Oh, boy, do these look awesome! We’ve actually had one or two people come in and hand us this recipe to try in the bakery. (But that would be cheating.) It looks like the dairy would be easy enough to sub out by using Earth Balance instead of butter (don’t add salt, then), and almond milk with a little lemon juice instead of buttermilk. (Put 1 tablespoon of lemon juice in a measuring cup and then add almond milk up to 2 cups.)
Gluten-Free Bay: Gluten-Free Sufganiyot (Jelly Donuts) for Chanukah

Photo courtesy of Gluten-Free by the Bay, winner of Jewish & Israeli Blog Awards silver medal for Best Kosher Food/Recipe Blog. You can see why.

We’re trying some donuts for Chanukah, too, but being who/where we are, I think we’re going to end up with something that looks more like a churro. Call us next week if you’re interested!

It has come to my attention that some of the Thanksgiving pies were burnt or cracked. Sometimes both. I’m sorry it took so long to address this. I didn’t eat my pies until Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving and then I wanted to talk to Eugenie before I posted, and she just got back today (Tuesday.)

(This is not actually one of our pies. What can I say? The pies I got were only a little burnt - we ate them all before I could snap a picture. They were chocolate-pecan and looked a bit like this, except not so blurry.)

Here’s the catch: We don’t store your personal information. We don’t have your phone numbers. You have to call us to get your credit. (I’m so sorry, again.) We’ll remember your name once you call in, but if you ordered and received/paid for a pie for Thanksgiving, please call (310) 815-1800 by December 14, 2007, for an equal-value credit to our new online store.

(Oh! And Coach Eileen — I’ve been looking for you for months to replace that awful challah! Please call in, also, any time!)

Eugenie joins Peggy Curry this
Thursday, November 29th from 11-12 at
Plaza El Segundo’s Whole Foods Market:
(map)

for a GF-cooking demo,
“Gluten Free and Loving It!“

Peggy Curry of Growing Great will demonstrate family-friendly recipes - no lecture COOKING ONLY! Learn ways to incorporate many alternative flours and alternative dairy products in your everyday cooking. Taste delicious samples! Receive wonderful recipes!

(See Growing Great on CNN’s Headline News, on YouTube!)

The Menu:

• Seasonal fruit salad with pomegranates & persimmons
• Coconut Pancakes (Peggy’s kids say they taste better than Krispy Crèmes!!! )
• Roasted seasonal vegetables with Vegan Parma crumble
• Hazelnut crusted sautéed white fish (John Dory or filet of sole)
• Festive baby green salad with candied nuts and shaved goat gouda
• Coconut pumpkin squares with coconut sorbet
• The Sensitive Baker’s quinoa cranberry cookies!!!***

***Eugenie from The Sensitive Baker will be demonstrating a wonderful and simple GF/vegan desert!

Coming soon to Whole foods Plaza El Segundo, The Sensitive Baker’s wonderful GF breads and desserts!

You. Our customers. We literally could not survive without you. (We spent all our money cleaning this place up. ;-)) You pay what I consider top dollar* for what is still, frankly, an inconsistent product. I wish it weren’t true. You have no idea how deeply we appreciate your support, and how deeply we feel the responsibility to get our act together as quickly as possible.

You tell all your friends about us. We get by on next to no advertising at all, yet every day new people walk in and say “a friend told me about you.”

And through it all, you’re so encouraging; you constantly tell us how much you or your children liked our food, how we made your life a little easier, a little tastier; when it’s we who should be thanking you for driving to us, and for accepting our meager offerings.

We’re grateful to the universe that we have the opportunity to meet and converse with you all. I’m so grateful that I wound up in the world of the gluten-intolerant — some of the nicest, most forgiving people on the planet.

* Eugenie would interject, here, that our prices are actually lower than at the trendy Brentwood bakeries she frequents, but those places have ambiance, which we also sorely lack, and a consistent product. Consistency is so important.

{**Edited to add a comment from Gina Levy, CPA, who was unable to post directly - and I’ll try to fix that, too -

Oh, but you are consistent in the ONE thing that matters, your attitude and your smile. Whenever I come in, you are smiling and happy to greet customers. And your product is FAR more consistent than what I have baked at home.

