What's This All About?

For the past month (plus), Bill and I have been involved with a Chamber of Commerce fundraiser. It's a home and building tour with an art and antique show of things uniquely Superior. It will take place all across town this next week-end January 31 and February 1. We've got five or six home to tour and seven buildings for folks to see. We're going to have art and antique vendors selling from the local school and I've been in charge of procuring food vendors who will be set up downtown.

It's all coming together well. We've had good publicity from the 'tony' magazines of the Southwest to local television and radio coverage that certainly can't hurt. We hope to attract some of the Snow Birds as well as restless locals from the Phoenix area looking to do something fun. We've even gotten sponsorship from the Arboretum.

What we haven't had, is a lot of volunteers at the local level. That's probably because 1) it's the first time we've had this tour and 2) it does coincide with Super Bowl Sunday and there's a lot of Cardinals fans here. Still, it would be nice if we had a bit more co-operation. One of the buildings we're proposing to show is the old high school. Built sometime in the mid-1920's and operated through the 2000-2001 school year, it's a mammoth two story red brick structure. The school board sold it for a mere pittance several years ago and the poor edifice has been sitting empty and uncared for ever since. The organizers of our Home and Building Tour got permission from the owners to open it up for tours on our two day event, but... (isn't there always a but?) it had to be cleaned first. So the committee members assembled at nine Saturday, armed with brooms and buckets and mops and a couple of vacuum cleaners to clean a few rooms. At least, that was the plan, I thought I'd heard at the meetings we've been attending.

The chairman, who is one of the hardest working ladies in town that promotes our fair town, was uneasy how many folks would give up their Saturday to come out and clean the looming edifice. She kept saying that if just a few showed up, then we'd just clean a few rooms and that's all that would be shown. Seven of us showed up Saturday morning, followed in a few hours by about seven more. Most of these folks (everybody except the chairwoman and her husband and Bill and me) were alumni of the old high school. Now, when room after dusty room was opened up that morning, there were ooh's and ahhh's and "I remember this..." and "Do you know what happened here...?" anecdotes scattered all over. It would have been fun to listen to more of their stories if we hadn't been dealing with so much dirt and dust.

Do you know how much dust can accumulate in eight years in this desert environment? I'll tellya, how much: A BUNCH! It's soft and silty and covers everything! When you sweep it, it flings itself into a cloud over your head and hovers there, making your nose itch and your eyes tear up and pretty soon while you're sweeping, you're sure you're going to expire of Valley Fever! Once you've done cleaning a vast expanse of (once beautiful) hardwood or (really vintage) asbestos tile, you look back over what you've cleaned (yeah, you think you've cleaned it!) only to find another dusty sheen, perhaps not as thick as the original, still remains. Well then, the mop buckets and mops came out. Even as a corner or two got the grime off, buckets would have to be emptied and mops cleaned up for another go at the same stretch of floor. After three attempts over the chemistry room's pale green asbestos tiles, I gave up in disgust as muddy streaks mocked my efforts to abate them. I don't know what might have worked, a good pressure washer, maybe!

By noon, I had physically had it. I felt as if I'd used up every spare bit of energy I might have risen with. I mopped one room three times, swept and dust mopped three more rooms and one hallway and scraped soil and leaves off the front steps. The folks who toiled away were still trying to make the upstairs gymnasium and its vast expanse of polished hardwood presentable and another group was toiling away in the library where shelves had been piled haphazardly. Yet a third building remained untouched until the group got down to that after lunch.

Now, I didn't stay for the afternoon fun. Bill brought me home where I collapsed on the couch for a nap with Chuy nestled beside me. He went back and worked with the others till four-thirty when nobody could stand up any longer. The building will be on the Tour and if you come, I hope you'll stop by and see the old High School, whether you were an alumni or not. I told Bill later, I'm sure glad the rest of the folks who agreed to show their homes and buildings on the Tour didn't need us committee members to come by and clean up their space for them. 'Cause if they did, I bet we wouldn't find any more willing members to do it!

