheraton Chicago this weekend. He wanted this chocolate brioche. They are making some type of bread pudding with chocolate brioche and caramelized brewers malt? It's apparently a really big deal, they have flown the kitchen staff here from Belgium to prepare this meal. They need to do a hundred twenty five hotel pans of this bread pudding. They also have some guarded bread formula, they managed to smuggle out of Belgium. I'm supposed to hear about that today. Made with some special malted hops or somethin'.<br /><br />So we unloaded our holiday goods very well. We had one or two large egg cakes, one or two lamb cakes, five or six pans of chic/bunny cookies and maybe twenty four loaves of our coloured Easter bread. Based on all we sold, that ain't much. Sold all our Passover stuff. Tossed one sponge ring, and two macaroon sponge cakes. Business overall, was very good. Our traffic was up, I look at the holiday as a whole. I checked Good Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Yes, we're open Easter Sunday. We were up about sixty customer's for the three days. Sales dollars were up, proportionally more. We didn't raise any holiday prices, they were the same as 2009. Tells me that folks ate closer to home this Easter. Although the few country clubs we deal with ordered the same as last Easter.<br /><br />Tables went out on the sidewalk last Thursday. Funny thing, I know of four phone calls for sure, that inquired about seating in the bakery, in the last week. On nice days, the tables are full, 'specially around lunch. I guess we need to start takin' notice if our sandwich sales are stronger on nicer days.<br /><br />Gotta run, head upstairs, check on the chocolate briocheJory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-76119573669873345692010-03-30T05:12:00.002-05:002010-03-30T05:48:20.749-05:00multiple things always happen at onceWe had a great day, retail wise yesterday. It was Passover, so we should be busy. We started the day by needing more macaroons, banana loaves, and sponge rings. We also finished our first Easter cookies, the large bunny and chick cookies. Dipped our first little egg cakes as well. I feel a little relieved to get that stuff started. Today we will do the little chocolate eggs, and finish our first lamb cakes. <br /><br />It's a good thing business is good, because yesterday the pump motor on our pan washer went out. The thing just seized up. It was about 5pm yesterday, when we finally got the motor off of the machine. It's one heavy son-of-a-gun. Today we'll take it to the motor shop, with a box of morning pastries and we'll see what happens. Funny how that box of pastries opens a lot of doors. When my son was little, maybe eight or nine years old, he played hockey. Still plays actually, but skate sharpening is an on going battle, in a hockey players life, hockey players parents' life, as well. Skate sharpening is almost a craft. The Wilmette Bike Shop used to be the best around. I assume they still are. When you'd go in the back door to drop off skates, there was just a "Sea of skates" there to be done. Didn't matter what time of day you went in there, you could always hear the machine running. The unmistakable sound if metal against a grinding stone. I learned that if I went there mid morning, with a box of pastries, I never waited. Never got charged either. Larry would say "Just wait right there". I'd stand there and watch him do his thing, and off I would go. I'm sure we'll get the same treatment at the motor shop today. They aren't going to repair a ten horse motor, for a box of danish, but I bet they get on it quicker. <br /><br />On top of the pan washer goin' down, we took a truck in for a "Wheel hub replacement", to the dealer. It was under warranty. I love that, it was under warranty, so was the water pump and the door hinges, on the side door. So when we pick it up this afternoon, it's only gonna cost us, just over a thousand dollars. I told them to go ahead with the "Recommended radiator flush, transmission flush, brake fluid flush, power steering flush, and fuel injector flush". Damn truck will be clean when we get it back. I don't know enough about things that run on gasoline, to make good decisions about them. Besides, we needed macaroons in the store, I had chocolate on the stove melting to dip the eggs, we had a new intern yesterday, I was tryin' to remove the motor from the panwashing machine, had to place my flour order by noon, we had a big breakfast delivery on the campus at 10am, that involved brewed coffee, and I was trying to teach Zack how to decorate the Easter cookies. So. I probably agreed to some unnecessary flushes, yesterday.