Katerina’s friend, Gale Reeves, stopped in to visit and to tour the bakery.  In the back and forth of arranging, I started reading her blog, and looking at her photos.  The more I read and looked, the more I thought it might be fun to have someone else write about what they saw here. We see a lot about the food, but not a lot of the outsider’s perspective on production. She lucked into a day when we were hitting our afternoon groove…  Check out her blog for more of her tour of Seattle, and also find all the photos she took here:  http://www.studio1014photo.com/nouveau/

Picture a beautiful Seattle summer sky and a tree-lined sidewalk, behind which the brown awning of Bakery Nouveau peeked.  I stepped through the wooden-glass door around 2PM and saw a lengthy line of patrons.  Moving to a corner to wait and watch, people continued to enter the bakery, and gaze into the cases, and contemplate their choices.  Would they choose a generous slice of rich chocolate cake filled with chocolate mousse-ganache, or crème brulee, or chocolate cheesecake, or a raspberry glazed treat, or a blackberry filled pastry, or, or, or…?  I, too, was admiring the contents of the cases.  Desserts were ornamented with tiny chocolate transfers demurely displaying the bakery’s name, or with colorful macaroons of the Parisian type, or with narrow Bakery Nouveau ribbon secured to the base of the treat.  The artisan breads hung in all their golden brown glory on a rack, and the pizza-topped bread filled sheet trays in the case.

While talking with Chris (I’ll introduce you to him shortly), he stated that bakery advertising is by word-of-mouth.  I concluded that there are many out there who spread the good news about this awesome bakery at 4737 California Ave SW in Seattle, WA.  The long narrow storefront with its warmly painted walls and art of a local ‘artist of the month’ invites one to order, sit at a gleaming wooden table, relax, and savor.

My purpose in seeking out Bakery Nouveau was to visit Katerina.  I wanted to extend a ‘congratulations on your graduation from The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY’ hug, and to wish her well as her career (which should be long and prosperous) had begun and ushered her into the world of retail.

As an added treat, I was allowed ‘behind the counter’ with my camera.  Chris, who has worked through various areas of bakery production and authors the bakery’s blog, welcomed me and offered some behind the scenes views of life in a bakery.  We stood near the warm ovens, and I observed employees scurrying from station to station, smoothly and efficiently.  We discussed long work hours, and scheduling employees, and managing ingredients, and limited real estate, and social networking.  I was greeted by other employees - one who was reared not 30 miles from my home town of Hornbeak, TN (That’d be Jane!- ed.).  It’s a small world.

Katerina introduced me to Chef William Leaman, the man behind the magic.  His hands were deep into a huge vat of what I assumed was cookie dough.  He dished dough with what looked like a #8 disher – those cookies would be huge!  The dough looked ‘you must taste this cookie hot-out-of-the-oven’ rich.  I instantly found myself admiring Chef.  He was working in the trenches adjacent to his employees.  At that moment, he was neither working on an elaborate sugar sculpture nor a multi-layered pastry.  He was scooping cookie dough.  I looked around 1½ hours later, and Chef continued to patiently shape cookies.  Words were not necessary; his action spoke volumes about teamwork.

Employees were moving around seamlessly between stations in a work area that had recently been reorganized.  I walked past the flour-dusted sheeter (a must in the bakery to efficiently roll large batches of dough) toward a long, wood-top table where a skilled young man cut croissants ‘by eye.’  He didn’t use a ruler to precisely measure each cut.  He swiftly rolled the pizza-cutter-looking tool at a slanted angle, and each triangle of the beautiful dough appeared to be the same size, though he did occasionally check his accuracy by weighting a portion on a simple scale.  His hands quickly and skillfully rolled the triangles into perfectly shaped croissants. Clearly, fancy tools are not always needed to produce magnificent baked items. 

 Stacked neatly against one wall were bags and bags of flour.  Chris stated that the supply would only last about a week. That was yet another affirmation of a successful business.

I moved across the room and observed another gentleman scaling chocolate cheesecake batter into foil-covered pans. He steadily moved trays and trays of cheesecakes into the oven.  As I gazed through the oven glass and watched as the cakes turned on the rotating device, I imagined just how delicious the cheesecakes would be when removed from the oven and cooled.  Some of the cheesecakes would be drizzled with a glaze and offered to customers in hefty slices.

I admired trays and trays of macaroons of various jewel tone colors.  Many were filled with a chocolate goodness, lying patiently in wait of transfer to the front counter or perhaps a couple would be used to adorn the top corner of a velvety chocolate birthday cake ordered by someone special, for someone special.

The cookie dough balls were moved into the cooler.  I wish I could have followed a couple of those to the oven!

There were huge (as in large enough to hold several soccer balls) mixer bowls all around and there were dozens of cheesecake pans hanging overhead, and there were various sizes of rings neatly organized on a wall board.  Again, I surveyed the area and thought…‘this is retail with a passion.’  The finished products that adorn the cases of the front were beautiful.  They were works of art.

I thanked everyone for their generous hospitality, appreciatively accepted a couple of samples, and ended my bakery excursion.  A few more camera-clicks outside the front door, then I ventured down the hill, toward the Seattle skyline.

As you bite into your next bakery item, take a moment to think about all the hands that worked to produce the delicacy.  Give them a silent word of thanks for their years of training, their long hours working in a hot bakery kitchen, their talent that is truly a gift from God, and their determination to give a bit of themselves to every item they create.

As I return to TN, to my home kitchen, to my small collection of neatly organized baking pans, I will remember that the romanticized idea of baking professionally is undergirded by gallons of sweat, years of hard work, and lives dedicated to a passion that will preserve the past while moving into the future.