For those in the Phoenix area, come see what I'm talking about: Superior Chamber of Commerce presents their First Annual HOME and BUILDING TOUR with Art and Antique Show, Saturday January 31 and Sunday February 1 from 10 AM to 4 PM. Cost is $10 day of event, or $8 presale. Call Superior Chamber of Commerce 520-689-0200 for more information. And no, we won't make you sweep a floor!

And then some...

The job continues. I baked at Toast, the cafe/bakery, twice this week. Patronage was light due to the Inauguration and a persistent rain, so my Wednesday stint was cancelled. Monday's baking session was grim: the cake donuts were too light and soft to remove easily from the pan (we bake them rather than fry them, which is sort of a sacrilege for a donut, don't you agree?) and instead ended up resolving in a pile of crumbs that got tossed into a waste can. But the same donuts I baked today plopped out of their pans intact and crumbless, ready to be dipped in butter and coated in cinnamon sugar and were sitting on the racks by nine thirty waiting for the customers to come and taste them. The cinnamon rolls I baked today were light and fluffy and dripping with oozy cream cheese buttercream by nine forty just in time to be placed on waiting diner's plates five minutes later. This job makes me happy in ways running the Landing never did. I do like to make folks happy, that's true, but turning out good things to eat is pure fun.

It's not just the food, of course, that's part of the job. There's the people too. Fellow employees are part of the job and getting on with them is part of the fun too. Take the dishwasher, for example. The fellow who made my first day so great by washing up all the bowls I got dirty. The fellow who I thought was going to make this job the Best just because he was washing up behind me. He quit. Well, technically, I guess that's wrong. He didn't quit. But after last Friday, he just neglected to show up to work anymore. Bill and I passed him on the street Sunday when we were walking the dog and he greeted us just fine. So I don't think he had any hard feelings over all the pots and pans I sent his way. I think he just felt that three days washing dishes in the small cafe was enough for him. So he stayed home this week. So, hmmmm, that part of the job wasn't so much fun today. When I needed an extra bowl because I'd messed up too many and here were four sitting dirty and I needed to get a fifth used, then I had to step over to the sink and wash a few out. It humbles the chef a bit, but hey, I've been doing that at home for over forty years. What's new?

The other girls in the cafe are great. Eager young women wanting to do the right thing, rushing to get their jobs done without getting in each other's way. Asking questions of Bert, the baker, about various aspects of recipes or how things should be done. They've got a keen appreciation of trying to do it right the first time. In a way, it's like they are students studying extra hard for that test that's coming up. But when the cafe fills up around noon and there's ten dozen things to do to keep the customers happy and the food moving, these girls hustle and there's no slouching. I have been so impressed to watch how well this young green staff is doing. Makes me proud!

So for anybody in the Superior area that hasn't found Toast yet. It's open 7 AM to 2 PM, Tuesdays through Sunday and is located at 180 Main Street. We serve espressos and lattes and gourmet sandwiches and salads as well as some great chorizo pizza on Wednesdays and Fridays and some of the best Artisan bread in the Phoenix area. And if you are dieting, ask for one of those cinnamon rolls lathered with cream cheese buttercream. That oughta do you for a spell!

Dream Job

The last thing I expected to receive in this depressed economic climate was an invitation to participate in my Dream Job. Actually, the last thing I expected to receive in this depressed economic climate was a chance to work part-time anywhere! I guess that's where Fate steps in and plays a hand for you.



During the busy Christmas season, Bill and I were invited to seven different parties and dinners. Normally, we get to one, so seven was a definite HIGH for us. We met some wonderful new people and at most of these, I would take along a tray of Christmas cookies I'd baked. They were well received and I admit it: I like to hear people rave over my baking. One of our new buddies proclaimed them to be, "The Best Cookies!" he'd ever tasted. So yeah, next party invite, here's Nancy in the kitchen baking up another tray of goodies to bestow on the group.



