Itinerant Baker Blog

Posted By Chef Kev on July 26, 2010

After a few years of devoting oneself to a project, the question arises whether or not you still have the drive, the fire, the stamina, that you had when you began.

This seems to be on people’s minds a lot lately. Most of the time the question is posed by customers that come by on Fridays when we are baking for farmer’s market. They see a lot of activity. We are busy running loaves, baked or unbaked between the kitchen and the ovens or beginning to re-fire the oven around 1:00 or 2:00 p.m to finish off the day’s production. It is a long day. We generally start before dawn and (in the winter time) finish around dark as well. They come in and we are maybe dragging or limping a little but focused on getting everything done. That’s when I hear “aren’t you getting tired of this?” or “Are you bored yet”

Legitimate questions.

I suppose that if things were different for us we would question what we do as well. Everyone has to work I guess, and having something that you absolutely love doing being able to do, that thing with the one you love the most and with the support and encouragement of literally everyone you know, is just the most life fulfilling, energy sustaining endeavour a person can embark on.

Are there bad days to go along with the good? Sure. Can we envision an easier way to make a living? I guess. Will it wear us down eventually? Who cares?

It’s summed up by the lyrics to a Bob Dylan song I have been running lately

I can tell you fancy or I can tell you plain.
you give something up for everything you gain.
Since every pleasure has an edge of pain,
Pay for your ticket and don’t complain.

Anyway we have help around the shop now and teaching people what you know is yet another way of helping us stay interested focused and occasionally amused.

People seem to desire good bread and having the ability to feed their desires while living out our own, is a magical feeling. I don’t think I can think of another way to do that.

But then I’m just a baker.

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Tags: artisan bread, baker, big island, farmers market, hawaii, sandwich isle bread

Posted By Chef Kev on December 14, 2008

Aloha,

Well this is just about our last day of our week break. Although we didn’t actually take the whole week for ourselves we did take a break from baking to set up for a class on bread-making which I taught yesterday with Kay as my lovely assistant.

The previous week ended on a high note with another record day at the farmer’s market followed by a pizza party that same evening. It wound up being our biggest weekend so far but also the longest day ever.

September ended up being not only a very good month financially but we also got to do some events which got our name out a bit more.

First there was the “Evening in Paradise function we did with our friend chef Roger. we made rosemary flat breads which he topped with lamb and asiago cheese then melted them in the oven and topped them with a nice Greek “salsa” of tomato kalamata olives herbs and feta cheese with a balsamic reduction. A nice evening that was a benefit for United way, as well as a promotional event for us. The oven with a live fire in it after sundown is truly a beautiful and mesmerizing sight. Many photo ops were had but none by us unfortunately.

Two weeks later we brought the oven to the middle school in Waimea so the classes there could make their own pizzas after threshing and milling some wheat they had grown themselves. We were, in the course of the day, able to feed about 100 sixth grade students little whole wheat pizzas that they shaped themselves.(see pics)

The class at Anna’s Ranch went very well right up until I burned most of the bread I was going to bake for the class by misreading my infrared thermometer and putting the bread into a way too hot oven. This was after we broke for lunch and Kay and I made pizzas for the class. the only bread that didn’t get torched was baked in a regular kitchen type oven which they sliced and ate by my wood fired oven while everyone had a good laugh at the bread EXPERT retrieving his scorched loaves from his smoking oven while the lovely assistant fed them the perfect loaves that she had baked inside. Kay tried to point out that the French describe the darkly baked loaves as being ‘Kissed by the flame” whereas I replied that the flames had, at least gotten to third base with this batch.(Ah well, pride goeth and all that) As the oven cooled and we went back inside to finish up the class  there were also four baguettes on the verge of over proofing that we baked off and they turned out so perfect on the inside that it somewhat redeemed my day for me. The best part for most of the folks was watching the no knead method of mixing. The results were beautiful. Everyone was effusive in their praise for the class and very generous in their forgiveness for my mental lapse on the burned bread. It was a beautiful room with good acoustics and great lighting and I hope someone will share photos with me if they have. I really look forward teaching another class there after the first of the year.

So now it is back to the work portion of our show with a few private parties lined up down the road to give us some help. The challenge is to try to increase our production as much as we can and figure out a way to get that bigger oven here as soon as possible. Present economy  withstanding. Well as they say when life gives you lemons… My outlook is, if we do (heaven forefend) go back to the bread lines of the great depression, line starts here.

–
Kevin Cabrera
Itinerant Baker
Big Island,
Hawaii

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