After 12 years of owning a bakery my partner and I sold Bread Obsession to a nice young couple and retired.
I found that I am just as avid to bake as ever. I got a new starter going and started experimenting with flour from Ground Up Mills in western Mass. Here is one with a mix of their 83% extraction wheat flour plus King Arthur patent.
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Welcome back - having been a member for a mere 11 years, I never contributed to any threads that may have been yours, but your name often crops up when I browse old posts.
I'm hoping you can share some of your professional expertise with all of us, including the small but slowly growing band who use domestic kitchen sized spiral mixers.
Lance
I am looking forward to seeing what people are up to. I have to say I have come to the opposite conclusion re home mixing. You need a good spiral mixer to mix 60K of dough. Not so much to make say a single loaf. I am using my old Bosch which works just fine - it does the mixing and then I do the dough development with a few stretches and folds.
Congrats and welcome home!!!!
Rob
It is good to be back!
It's so nice to hear from you. I've always admired how you pursued your dreams and made an excellent 11-year run at it!
We all look forward to seeing posts from you and gaining knowledge from your professional experiences.
Welcome home indeed!
Best regards,
Ian
I just looked at your last post. It looks like you learned a lot. I think home baking is amazingly different from commercial baking. I haven't totally wrapped my mind around it, and have to say I'm just enjoying baking for the family again.
While I know that you got your bakery going “some” years ago, I wouldn’t have guessed it has been that long. Does it seem longer or shorter to you?
Glad to see you back here at TFL again
Paul
I'm not sure how to answer that. It was completely absorbing for twelve years. Waking up early to get the bread made. Constantly hiring and training to make sure there were enough hands to get the bread made. Dealing with customers, landlords, builders, oven repairs, etc. We were open all through Covid baking with masks on because making artisan bread is an essential service. In other words life. And now that it's over, it just feels completely natural not doing all that!
I’ve checked your bakery over the years and watched as you moved to new locations and prospered.
I remember so well all your posts from your home and your oven adventures as well as your first sales at markets. What an amazing career you have had.
It’s so wonderful to hear the bakery will continue in new hands. A testament to your knowledge and abilities and your commitment to passing that along to the next generation.
Congratulations and so happy you are back. Caroline
Caroline, It's great to see that The Fresh Loaf is going strong and I remember you from back in the day. How has the site changed over the last decade I wonder? My goal in owning a bakery was to get the bread out there. We were super happy that we found a buyer who was interested in keeping it going, and not changing it into a sub shop or something like that. Now the new owners are working very hard and innovating and putting their own stamp on it. I love to be on the sidelines (instead of the front lines) cheering them on!
You were so lucky in getting these buyers to carry on and add on their new ideas.
Yes the TFL of old isn’t the same but then nothing ever is.
Postings are very different from new folks . We get a lot of “ drive by” posts that the person has been a member for 1 hr. Never returns.
We still have the old timers like myself over 17 years ( where did the time go) and wonderful inventive posts from so many familiar names.
I hope you will post so we can all learn from your amazing store of knowledge. c
I am enjoying my home baking and I'm really interested to see what people are doing and getting new ideas. I don't know if my baking experience translates that well to this environment. When you are baking in volume for sale, the key thing is consistency over widely varying conditions, and widely varying baking staff. Every new bread requires months of test baking to make it bullet proof, so you don't add breads very often. But if I try something interesting I will definitely be posting!
It's great to hear from you again! I'm impressed with how positive you are about such a major transition. I'm guessing it has to do with being able to make the change on your own terms.
I'm sure there are lots of differences between home baking and commercial production. I'm sure many would enjoy your reflections on this.
One change over time for me that is more possible for home bakers is making more of my breads totally by hand, i.e., without any mechanical mixing. I enjoy the "hands on" process, and I think clean up is easier. This isn't a problem making 2 kg of dough, of course.
Happy baking!
David
Hi David,
I think I am so positive about it because we had a plan and somehow managed to execute it. It was pretty dicey for awhile, and the deal could have fallen through any number of times. The work was eventually much too hard for me, and it is a huge relief not to be doing it anymore, and I'm glad to have the young people take over. Now, thankfully, the new owners are plugging along with a high degree of talent and inventiveness, adding amazing pastries while keeping all the bread going.
That said, it is a big adjustment and I'm trying to make it without lashing out in too many directions and committing myself to too much just in the effort to be busy. You have been there I am guessing, so perhaps you could advise me on that point.
I will have to try to get my thoughts together re home vs commercial baking. They are so different, and I got into one from the other without really understanding those differences. Hopefully a post will emerge!
As for hand mixing I get your point. I have a crappy little Bosch that is however good enough for the job which in my case is mixing 800-900g of dough. I like to make one loaf at a time now that my urge to make multiple loaves has been definitively satisfied now and for all time!
All the best!
Varda
Varda said: That said, it is a big adjustment and I'm trying to make it without lashing out in too many directions and committing myself to too much just in the effort to be busy. You have been there I am guessing, so perhaps you could advise me on that point.
Well, I'm not sure I have any useful advice. My father was an internal medicine specialist. When patients who were about to retire consulted him, his question was, "What are you retiring to?" It's important to have some retirement activity that keeps you busy (but not frantically so) and makes you happy.
I am fortunate that I have always been able to "compartmentalize," so when I left the office I really left emotionally as well as physically. I retired to cooking, bread baking and calligraphy. I truly love the whole process of making bread, and calligraphy is meditative. I am fundamentally lazy, meaning I don't feel I need to be "productive" at all times.
I can't wish anyone a better retirement than mine.
Happy baking (or whatever)!
David
Is excellent advice. My husband was a Chemistry professor for 31 years and before that worked in labs from the time he was 18 at Tulane Med School til graduate school.
The best thing was he kept his jazz piano playing as a hobby and would play gigs on the side for extra money and camaraderie with friends . Fast forward and he’s 78 and plays regularly at a local restaurant. This coming July will be 10 yrs here.
I’ve been retired for 21 yrs . Very early . My focus has changed over the years but I’ve always had time consuming hobbies running, cycling , traveling and now gardening has really become more and more time consuming and always baking.
We have family members with no hobbies and their retirement is filled with angst because of that.
I’m sure you will gain focus as your energy collects around new interests and possibilities. It will be an interesting time for you to grow into. 🙏
That's the ticket. Well I do have a few. I destroyed bread baking as a hobby by making it into a business, but it's a business no more so there's hope! Thanks for sharing!
What a great concept! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Hi Varda, so nice to see you posting. I’m not new you probably don’t know me since you’ve been busy running a bakery for the past 12 years. I’ve only been baking bread since 2019. I look forward to seeing your bakes here on TFL.
I’m a retired Family Physician and HIV Primary Care Doctor having retired 3 years ago. Although I do work a little doing locums covering for some of my old colleagues when they go on vacation, I have limited it to a maximum of ten weeks per year. I have to say that I love retirement and highly recommend it to everyone. I know a lot of people say you have to have a plan, I don’t agree with that at all. If you are even somewhat inquisitive and like to learn new things, they you’ll be fine.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Benny
Because of my nature, I am most worrying about over-commiting. So there are certain things I'm interested in and I'm trying to focus on those. No plan in particular but certain goals I'm trying to keep in mind. We'll see how it goes. After a long absence, Fresh Loaf looks better than ever. My baking has gotten pretty boring but I hope to post a bit in the future.
Varda