I guess you could say those cookies were my resume into this dream job. One of the participants was a man from Petaluma (go figure!) who was opening a new bakery/bistro in town. He remarked one evening that it would be a good thing for me to come into the shop one day a week to bake cookies for him. I laughingly agreed, figuring it was probably just 'party talk'. But what a lark that would be I thought, since secretly, I've dreamed of either working in a bakery or a restaurant and making folks happy through their bellies with my food!



This week, when I stopped by for a loaf of his extremely great Artisan bread, he asked me for my phone number and asked me if I was serious about baking for him. I told him of course I was! Next day, his partner and G.M. calls and asks if I could come in on Friday to 'watch her' bake for four hours. If it worked out, then she'd let me bake on Monday and Tuesday and several days a week I could go in and bake her signature baked goods. Heart pounding, I agreed (whole heartedly!).



The bakery/bistro is open from five to two and besides fresh bread and pastries sells coffees and sandwiches and salads for lunch. The day I got there, there were two brand new employees getting trained, one who was there for her second day and two others who've been there about a week, plus Mary and Bert, the seasoned owners. We got blitzed with the biggest day so far.



The first half hour, Mary was able to show me where a number of the products were stored and the location of the ovens, work center and utensils. She pulled out a sheaf of recipes and said even though the bakery was only in its third week, there were signature dishes that were expected to be on the shelves: notably the cinnamon rolls and the Magma Cake. So those two things I would be watching her bake that day.



We had barely begun the double batch of cinnamon rolls, when the gal who was making sandwiches came in with a strange look on her face. They had just received an order for twenty two sandwiches and had forty five minutes to assemble them. Without missing a beat, Mary told me I was on my own since she'd be hustling to help get the orders ready.



'Normally,' (I mean in my own kitchen), I don't always read a recipe completely through before assembing it. Today, I was, although a pounding excitement kept filling me up as I could sense the staff's urgency as the lunch crowd started arriving ( as soon as eleven, I might add.) I take this to be because in Arizona, folks go to work earlier in the day because of the heat, so naturally would want to eat lunch sooner. The restaurant is located in an old building downtown with fifteen foot ceilings and the acoustics are raw. From my post in back, stirring up a copious quantity of dough, I could hear a woman's high pitched laugh rocketing off the rafters. It sounded like a party going on out in front and this new staff was hustling, even if some of us had no idea where everything was!



So here I was, trying to follow the recipe as best as it was written. If it said to mix the eggs and milk and butter in a separate bowl, before adding it to the dry ingredients, so be it, I was! At home, I'd tend to just dump them into the bowl of dry ingredients and save myself an extra bowl to wash. AH HA! That's where the beauty of the bakery/kitchen comes into play. We had us here, A DISHWASHER to take care of that pesky extra bowl. I don't mean a mechanical-you-load-it-you-clean-it-out sort of dishwasher. I mean, a real blood and bones fellow named Bernie who washed, rinsed, sanitized and put them back in your own workstation so you could get them out and get them dirty all over again!!! I tellya after two hours of this, I felt like I'd died and gone to heaven!

When my first tray of liberally iced with cream cheese frosting cinnamon rolls hit the shelves, I started to relax a fraction. When the Magma Cake finally came out of the oven to cool and didn't fall or look mis-shapen, I relaxed even more, but by then it was time to call it a day. I didn't realize until I got home how totally worn out I was. It was a wild ride to find one's way around a strange kitchen and hustle to get everything done plus try to turn out a product that pleased the customers as well as the owners, but I think I managed. It's not everybody who gets to start their dream job the same year they are pushing sixty. But I think it can be done and I'm going to try real hard to prove I'm a good baker.

I purchased a couple of cinnamon rolls and brought them home for our breakfast this morning. They were pretty good. But Bill was still laughing that I had to go off to bed by eight o'clock last night. Evidently, a year of being retired had its effect on me and after only four hours of being a baker, I was pooped out quite a bit!