Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new series on heritage radio network called the culinary call sheet where we give a peek into the back kitchen of culinary media. I'm your host, April Jones,

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Absolutely what was once niche or a little silly, as I'm sure you remember, Darren, when we started out, this man has now become such a massive playing field for so many creatives using food as the medium.

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This week on meat and three we dive into the science behind munchies, the history of coca the therapeutic powers of psychedelics and mushroom infused recipes.

One of the biggest questions we get asked a lot is does he degrade psilocybin

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Hello, and welcome to another host of cooking interesting we do a live radio network every Tuesday and you know most of the time we're pretty close to noon these days. And you know sometimes we go over the Stasi might bump off we go over because she hates it. She'll give you the book or goodbye. Speaking of which we have from her undisclosed location is somewhere in Southern California. Anastasia the hammer Lopez, how're you doing? Good. Yeah, yeah, we have. John is back in his customer service hidey hole in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Hi doing John. Yeah, we have Matt in his Rhode Island booth. We're doing the COVID. We're all over the map. How you doing?

I'm checking off an extra state for you.

Yeah, yeah. Rhode Island, Providence Plantation. And here. We don't know what state we're we have special guest. Melissa Weller here today talking about her new book a good bake the art and science of making perfect pastries, cakes, cookies, pies and breads and humble welcome.

Hi, Dave. Thanks for having me.

Where are you right now?

I'm still in the same place. As always. I'm in Brooklyn. I'm in Williamsburg.

Oh, nice. All right. Like which part of Willie I mean, you don't have to say exactly. I'm not saying you have to like call out.

I don't mind. Anyone can anyone can know it doesn't matter. I'm in. I'm on Bedford Avenue. Close to North eighth.

Geez, what's up fancy, fancy, fancy person. You're the fanciest person in the whole world? I try. Do you know I used to work in that neighborhood in the in the like, early to mid 90s. Oh, wow. Yeah. And a little bit different.

Yeah, a little bit different. I've been in the same apartment for 16 years.

16 years. So what does that take you back to 2004. Okay, so 2004 All right. Okay, so was planning Thailand still existing

back then? It was it had some kind of like swing like swing chairs.

Yes. So for those of you who don't know, like Williamsburg was kind of an industrial, it was like half industrial half residential. There was still some old like kind of Polish places. There was a thrift store right off the subway where, you know, I used to go buy pants when I shredded my pants at the Brooklyn Brewery was over there still is. I used to work for a famous sculptor named John Kessler. Whose studio was over there. And yeah, so you said go there but like the restaurant that everyone was like, planning Thailand that was like the height of eating in Williamsburg Oh, plenty tiling. Oh, no, not plan it to plan eat anyway. And like and then like, they were like a little hole in the wall and then they went through a renovation and they got big and they had some sort of sculptural boat in the middle of their thing. And it was like vote place and then now just went away. Right?

i Yeah, it's gone. I don't I don't even know what's there. Now. I haven't actually been down that street for a little bit.

Yeah. And my memory gets blurred because it was so long ago, but I can't remember was cautious Williamsburg or is that Greenpoint?

Now, that was Williamsburg. Yeah. I think that's Williamsburg.

Is that also gone?

I don't think no, it's not there anymore. Yeah. And the thrift store is gone. The thrift stores at Chase bank now. Oh, geez. Yeah.

This is like, this reminds me. Like, did you guys see that? Like a couple of days ago, Bob Dylan sold his entire song catalog for $300 million. Yeah, yeah, I can't wait to like Chase Bank has Bob Dylan songs for their thing or whatever kind of cash grab like lunacy is the guy is still alive. He's gonna have to turn off his TV and like turn off the internet. So he doesn't see I mean, it's only a matter of time before there's like a GI Joe tambourine. Man, you know what I mean? Like?

No, no, no, every time he sees that he's just gonna be like, That is the sound of money.