You see what I mean? Constant support, in every way!
Thank you Gina, but we all know that’s not enough, and I need you to know your patience with us will be rewarded!}

Today Eugenie made up a big batch of vegan mac and cheese for side dishes for Thanksgiving, and for one of our favorite employee lunches — tuna casserole.

It must be magic how some brown rice pasta, ground nuts, a can of tuna and some odds and ends we’re trying to use up from the vegetable bin can combine into something so sublime.

I don’t think that’s too strong a term for someone who has not only lent her years of expertise (more years than you would think - I think she started working in the bakery industry when she was in high school) toward making our bakery successful, but in her off time actually performs herculean feats of strength and endurance to make the world a better place. Like, for example, last weekend she walked 60 miles to San Diego to raise money for breast cancer research. Here are her thoughts after the event:

Abbye / “Lady Liberty” with one of the Pink volunteers

Dearest All:

Words can not even describe the emotions of my 60 mile 3 day walk for the cure that I ended yesterday at 2:00 p.m. as I walked down the streets of San Diego with 4500 other walkers to cheering crowds of both young and old.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s an excellent book called Good to Great by Jim Collins, where he discusses how eleven companies became “great” after years of being only “good.” One key element needed before the transition could take place was “the right people.” He calls it, “getting the right people into the right seats on the bus, and the wrong people off the bus.” (I know, that one was a big, “Duh!” but I like the way he puts it.) (Some of the other elements are more surprising - you must read the book.)

The same is true, he says, for startup companies which want to become great from the ground up (and skip the years of mediocrity), or for any organization at any stage. It’s definitely true for The Sensitive Baker. We have to hire more people now to grow, and we are trying, but we want to make sure we get the right people. Those of you who have been coming since we opened know we’ve already had people come and go. (That’s all part of getting the wrong people off the bus.)

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in these past few months, it’s that the wrong people can be a real drag on your bus.

Eugenie is more than just a passenger on the bus;
she’s a veritable cruise director!

Collins even contends that it’s more important to fill your bus with the right people than it is to know where the bus is headed. (See, now, that’s surprising.) G-d knows that’s how we function. This bakery is a work in progress.

And you get to watch it all unfold here, at TheSensitiveBaker.com blog. Ah, the miracle of modern technology.

Shh! It’s not even on their own website yet, but we have it on the “down low” that Your Dinner Secret will convert to a dedicated gluten-free facility next month! This place is an incredible mechiyah (relief) to busy gf cooks everywhere.

One of the lovely ladies at Your Dinner Secret assembling gfcf meals
to be shipped.

Having delicious, completely prepped, ready-to-make, fresh-frozen gluten-free meals delivered to your door sounds tempting enough. But you must come in one time to fully appreciate the beauty of this concept.

Read the rest of this entry »

At least that’s always been my feeling. It’s their proprietary “superfine” brown rice flour grind, which completely eliminates the grittiness of a typical rice bread. They also have a garfava flour (half garbanzo and half fava bean) with no bean-y bitter aftertaste. How do they do that?

Steve with his son, outside the Authentic Foods facility
in Southern California.

We don’t actually use the garfava in the bakery (just a personal bias against bean flours I guess) but we certainly depend on that superfine brown rice flour. It’s California-grown, too, which is nice. Last month we went through over 300 lb. of it. Read the rest of this entry »

Came across this posting …
You know you have Celiac Disease if . . . . on Gluten-Free Kathy’s Weblog

which is cute. It begins (in the complete original list, quoted on JoySpeak):

You know you have Celiac Disease if….

1. Your bread looks like a moon rock and tastes like dried out Play Doh.
2. You’ve disinherited loved ones for putting their knife in your mayo…..

Gluten-Free Kathy added one that I related to : “You discover you need reading glasses when you try to read labels on products.” That’s just how I found out! (Is it my imagination or is the printing on labels getting smaller these days?)
Now, go on over to Kathy’s and add one of your own!!