<br /><br />I've said it before, "Some days you're the statue, some days you're the pigeon".Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-80677199811228618762010-03-27T05:13:00.002-05:002010-03-27T05:44:19.087-05:00high near 70Saturday morning, tomorrow is Palm Sunday. I should be all worked up, seeing how Easter is one week away. If it was eight days before Christmas, I would be so wound up. 1976 was first, full time, Easter here at Bennison's. We baked and baked, for two weeks, gettin' ready for the day. I was working nights then, I started at 10pm. I came in early on Good Friday, we had a heavy night, of course. I got here around 8pm, by the time we opened on Saturday morning, there was an inch of ice on everything in God's world. Back then we were closed Easter Sunday, so on Monday morning when we came in, it was all here. Lamb cakes, bunny's, basket cakes, cookies, egg cakes, awful, just awful. It tarnished me for life. Unfortunate really, Easter can be a very busy time for bakers, but I just don't get into it. I'd rather make a hundred gingerbread houses, than ten lamb cakes. <br /><br />Today, down at GCM, we are selling a new variety of bread. Sweet City Loaf, it's a crusty white loaf, laced with carrots, onions, hazelnuts, flax seed and honey. It was a very good first try, next time will be better. It seemed short on "Stuff". We need to kick up the carrots, and onions, and we are going to add a little ground cumin. I got the idea from Dan Klecko, baker buddy up in Minneapolis. <br /><br />Looks like we'll be going back to the Wilmette French market this summer. We'd like to anyway. I've requested an application. the thing that I'm always hesitant about is, "Who will staff it"? My daughter graduates from college in late May, her and a group of friends, so we have a new crop of "Staff". Making the product is the least of our concerns. Even getting it there, is not much of an issue. But who's gonna sell it, and bring it all back? Those are the real concerns.<br /><br />Gotta get upstairs, get started on our lamb cakes, as much as I'm not looking forward too it, it's gotta be done. Predicted high "Near 70", next Friday. Gotta see it to believe it. I was next door at the hardware store, day before yesterday, I picked up a fifteen pound bag of ice melter.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-41894216626101274612010-03-24T07:27:00.003-05:002010-03-24T08:28:01.534-05:00a sunday market?We found some fresh raspberries and blueberries, that were tart suitable. I know this is America, I know we can get all fruits all year 'round. But that doesn't mean the stuff tastes good. We got some strawberries in, early this week, sour as a cornichon. Huge, red, shiny, taste like hell. They sat for two days in the fridge, and finally got some sweetness so we made strawberry tarts, yesterday. Sold 'em within a few hours. Jennifer also made some fresh raspberry tarts, really bad ass! We make our tarts shells with an all butter dough, that has a hint of almond flour. The almond flour, as far as I'm concerned, doesn't do much for the flavour of the crust, but it gives it such a nice nutty brown colour as it bakes. I learned this from Laurent le Daniel, he has a few incredible pastry shops in Reims, France. He also taught me to bake tart shells in a cooler oven. The shells get a nicer, deeper carmel colour all over. The real consequence is the tart shells get much stronger if you bake them long enough to caramelize the sugar in the crust, they also develop much more flavour. She filled the raspberry tarts with chocolate cremeux, French term. It means, "Absolutely the best, over the top, chocolate pudding, ever"! She boils whipping creme, adds sugar and egg yolks, and cooks it to thicken. She pours that over semi sweet Belgian chocolate, and smooths it out with an immersion blender. Pout it in the shells and let it cool. She topped them with fresh raspberries, really did a good job with them. <br /><br />For the blueberry tarts, she used the same tart dough, but filled them raw, and baked the whole deal together. She used almond creme, lemon curd and folded in a few blueberries. After baking she topped them with a pile of fresh blueberries, and a light dusting of confectioner's sugar. Really pretty, she did an equally good with these. Her and Tracy do a great job with our tarts and galettes.