Is the sound of money. Yeah. So the idea that that there's a store, which was not a bad thrift store, by the way, it was.

I donated many things to it.

Yeah. And it was right there. And it was an old school one. So like, it wasn't like, wasn't one of these thrift stores where you walk in and you're like, oh, that's what is nice. 15 I was one. No, it was like a thrift store. And like, you could get like if you needed a pie plate. Because how many of you Okay, let's, let's get into this for a second. Before we get into the book. Most of the times, this just didn't happen to you because you specify glass pie plates, right? So I'm sure Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll talk about this, I'm sure. Because like, whenever I take a pie to someone's house, basically, they get to keep the pie plate. So I can't go through glass like that.

That's true. That's true. Although I do use aluminum, like in a bakery. So I don't have to worry about

that to use black aluminum, or do you use the regular silver to Lumina,

the silver aluminum that you can buy at a bodega? Yeah, no, it's fine. If you know how to bake with it. It's fine. But you know, for home if you want to be perfect.

Get a glass plate like dimples and everything like a Greek salad 10? Or do they make one specially for pies? They make

one specially for pies. Right? Yeah.

So like, how do you so so for those of you that like, don't think about cheat trays or whatnot, you have to adjust how you bake to the stuff that you're using. So if you use something shiny, it affects very much like how brown the product is going to get because you're reflecting away all the radiant heat from the oven. So how do you compensate if you're going to use glass, which, although it takes a while to heat up, is fairly good at absorbing radiant heat. So you know, that's going to give you a particular kind of brown is on the bottom of the cross. How do you adjust when you're switching to shiny, disposable aluminum? So your dirtbag buddies? Yeah,

I actually I think I use those aluminum tins primarily at work. So I have a convection oven. So the big times different in the convection oven than it is at home. So actually, I'd have to think I think I probably bake them about the same length of time, same amount of time in that convection oven with the aluminum. But then that that gets a little bit more complicated because when I'm baking pies for work, I actually freeze the I make a large batch of pies. And then I freeze them all and so I'm baking them from frozen in an aluminum tin versus just one pie in a glass pie plate at home.

So you're saying it's like not instantly mentally translatable? Like what

I don't think. Yeah, I can't do that right now. All right.

Well, let's for those of you that for those out there that are not familiar with Melissa's work, by the way we have like so much like almost overlap in our lives. It's crazy.

I know. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I was thinking about the French Culinary Institute. I think we were almost there at the same time.

You well, you I came on probably right after you graduate. Let's go through. First of all, first of all you started as a chemical engineer in Pennsylvania. You're from Pennsylvania, right?

Correct. Yes, I did. And I started work as an engineer in Pennsylvania.

What kind of Pennsylvania are you from? Are you like an Eastern or Western Pennsylvania person?

I'm in central central Clearfield County, Clearfield central west of State College.

Okay. All right. All right. But then you went to work like literally as a chemical engineer in Allentown, where they were shutting all the factories down. It's getting very hard to stay a Exactly, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, what were you What were you chemical engineering? What was your

hydrogen and carbon monoxide plants for petroleum refining?

Whoa, I didn't know that was a big business in Allentown. I always think of that as like Elizabeth or like, you know, closer to the coast. They did a lot of refining stuff over there.

It wasn't there wasn't refining happening at it was an air product. So there wasn't a refining happening there. But all of the design was happening there. And then all of the plants were located around the world. So I traveled to Houston a lot that year or the year I graduated from college. I was going to Houston all the time. And once I went to Korea, and another time I went to Puerto Rico it just all over the place.

You know who else has an Allentown connection? Or almost Easton connection is Anastasia.

Oh, well, my mom lived there. Yeah. Oh, wow. Wow.

