Meet the Back Home Bakery interns
For those of you who may have missed one or two of the recent postings of the intern bakers who have visited us at the Back Home Bakery this year, I thought I'd use this as a reference page for all of them. Click on the links to visit the pages specifically about them. Enjoy.
The cast in order of appearance:
Thomas (tssaweber): Having grown up in Switzerland, Thomas had the taste of fantastic bread from an early age. When he moved to the US ten years ago, he began baking his own bread and during the past 5 years he has spent much time experimenting with sourdoughs and native Swiss breads too. This is the page of his internship.
Diane: Diane's been cooking and baking bread for many years also. In her spare time, she's also a cheese maker and dairy farmer. Here's her internship page.
Paul (PMcCool): Paul's enjoyed baking breads for over 30 years. He's also a regular contributor here on TFL and he frequently blogs about his baking adventures. This is his blog about his visit.
Callie (calliekoch): Callie has spent most of her life cooking at home and has been baking bread for the last few years. About a year ago she began to enjoy baking sourdoughs with her own starter. Here's a bit about her internship.
Greg (gcook17): Greg's well versed in both pastries and breads. Although not a professional baker, he's taken several courses at SFBI and has been baking artisnal breads for many years. This is the page about his stay.
Pat (proth5): Pat's a great bread baker with the mind of a pastry chef. Not only has she baked bread since she was a little child, she's also studied under some of the top bread bakers around the country. This is her blog about her stay.
Brendan (smithbr11) Brendan is relatively new to bread baking, but is improving quickly. With his kinesthetic learning style and detail oriented mind, he'll be an expert in no time. This is my blog entry about his internship.
Thanks so much to all of you interns for all of your help and time. I hope you went home with some improvement in your skills and maybe a little more baking knowledge too. Take it easy.
-Mark
Comments
I've enjoyed reading about your interns and hope that proth5 shares her experience, not only because she's such a fine baker, but a poet and philosopher as well.
Please let me say that all the interns ROCK! or whatever...the current term might be
And Mark & Sharon, you're in the process of building a business. Granted you have needed assistance, but you've been and are still giving more than you have received.
Anyone who questions this, please take time to enjoy the instructional videos Mark has shared.
I'd love to see FLOYD take a turn at apprenticing, but I can guess that he is much too busy with family and Mercy Corps.
Although I thiink each of the interns has left with some valuable info and honed up on some skills too, it's definitely not for everyone. I think everyone except for Paul had at least an inkling of commercial aspirations and the timing has been right for everyone. Floyd's a busy guy and I know he enjoys baking as a hobby - he's not looking to change his hobby into a profession or even to spend a week grinding out some baking to improve his skills.
-Mark
to get in line for one of Mark's apprenticeships. It doesn't matter if you aspire to a career as a baker or if, as proth5 puts it, you are a "raggedy home baker". It will be some of the hardest work you will ever love. You will come back with a deeper appreciation of what it takes to make those lovely baked goods and for the bakers who make them, along with some much-improved skills. The downside is that you may be jonesing for some new toys...
If I weren't in Africa, I'd think about signing up for a second hitch. And about taking plenty of hand lotion with me. ;-) Wait a minute, my body clock is already set for 8 hours ahead of MDT. One a.m. in Kalispell is like 9:00 a.m. in Pretoria, so I could get up then and feel as though I'd slept in! Cool!
Paul
I'm thinking "well, geez, I think I could go another round..."
but you are on the money with the "insanity" bit. Especially if you haven't had that wrist dealt with yet.
In my case, talk is cheap. I won't move back to the States until October-ish, so there's no way I can make any of this year's slots. Since my boss had asked me, literally, the day before I left for the 2009 internship if I would take my present assignment, doing another when I get back would be a fitting book-end of sorts. And I could use the jet lag as an excuse for any bonehead mistakes I might make...
Paul
been paying a lot of attention to my poor little hand and determining what sets it off and what doesn't. I really do a lot of physical work (lifting suitcases, hauling laptop, hand milling, etc) with no problems, but if I balance a sheet pan on my right hand - wham! Been practicing balancing a sheet pan on my left hand...
But yes, insanity - utter insanity.
For those of you who are serious about artisan baking just the fact that two "older" folks would want to go back to that brutal schedule - should tell you how great the experience is.
Pat