About a year ago this month, I lost my grandmother, Mitzi, after a long illness. This came at a time when I was nearing the end of culinary school, and had just gotten my first professional baking job at one of the casinos in Atlantic City, so her passing was especially poignant.

For me, Bubba Mitzi was the notion of hospitality made manifest. When visiting her house, the first words from her mouth were asking if I had eaten, if I was hungry, and specifically wanted some chicken soup. (Like all Jewish grandmothers, my Bubba made the best matzah ball soup to be found on this Earth, and I’d argue to the grave anyone who said otherwise.)

Memories of my Bubba tend to center around her giant dining room table- the sight of all the best family dinners of my childhood. Showing up at Bubba’s house meant delicious things to come, and anything bad in this world could wait until after dessert was cleared away. The table would almost groan with cucumber and onion slaw, marinated tomatoes, chicken, brisket, long golden loaves of challah, heavy green potato kugel, glorious noodle kugel, rainbow-colored jello molds studded with fruit complementing each flavor, and cakes that you would pray some survived to have again tomorrow.

Alongside all of these things, though- all these beautiful culinary memories- I remember the stories the most. Family dinners meant stories- people laughing, joking, remembering things from the past, and recounting them all into my eager ears as I filled my belly.

I like to say that my mother and sisters were the first ones who taught me to bake as a child, but it was my Bubba Mitzi who taught me WHY I should bake- to create those moments over again. To fill a table with food that people can laugh around and swap stories over, to create a magic circle in which all there is to be worried about is what’s going on your plate next.

This was the hospitality my Bubba taught me- that it’s not the food you make so much as the people you share it with, and that the secret ingredient in all the best recipes is love- for the work, and for those who will enjoy it.

Happy Mother’s Day, Bubba- I miss you deeply, and if I can give people half the happy memories you’ve given men, that would be more than enough.

Stay humble, my friends.
Stay healthy and warm,
and of course-

Stay Classy,

-BHB

Good afternoon, friends and neighbors!

A while back, I mentioned a conversation I’d had with a relative of mine. He expressed frustration and concern that I did not share the same vision of professional success as he did-

Relative: “Just think about it, Matt- you make the right moves, and wouldn’t ever have to bake again! Buy gigantic ovens and extruders for the product, hire and train people to use them, and then all you’d have to do is show up once a week, make sure no one’s hurt themselves, and collect your paycheck!”

Me: “Except that doesn’t sound good to me- I want to keep my bakery small. I LIKE the idea of coming into work and baking everyday. I want to work alongside the people I hire so they can be trained right.”

Relative: *waving hand dismissively*. “Yeah yeah yeah, I get that, that’ll just be for now. Eventually you’re going to grow it bigger though.”

In the end, we walked away shaking our heads, agreeing to disagree- him muttering that I was naive, and me grumbling that he “just didn’t get it.”

I had mentioned before that, in a way, we were both right. I’ll explain this with a story I heard a long while back.

—–

In a small desert town, there was an old man sitting at his stall in the marketplace. Hanging in front of him were 20 strings of onions. A man from the city came up to the old man and poked at the old man’s wares.

“Hey pops, how much for a string of onions?”

“10 cents.”

The city dweller poked at a few more strings. “How much for 5 strings?”

“50 cents,” the old man replied simply.

“50 cents? No bulk discount?” The young man asked, eyebrow raised. He looked at a few of the other strings. “Those onions aren’t as big as the others… I’ll give you 5 cents for them.”

“No,” grunted the old man, nonplussed by the city dwellers rudeness. “10 cents a string.”

The city dweller eyed the old man suspiciously and sneered. “Hmmf! You need to learn some business sense, pops!” he hissed, inkily. The young man then stepped back and looked at all the onions yet again. “How much for all your onions?” He asked with a smug smile, nonchalantly pulling out an expensive leather wallet.

“I would not sell you all my onions,” muttered the old man, barely bothering to look up.

“You wouldn’t sell me them? Why not?” asked the surprised city dweller, interrupted in pulling cash from his wallet. “Isn’t that why you’re here? To sell your onions?”

Here the old man finally looked up and leaned forward, staring right into the city dwellers eyes.

“No, boy- I’m here to live my life. I’ve been visiting this marketplace since I was a child. I love coming here. I love seeing the colors of the beautiful rugs the women pull out to sell. I love the smell of the food they cook. I love eating lunch then taking a nap right here in the middle of the day. I love when my friend Tom comes by, and we sit and smoke and talk about our wives and families. Y’see boy- if I sold you all my onions, then I wouldn’t get to meet or talk to anyone else coming to buy them. My day would be over- I’d have to pack up and go home. I would have given up the life I love- and I wouldn’t do that for anything.”