So Anastasia will never buy an off brand crayon on me. So then you move from there to San Diego. And that's when you decide like crap on this crap on this chemical engineering stuff. Like you didn't use you weren't weren't down on that anymore. Like, what was the career change? Like, because I think we

Yeah, it was, it was it took a while actually, I actually moved to Berkeley to San Francisco. And I got a job in I got a I got a couple of jobs in the front of the house at different restaurants in San Francisco. And I tried to make that work. And that lasted for a few months. And then I got cold feet. And I started to look for an engineering job. And that took me to San Diego. And I worked as an engineer in San Diego for a couple of years. And I just didn't like it, obviously. And I wanted to do something more. I wanted to do cooking and I wanted to be creative. And so it was in San Diego that I started volunteering to work at this nice fine dining restaurant. It's very small restaurant and they needed somebody to do pastry. So that's what I did.

Now, were you this is so funny. I don't think I've mentioned this on on on the air before but I was when I graduated from from college. I was a paralegal. I was the world's worst World's Worst paralegal. And I was like To hell with this. Because at home like I was baking bread all the time was what I was doing for fun. Wow. Yeah, this is in like 90, whatever. 93 and 94. And, you know, there was a lot of information. There wasn't internet. I wasn't very good at it. That's not the point. But like, there was a bakery in New Haven, because you know, we stayed in town after we graduate because my wife had like a really good job with my wife at the time. She was my girlfriend but she was working for Cesar Peles is great architect anyway, so like I had to stay in town. I was a crappy crab. Ooh, so so bad at being a paralegal. I'm just not good at it.

I think I was awful at being an engineer. I hated my job. I had to spec out safety valves for these large plants. And I hated it. I just

I mean, you got to be careful. Yeah, you have

to be very careful. I was I was my first job was as a safety engineer.

Lets important job.

Yeah, yeah, you had to figure out how much how far the if the safety relief valve released, how far and in what direction would the carbon monoxide plume vent into the atmosphere. And I had to go through all of these parameters to make sure that the valve was placed in the right angle.

That makes me feel comfortable that the entry level position for safety engineer throw the new guy at this Yes, just

because she was entry level doesn't mean she wasn't skilled at it.

I didn't like it. But I did my I was good at my job. I probably I'm pretty self critical. But I I remember we had to be reviewed and I thought I did a horrible job and my boss is like, why are you being so hard on yourself? You did fine. I think that's that's the sort of the story of my life.

Okay, well, so real quick, I threatened to leave my job and become a baker and I had it all lined up. I was going to go work, but the thing is, I couldn't get up at five in the morning. You know what I mean? Like, and I ended up doing database design instead. And that's how I paid to become the person that I have for those people. But yeah, I came like within like a hair's breadth clothes of like saying crap on it and going to work for who is the best, you know, the best bakery in New Haven at the time.

Oh, yeah. That's so similar. To me, actually, yeah,

yeah. So like, but did you have to do it at like 4am? Or were you able to work like normal? People like hours what we do, I didn't?

Well, I think I'm, it's easier for me to wake up early. I'm not very good at staying up late. And so some of the jobs, I think my Well, the first job that I had in the restaurant industry in San Francisco was at Rubicon. And it was a hostess job and, and it wasn't early or late. It just required people skills, and being friendly to people. And I it's not that I'm not friendly to people. I'm a little bit introverted, but I it wasn't a great, it wasn't a great fit at all. And it was like, I hardly made any money. And I was just like, What am I doing? And I got cold feet. And I quickly move back into engineering.