<br /><br />We are contemplating adding another farmer's market to our list. We got an email from a group in Roger's Park that is doing a sustainable market on Sunday's. Easy hours, 9 to 1. I'm all for it, but it needs to go before the board for approval, if ya know what I mean. We have been approved for the Evanston market, that starts May 8th, and Andersonville starts June 23rd, I think. They have extended the hours at Aville, gonna start at 3pm til 8 pm, until a certain point in the year. Probably when the clocks get set back, they'll wrap it up at 7pm. still waiting to hear about Green City.<br /><br />Well, gotta get upstairs, gotta get this whole Passover thing started.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6384963157407273039.post-42617328724775640942010-03-22T05:09:00.007-05:002010-03-22T06:06:31.416-05:00cornstarch, who knew?Monday morning, off to a sluggish start. Head cold to boot! Big week, this week. Startin' the Passover bake tomorrow. Coconut macaroons, sponge cake, honey cake, florentines and flourless chocolate cake, by the truckload. I worked at Konopov's bakery on Devon avenue, in Chicago, in 1976. Briefly, maybe three months. But it was the <span style="font-style:italic;">right</span> three months. Right thru Passover. I learned a lot. We made a lot more Passover variety, than we're making here, but the bakery was right at the corner of Devon and California. Chicagoans know what that means. This place rocked. Bagels and bialys, and the hallah, man. I didn't know you could make as many different sizes and shapes from one dough. Racks and racks of product. Friday nights, they set the oven at 500'. They had a huge rotating oven. When the stuff got brown, out it came, baked or not. They had no time to be concerned. Three or four of the items, we make here, are recipes that I got there. We follow all the rules, no flour or dairy, as they did. They weren't kosher, in fact the place was sold to an Italian guy named Tony, lasted, maybe eighteen months.<br /><br />Kinda funny, way back, I started makin' the coconut macaroon cookies that we made there on Devon avenue. We package them so they don't dry out. We use a clamshell dome, I think in ten ounce units. So we packaged them, wrote a product label with the ingredients. The recipe called for cornstarch, not much. Mrs. Freid was a customer and my son's, maybe second grade teacher, at the grade school next to our house. She set me straight, "Can't use cornstarch. Corn is a legume. No flour, dairy or legumes are acceptable". Mrs. Fried bought our hallah bread, every Friday, for as long as I can remember. So we took the cornstarch out of the macaroons. <br /><br />I've also learned that in France, bakers/pastry guys, can buy powdered sugar without cornstarch. Here at home, it's not available to us, on a commercial level. All of our powdered sugar has cornstarch in it "To prevent caking". The Frenchy's also believe that, it's one reason that it's difficult to make macarons here. I've never found it to be an issue. Maybe I, just don't know. So this time of year, we stock up on, one pound boxes of powdered sugar, that is "Acceptable for holiday baking". We buy it in a retail size pack. No, we don't use it for our Passover goods, we save it for the French macarons. Not sure how we addressed that issue, there on Devon avenue, but then after all, we were putting cornstarch in their cookies.<br /><br />Not sure how many, if any, Jewish bakeries, there are left on Devon avenue. Used to be one every other store front. Gitel's, Faber's, Konopov's, Tel Aviv, Levinson's, Devon Avenue Bake Shop(for us goys), Ackerman's, I'm turning into my father, I can't remember the rest. I think most of their customer's have been transplanted. Most of the bakeries have closed. The neighborhood has completely changed. There is a Russian bakery on Devon, baking in a tandori oven. <br /><br />I mentioned before, I like being a part of a family's "Holiday celebration". I'm very comfortable that the younger folks, buy our goods and run the Bennison's boxes out to the alley, to be hauled away, before the grand parents arrive for Seder. The ones I find funny are the orders we get for a pound of coconut macaroons, a honey cake, a chocolate lamb cake, a loaf of seeded rye, sliced, and a long poppy seed hallah. What??? That's Mrs. Clark's order, every Easter. See, that means something to me, that I know that. She shops here year 'round. I see her and we speak, I know the names of her grand kids. Maybe I should introduce her to Mrs. Freid.Jory Downerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01595602575291038545noreply@blogger.com3