———–

Money is lovely for the things it buys and security it offers. Success is lovely for the doors in opens.

There are more and finer things in life than money though- and success has different definitions for different people.

Baking is not just a money-making venture. It’s my passion- it makes me happy. It calms me down. It relaxes me when everything else is going wrong. I love talking to people about their favorite flavors. I love figuring out the delicate science of how to make a new recipe work. I love working with like-minded people, teaching them and learning from them.

When you buy from someone who owns a small business, you’re not just getting whatever they are selling- you’re buying some of their time. You’re buying pieces of their heart and soul, and a bit of their passion. You’re not buying from a faceless giant corporation- you’re buying from a friend.

Success has different definitions- and for me, that’s getting up every morning, working hard at what I love, and making a living off of it.

Stay classy,

-BHB

There are places we all go to that seem to defy nostalgia. As much as we want to remember them fondly, it seems like the rose-tinted glasses just keep falling off when we really look back. We remember the good things, we miss them, but there’s just too many memories that make us sad or angry wrapped up in the place that keep us from ever really feeling a part of there again.

I spent the past week in such a place- my hometown on the South Jersey Shore.

The first morning I woke up in my family’s house- the house I lived in from ages 4 to almost 24- I looked out of the window and just tried to process it before breakfast.

I quickly realized this was a mistake, and that I needed to eat first.

Down in the kitchen, as I was whipping up the simple breakfast of scrambled eggs, cheese, sausage, and tea, I got back to thinking.
I don’t believe I ever truly belonged in this community. School days around here were not the happiest- I had few to no friends, I was picked on regularly, and our neighborhood had no kids my age anyway. We lived close to a beach block, so most of the houses around us were vacation homes, standing like hollow shells for most of the year.

The town is small enough that you could bike or walk virtually anywhere in about 30 minutes, but I don’t really remember it having the “small town” vibe, where everyone knows everyone else. Part of that might be the aforementioned vacation homes (half the city’s residence not being present most of the year), and partly the demographic- if you were to imagine a gated community without fences or gates, and the size of a city, that would be a pretty good idea of the people.

That night, when I came home to the big, empty house after work, I had an urge to go for a beer and write. I asked local friends where a good walking distance bar was (alas, another sad fact- this is my hometown, but I didn’t start drinking here, so I had no “local.”) Many of them suggested places a ways outside the city, insisting there were no really decent bars in the town itself.

All the same, I needed a walk, followed by beer, followed by a quietish place to write. So I picked a bar at random and walked to it.

Here I got my first slight hint that perhaps, just perhaps, there was something homey left for me in my hometown.

I walked into the small bar by the bay, clearly full of a history I had no part in, and much of which is likely no longer talked about. I sat down, ordered a beer, and was just about to start writing when I heard my name called out and a hand on my shoulder. They belonged to Peggy, an old friend of mine from grade school whom I hadn’t seen in nearly 5 years. This bar was apparently her favorite hangout when she was home. The evening lasted several hours longer than I had expected as we chatted, caught up, and had a good time. I won’t say the years seemed to melt away- we are both very different people than we were when we were kids, but it was good to know that the two people we had become could enjoy each other’s friendship and company.

The next day, I remembered something else I had missed about living in this town- the presence of the beach. Before work one morning, I woke up early, ate breakfast, and took a long walk- first along the street, but for the way back, I pulled off my socks and shoes and walked home along the beach.

God, I had missed the feel of sand and saltwater on my skin. The sea was frigid cold (as it IS still early April), but the sand was cold, wet, and firm. I didn’t mind that I knew no faces on the walk, or that few people even acknowledged each other, or said “good morning.” For that morning, the sea, sand, and the smell of the beach was all I required. 

In an hour or so, I’ll have my car loaded and I’ll be returning back to my current home in the Pine Barrens- where I’ve made new friends, have a “spot” at the local bar I love where I sit and write, and where people are increasingly learning my name and face.

For one week, though, I was here- the home before I was home. Where all the formative years happened that I’ve bounced between trying to forget, and trying to cling to. 
There are many places and stages in our lives that we enjoy that strange, complicated dance with. You know what? That’s alright. No one needs to have “glory days”, or fond remembrances of their “old stomping grounds.” They weren’t always good, but they are roots, and like it or not, we left footprints there- no matter how many layers of dust sit in them.

Perhaps you can go home again, but bear in mind places change too.

Stay classy,

-The BHB