Yeah, host is so tough. You just don't make any. That's why like, you know, when it's the owner, like the owner, like the owner, fo H does it like that's one thing? Yeah. Like, you just don't make a lot of money. You have to like, you have to like look really presentable. You're the first thing people see when they show up, you have to be nice to people, you get all the abuse from the person that can't get the table, and you just don't make that much money. And you're the first person cut in the FLH. It's crazy. I don't understand it. I have a lot of respect for people doing the host job, you know, yeah,

it was. And I think, you know, I think when I started, I was like, Well, I just want to take a job and work my way up. And I want to learn about how restaurants work. But I would have taken a server job. I just had no skill set at that time. And the host is the job that's like the entry level front of the house job was at the time, that was the only thing I could get. And it just it was like I didn't, it was it was pretty miserable. That's mostly what I remember. I remember carrying platters of drinks to people's table. If they were at the bar, and I had to move their drinks to the dining room. And I'm for me, that was super stressful. I'm like, I'm gonna spill the drinks. Now, I think it's sort of I can't believe you know, well, now is now but back then that was like in the 90s. That was in the late 90s. That was pretty stressful. And I just didn't like it.

I don't blame you. So so then you decide you're going to, you're going to go to culinary school. And you ended up in New York at my old institution, the French culinary and pastry program, right? Yeah,

I did. I was there in 2004. Yeah, I did the pastry program. I loved it.

Yeah, it's such as that like in 2004. So I got I came on at the end of 2004. That school that school is really firing on all cylinders. Man, that chest there were so good. Like, who did you have for pastry? Do you remember

Tony Lynn Dickinson i She was amazing. She Rodriquez

to Yeah. Awesome love here. They were a team actually,

he had just started and so they work together. And I just I loved it so much. I learned so much from both of them.

Shift Gear X monk.

Yes, yeah,

yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, they're great. It's such a shame but it would happen. They're closing down there at the end of that the official end of the of the program is in December and probably going to go one more time because the museum museum like they donated their library to the museum. And guess what else the Museum of food and drink has? We have all the old DVDs of all of the old demos.

Oh, wow. Oh, wow. I used to love those demos. I remember Jack pay pan. He did so many amazing demos there. I was really drawn to that.

Oh, yeah. The mean the mean the guy is What is he like a million was he he's like a head and a Futurama jar. At this point. I think it could still bone a chicken in like 17 seconds or something like Yeah. Anyway, yeah. The fcafc I was. Alright, so So you go from there. And then you went? Did you go directly to Bob? Oh, from there?

No, I had a little job in between. I was working at Chelsea Market at this patisserie called goupil and DeCarlo. And I was making croissants there. And that wasn't a good fit for me. And I it lasted for a few months. And then and then I started looking for like the right job. And I really wanted to work in a bakery. But at that time in 2004 and early 2005 There weren't a lot of good bakeries to choose from in New York. And so I was reluctant to take a restaurant job but I really wanted to work with Gina dipalma. And Baba was such a happening restaurant at that time, that when I saw the job opening there, I'm like, I really want to do this job. Even if it's not at a bakery, I'll learn a lot. And it just it opened up so many doors for me. I just I worked so hard in that job. And and as a result I the doors just opened and and Gina my mentor just you know helped me get whatever job I wanted afterwards.

Now she used to come back and do demos and events at the FCI a lot. Did you meet her there? Like when she was doing a demo or something? I

did. I did. I didn't I met her when I trailed for the job at babo. I hadn't met her before, but I was familiar with her work and I went to eat, I went to Baba before my trail so I could try the desserts. And I used to do that at a lot of different places back then it's just go sit at the bar and order dessert so I could see what different chefs were doing. And I, I really loved she was doing she was very classical. But she was also employing a lot of savory ingredients. And that was new at that time, there weren't that many chefs who were doing that. And I was really drawn to that. And so I trailed with her. And we just hit it off. And, and I just started working there right away. Pretty much.

Yeah, for those of you that aren't familiar, Gina dipalma was a like, among among pastry chefs, just like a revered figure. Like everyone always kind of got the opinion that somehow she always even though she was well known. She always managed to get like a little bit snubbed by like, Oh, yeah. By I don't know, awards and whatever else mean, it's not that she wasn't recognized. But everyone who knew her work, always kind of felt that she was getting a little bit snubbed. You agree?

Yeah, absolutely. That was absolutely the case. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't until her cookbook came out that she was she finally got the recognition that she deserved.

