Then and Now

That was then

I called it the cafe
breakfast
lunch
all day
I called it work
everyday
consistently
My full time job of running, operating, and managing a busy local restaurant.

This is now

Tables are gone
the dining room is quiet
but not empty
There is so much time
To be thoughtful in what we create
to feed our community in their own homes
to manage myself
to enjoy cooking
I call it the bakery

Before Covid life was busy, we ran a cafe that operated 6 days a week, serving breakfast all day. We also managed 18 employees, 4 children and each other. That. Is. A. Lot. I believe in my life that I was meant to share food with people, to encourage the kind of communication that happens at the dinner table. To spend thoughtful time with friends and loved ones and that the best way for people to become friends was to eat together. I was meant to break bread at the tables of my friends and community members. For years, the best way to do this was to invite the community around me into my space and feed them with food that I had created. I spent hours creating recipes and menus that would allow everyone to feel comfortable, inclusive eating for meat eaters, vegetarians, groups, solos. We created a space that was bright and open, lovingly painting the walls yellow so that even on the darkest of days, it was still sunny. I did this as much for you, as I did for me. In food, I feel love, and excitement to share, and passion.

During Covid things became clear. Time slowed down for us, or maybe it's just that time became itself, open and spacious. With less managing to do, I had more time to think. More time to feel things around me and recognize that what I wanted was to connect to my community through food, and that the busy-ness of the cafe and the weight of the business was directly interfering with my connection. My connection with food, my connections with family, my connection with you. But things aren't the same anymore. And no matter our opinions on that, they won't ever be the same. The restaurant industry is going to change. Or maybe, I should say, it already has. Raw product is less accessible and more expensive. Employees have found new jobs, interacting is more complicated. Safety concerns have become the main concern, trumping the creative, honest side of the industry. Running a sit down restaurant will be for the corporations. Small business will close their doors to the old way of life. But, that isn't a bad thing. The disconnect of food to consumer is something we should be fighting, something that needed to die. In all honesty, the majority of the food industry is not honest. They take dirty food, prepare it in dirty kitchens, and serve it to paying customers. Customers are happy not knowing, and servers are happy not telling. But this isn't how it always was, this isn't how it should be. It's time we search out the honest places, the places that buy organic, that care about what they are making and serving. Opening cans and pulling frozen meat out to fry does not equate quality food. Isn't it time that we equate food with quality and involvement and acknowledgment and our time, energy, and health.
Now, I am in the bakery business. My food isn't always the healthiest for you, but I can tell you one thing, I sleep well every night with the quality of the ingredients I buy. I search out better flour, better sugar, organic produce, using local when possible. This food I create, I eat myself. I feed my children. And I feel good about it. I feel a connection to my food that I want to share with my community.

After Covid (or should I say, later on in Covid) We won't use the term Cafe anymore. There won't be tables with seats where you can break bread with friends and loved ones. But I will still keep my end of the bargain with my community. I will create thoughtful food, and provide it to you, to take home and eat in your own space. We will continue to search out quality ingredients and we will try hard every day to make better food, food that we will also eat, food that we will also feed our children. We will work with farmers, we will search out cleaner meat options, we will create in season food as often and as much as we can. While you and I might no longer be breaking bread together, I know that you and I will still have a connection. That I will still create, and you will still break bread, just at your own table.