Yeah. And she was around in the era of the famous pastry chef. So like, again, for people who don't, you know, remember, like, from about 2001 or two to about 2008 was like the was the decade of the pastry chef really? Like they were like, No, in terms of

public. Yeah, you're right about that. No, that's so true. She was Claudia Fleming sous chef at Gramercy Tavern.

You also call out her book as being an influence for you.

Yes, No, exactly. And I think that that I think knowing that Gina had worked for Claudia was a big factor in in wanting to also work to in wanting to work for Gina.

And I only knew her tangentially like I met her a couple of Gina, but, you know, she tragically got sick with cancer died, you know, very, very young and continued to work while she was sick, right. It's crazy, wasn't it? Yeah,

she was. Yeah, no, it's think she was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. And then she passed away in 2015. And for most of that entire time she was working.

Now yes, no, it's not anyway, so go look up her work. Check. Check out her work. pasties universally. She's universally revered in the field. At the time well, she was work universally when you say that's true or no, absolutely. No, absolutely. So then from babo you go to work with everybody's favorite bread lunatic, Jim? Yes. Very, very apropos. Yeah, I mean, what a nutbag, right.

Yeah. He's crazy. But I think that's part of what makes his bread or what he's doing was does his bread Good.

Mr. Garcia almost worked with with him almost took a full time job with him. She was deciding between working with us at the French culinary or with him over at Sullivan up at the in the 50s. Were you up in the fifth? 47th Street? Yeah, yeah. And she unwisely chose to come to the Sei. Right. So I was working with him. I was co me at the opening of CO on 20. Oh, wow.

Oh, wow.

You overlapped for like a couple of months? Yeah, I remember we go back and forth and not what not anyway, he whenever he comes on the show, he like invariably curses a blue streak. And we shared an ad we shared an editor. If you ever want to see like get like what you want to do is Maria gonna Shelley who was?

Yeah, that was Gina's editor too, by the way. Oh, really? Yeah. If

I ever get to speak to Maria again, I'll have to ask about that. But like, if the stars here, Maria loves Nastasia like, loves her. I think she's she signed me so that she could have lunch with Anastasia on a regular basis. Would you say it's accurate? Yeah. Oh, wow. And in, like Maria, so Maria Gorna. Shelly was one of the great editors cookbook editors of all time. All right to see if you don't know who she is. That's who she is. And her daughter is Alex Warner Shelley, well known chef. And so yeah, but she always scared the daylights out of me. Maria Yeah, like scare the hell out of me. And one of like the Stasi his favorite things to do is we'd get Maria in a room talking about Jim Lahey. And then like the next day we get Jim Lee in a room talking about Maria that is a fun game.

Oh my gosh, I would I can I be present the next time. I want to be part of that.

I don't know if those those times will ever be recruited. That's

true. No, it's true. You're probably not I, I met Maria at a food conference, a food writing conference, in back in like 2001 in Napa. I think that's that that sort of is as long as I've wanted to write a cookbook. I went to a food writing conference back then. And I met her there. I introduced myself I was very I knew who she was. I used to read the acknowledgments in all of the cookbooks that I was reading. So I knew who she was. And I just introduced myself and that was pretty much it. But then I actually met her. Basically the second day, I started working for Gina. So I knew she was I knew her from Gina. And she never ever remembered me. I kept running into her. And I'd be like, she was sort of like a superstar to me, because I really wanted to write a cookbook, and I feel like there's Maria. And so I knew her through Gina, but she she never remembered me. And then I knew that she was doing Jim's book. And then and I was working for Jim when he was working on his book with Maria, to sort of ironic, and then I think I ran into her at when I was working at Roberta she was having a lunch and finally I told her again who I was and I'm like, do you remember me as she I think I don't think she remembered me but she was so flattered that she sent me a cookbook. Yeah, it was really nice.

Yeah. She ate it Roberta's when Nastasia. and I were talking with her because I think that was when Roberta's was was trying to pitch their book out to different.

Oh, wow. Okay, so then I was there making the bread at that time.

Yeah. Alright, so speaking of Lee while we're on the subject, one of the recipes in the book is inspired kind of by the No need stuff, so might as well knock that out while we're talking. Yes. Yeah. So you do a so instead of water you use carrot juice in it right it's carrots currents pecan bread, and it's but it's a it's a classic. It's in a Dutch oven. Very high hydration. Yeah. But so I wanted to like matches you talk about it for a second one of the interesting things to me about it are one it's even higher hydration than Leahy's like standard mix. And you also call for bread flour instead of AP and I'm wondering a Is that why you have the higher hydration and then you also use like rye flour on the outside as your as your dust? how messy is that sucker to flip? You want to talk about that recipe for say, oh, it's got different size air holes in the standard Leahy so it's not as and I wondered whether it was the ingredients that did that it's not as one tiny bubble one giant bubble as a lot of his thoughts are more like a normal bread crumbs. So go

okay. Oh, yeah. So let's talk about this bread. So I it's, it's with carrot juice. And it's it's not sweet. It's a savory bread. And it was a I helped him with all of his when he was when I was working for Jim I would help him with his bread classes. And he was teaching No need bread classes. And he was teaching he was all of the bread dough that we made at the bakery was no need bread dough that we would bulk ferment for nine hours at a time. And, and I was helping him with his classes and he was working on the recipes for his cookbook. And this was this was this is a version of a recipe that he had done and I loved it all of Jim's flowers at that time. Were coming from a silo and so it was like one type of flower and I think I just think over the years I've just adapted to flowers that work I think that works best for like I think bread flour it takes a little bit longer for the gluten to break down with bread flour. I thought that that was better for this I generally try to use well No that's not true. I'm very specific about my flowers but I did think that the bread flour worked best for this dough it wasn't sort of as like wet if you will as like a like if you used all purpose flour I use all purpose flour use King Arthur all purpose flour. That's a pretty King Arthur all purpose flour has a pretty high percentage protein content. I think it's more like 12.9 which is to talk or no 11.9 So it's almost 12% That's almost like bread flour. And I think Jim always use brand wheat brand for everything and I like wheat bran I think regardless of what you do with no need bread if it involves flipping and flour or brand, you're gonna have a massive, a little bit of a mess in your kitchen. And so I I try to keep things simple and not have too many ingredients going on. I feel the same about sourdough starters, I don't try to have six different starters, I tried to keep it to just like one, maybe two. And they functionally Yeah, it I've had to deal with having all of these different sourdough starters professionally. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of labor, it causes a lot of it's difficult for the bakery to maintain all of those. And so I generally try to like, like whittle them down to one liquid starter based on wheat flour, and maybe a rye starter and then a poolish generally. And so for this dough, I it's you know I have to say I love the photo in my book of the carrot breads beautiful. But man that bred over fermented for me that day because I was trying to get all of the all of the products ready for photoshoot and also work. I was at high street so I was also in charge of the production at high street. And I remember that day I was like, oh my god it over fermented is it going to be okay? And the crumbs really beautiful. But I was a little nervous. It wasn't as like, his bread definitely has some vehicles and some little holes. And if you do the, if you do the regular white, white bread, if you will need bread, you do get that variation. But I also think that I also think that there is an I'm just guessing here that there's residual sugar in the carrot juice that's causing it to ferment a little faster, and it would be more responsible for and also the I'm going all over the place sort of jumping all over the place. But I also think that the higher hydration also. Is that true? See, I have to think through I want to think through it. The higher the hydration, if you have a strong if you have the right flower and a strong flower, it should be able to handle that. But I actually think that I probably fermented it a little longer that day. Per actually not fermented but proofed it too long.

Right. So you think that normally it would have like a little more that big hole little hole

thing? Yeah, I think normally it would. Yeah, I

mean, like, by the way, I like all kinds of breadcrumbs. Like I know people go like crazy. They want one specific thing. Yeah, as long as someone can control it and make it taste good. I mean, I'm for it.

I think that's yeah, no, I think that's the most important thing. It has to taste good as I think it needs to have this like pretty like a beautiful rusticity to it is good, but I think the most important thing is how it tastes.

Speaking of which, we'll get to it later. So then after after Leahy, you go to work for a different kind of crazy you gonna

say? Yeah, that's definitely a different kind of crazy.

I mean, one of one of the favorite people that the Stasi and I worked with at FCI went to go work for per se and we're like, Dude, you nuts? Yeah, easy, right?

Yeah, it's crazy. It was so hard. I can't even begin to describe how challenging it was. I learned so much. I'm so grateful for that experience. But it was really hard.

Yeah. And plus, what was it like working in that in that space in the in the in the, in the Time Warner building, and that's just the whole thing. It's like, imagine being in that kind of a kitchen, but also like in that like to locate it seems like all kinds of crazy, right?

It was it was hard. It felt like I felt like the products felt like where we were. I don't know if that makes sense. But it felt very, the Time Warner Center is a bit like a shopping mall. And I felt like everything is on display. Everything's perfect. Everything looks perfect. And I felt like that's how my breads were too. They were on display. I was on display while I worked. And everything had to look perfect. And and, and generally it tasted good too.

Right? Yeah. No, but like, it's so weird, because you're in that area of like hyper control inside of per se. But then outside at the bakery. You're selling to people eating at Cafe tables in a mall. Yeah, you know, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it

was hard.

So then in and so you were like, and you were the you were the head baker there, right. Yeah, it was. Yeah. And then you went from there to Roberta's? Oh, my God, what are you like?

Yeah, I'm probably pretty crazy. Um, no, like, oh, you know what? I feel like I'm pretty ambitious with my career. And I really I like this opportunity, per se to be the head baker came up. And I have to say I had hardly any experience baking bread and managing a team at the time that I was hired. Like, I had only been working I was hired in 2008. I started working at BAVO in 2005. That's only three years and I only worked at Sullivan for one year. And they needed somebody who understood bread and understood fine dining and had that skill set. And I had a good tasting. I presented myself well. neat and tidy. And and I was hired but I wasn't prepared to manage even a small team at per se there was so much pressure on my shoulders. It was it was a big learning curve. For me. It was hard but I'm grateful. I'm really grateful for the for the opportunity. But then I was pregnant. I got pregnant while I was at per se and I wasn't sure how I was going to handle my pregnancy but I did leave per se and I took time off because I don't think I don't think it would have been realistic at all to have had a baby and continued to work as a head baker at per se I just don't see how it could have worked. I was working like 14 hour days. Not taking it was lucky if I had a day off a week. And I don't know how you can divide your time between been having an you can't have it all. I don't think you could have that job, that particular job and have a newborn. And so I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I was pretty burned out. And I was like, Well, I'm burned out. But I still really want to make the kind of bread that I want to make. And right around that time I got a got an email or a text message from a friend of mine saying that revertas was looking for a head baker. And that was appealing to me because I live in Williamsburg. And it's not that far away. So and they didn't care what I did. Honestly.

That checks out.

Yeah, they said, I we don't care what you do, we just need you to sell some bread. Just make some bread for the restaurant. We don't care. And I was like, Okay, well, this is like, this is like, my free card to do whatever I want. And I can create my own schedule around my child. And that was really, like one of the most important things for me at that time was to create a schedule, so I could be home as much as I could to take care of my son. And so I stayed there for a night. It's a different kind of crazy, per se was crazy. Everywhere is crazy in the restaurant industry in New York, I think sometimes but Roberta's was definitely a different kind of crazy. But I also you know, I also got to start to make my own things. I don't feel like anything that I made it per se was it's not true. I mean, I did make, I did make my own breads there. But really something that reflected me. I feel like that was what happened at Roberta's was the products that the big bakery items that I was making really reflected me.

So you think like Roberta's at its best, like as a concept. And so like, you know, I don't know, like, I'm always with with this dossier Robertas and especially because we've been going for how many years? Over 10 years? 1010 10 something years? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

We're like, How is this possible? Right? It's like, how it like, how are they not getting like date? They're not following any rules, how are they not getting shut down, etcetera, etcetera? How are they able to just like, do all this stuff that doesn't make any sense, like in terms of, you know, if it makes sense from an outsider perspective, but if you're, you know, even, like tangentially involved in the business you look at you're like, how are they doing this and not getting smacked around by the authorities that beer whatnot, but at its best, it really you think allowed you to kind of be who you are, like, their lack of rules allowed you to be who you want? Yeah. It's nice.

Yeah, at the time, I was baking in a woodfired oven that was outside in a shipping container. And that's pretty illegal. As far as I can tell, like, there was no, there was there was no one was monitoring that oven. It was just sort of out there. And we'd build a fire in it. And then I'd go out in the in early morning and clean it out and bake some bread in it. And, and I remember I remember we'd be careful, you know, like it's in the yard. The sounds awful to say but the DOH would come by but they would come by to Roberta's and not to the yard. And I think that that was sort of part of it at the time. But you know, the rent, the rent was so low there. It was just incredible. I still remember that. I seen the numbers and I still remember the numbers just incredible. How low it was that it made it so many things possible because the rent was so low.

They didn't need the Stasi. It didn't need, like redesign the entire courtyard to take advantage of a fancy pigeon that had like decided it was going to live in that yard. Yeah, yes, I can remember that. That was like, Alright, it seemed like that like I don't know. No, I

would believe it. I believe it. And maybe I was still there at that time. I'm not sure.

That fancy pitch. It was a very fancy pigeon. I will have to say the pigeon was extremely fancy. So then you hooked up with major food group and did citadels huh? Yeah. Yeah. Do you know I still I still haven't been because I know that it will bankrupt myself on salmon if I go. Oh, that the Stasi has been several times.

Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. So I I wanted to leave her I was ready to leave Roberta's so you know, I'm a career changer. So I just remember I just turned 40 And I was it was New Year's Day. It was like two in the morning on New Year's Day. And I was like dealing with a lot of people who were still at Roberta's partying. I was just trying to get my baked done. And I'm sort of done with this. I'm done with this. I said I'm a grown up now. I'm done. I need to leave I need to get my own business started. And so my idea was at the time was I'm going to do something I'm going to sell bagels at The Williamsburg Smorgasburg while I work on a business plan. And I knew that the bagels were a good idea but I didn't know how like I didn't know if they how how they would catch on. And I just thought it was oh this is a good idea. People want something small that they can take away at the at the Smorgasburg and you know at that Point, New York Magazine, Robin Reese Feld and Rob patronized at were fans. By the way, great people. Yeah, I love them so much. And they were the first ones to really write about my stuff. And they picked up that I was at the Smorgasburg. And they went with it. And they included it in their magazine. And it was through that article in the magazine that I was connected to an investor for the major food group who connected me to the major food group partners, and I dropped some bagels and sticky buns off to them, they were sold. And we agreed I thought we agreed to partner I thought partnering with them was a good idea at the time. And so we partnered in 2013. And we spent two years designing and recipe testing smells and we opened it up in the fall of 2015.

So I have to say this. So for those of you that don't know, like major food group is like Carbone to reasi all of this and anything they take on, they take on kind of in a in a big way. And this was like their, you know, your in their take on kind of like what would you know, kind of like deli on crack, right? I mean, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And but like the other thing is strange is that it was kind of like all your stuff in the daytime and then a different restaurant at night, right? Yeah,