Bakery Nouveau

Happy Friday!  It’s summer, sunny, and kinda warm. As usual in Seattle, we had a great spring with lots of flowers, including garden plants and fruit trees.  It’s because of those flowers that we thought to dust off this blog and bring up an interesting subject, namely pollinators.  That’s right- bees, moths, butterflies, beetles and hummingbirds, amongst other insects and animals, which help to pollinate flowering plants, yielding fruit, vegetables, nuts, and, importantly, the next generation of the plants pollinated (not to mention sweet, sweet honey). 

This is common knowledge, and something we don’t think about much, except to stay out of the way of bees, or encourage butterflies and hummingbirds to visit.  However, what happens with topics that are common knowledge is that we tend to not consider the deeper ramifications.

Consider -  we all know about bees and honey, and the role of pollination, but we rarely think about what a wide ranging impact pollination actually plays.  Well, to start with, in the US agricultural and food systems, roughly a third or better of the food on our plates is directly dependent on pollination.  If you’re someone who enjoys their veggies, that percentage is of course even higher.

Looking at things on a global scale and in terms of crop based food (since ‘food’ can encompass meat, dairy and seafood), the numbers are a little more startling - “The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that out of some 100 crop species which provide 90% of food worldwide, 71 of these are bee-pollinated.” (UNEP Emerging Issues: Global Honey Bee Colony Disorder and Other Threats to Insect Pollinators).  And this is just food - a wider range of plants and biodiversity is dependent on pollinators, and while bees are our focus, all the populations might be at risk.

This was brought to our attention by one of our vendors out of Oregon, Glorybee Foods, who brought us on board to their ‘Save the Bee!’ awareness campaign.  The company started with honey – you might see their brand on the shelves at some grocery stores – and expanded to a wide range of other ingredients.  

As the company started with honey and now includes a wide range of pollination dependent food products, they have a vested interest in the health of pollinator populations, especially honey bees.  The vast majority of pollinator dependent food production relies on these managed colonies as they are the most efficient for our needs.  Unfortunately, there has been a growing decline in honey bee populations due to a myriad of reasons. The greatest losses have been in North America and Europe, but other countries and regions have experienced declines as well.

There is variability in the degree of pollinator loss.  For example, outside of some incidences in Egypt, pollinator populations in African countries seem to be stable.  Another example is the losses due to parasitic mites.  They are prevalent in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Japan, but minimal in other regions. 

Referring back to North America, the US alone now has fewer honeybee colonies that we did in 1947, and bee keepers are experiencing high loss rates - up to 30% per year in some regions.  Besides infections and parasites, some new ones being inadvertently introduced from one region into another (always a potential problem with our increasingly interconnected world), there is something called Colony Collapse Disorder. This is when enough worker bees die off that the colony essentially fails.  

According to documents on the website, Pollinator.org, despite recent media reports, CCD is actually not yet well understood, and the factors are hard to separate.  There are a number of theories proposed, but little conclusive results about causation.  Is it low-level pesticide or other chemical residue weakening the bees, a lack of diversity in food through a decline in biodiversity and therefore poorer nutrition, aggressive parasites and infections (opportunistic or introduced)?  It’s likely that they are all interrelated, but it’s not yet known if one element is more critical to deal with first. 

With all of this in mind, GloryBee has started looking at ways to support pollinator and honey bee health. One way is by raising awareness in the general public, hence the ‘Save the Bee!’ campaign.  Another way is by donating a percentage of honey based retail sales to Oregon State University Honey Bee Lab.  This lab is researching bee health, including monitoring of colonies for pests and diseases, the role nutrition plays in supporting the health of bees and what that nutrition might be, and how nutrition can improve a hive’s resilience.  

What’s our interest in all of this?  Well, we use honey in our some of our products, and a large amount of ingredients from pollinator dependent crops, in particular a wide range of fruit, and a lot of almonds and other nuts.  As such, our success depends fairly heavily on the health of bee colonies.  

Our current focus is on helping to generate awareness, hence our participation in the ‘Save the Bee!’ campaign.  Again, things that are commonplace are not often at the forefront of our attention- we just expect bees to do their thing, and don’t realize there may be a problem.

We will be participating in Glorybee’s donation program.  Indirectly, sales of our honey-using products adds to the product sales Glorybee bases its donations on.  More directly, we will be working with Glorybee to make a donation to the OSU Honey Bee Lab.  

What can the general population do?  Again, Pollinator.org has a range of ideas, from reducing the use of pesticides in your garden, to making part of your yard or garden (container gardens count!) pollinator friendly, to shopping with environmental health in mind.  You can also look for honey based products- the more successful a beekeeper is, the more they can do to better manage and support their bee colonies.  

In the meantime- it’s summer.  Those bees and pollinators we do have are working hard to help plants make fruits and vegetables.  Take some time to enjoy and appreciate the results of their labors. 

It took longer than we expected, but our new exhaust hood and fire-safety system is in place at the West Seattle shop!  This means that we can start using our fryer again.   

We had a short test run of paczki today (with apologies to those who wanted them for Fat Tuesday and are now following Lenten fasts).  Currently, we’ll have paczki or another filled doughnut every Tuesday, and a rotating variety of fritter on Fridays.  Due to time and space constraints, we won’t be able to take orders except on the specific production days. 

This is one of our few instances of one store having a product that the other won’t.  We can’t have a fryer on Capitol Hill, and at this time, we won’t be transporting product from one shop to the other. 

Enjoy the sunshine out there folks, and remember - fritters debut on Friday!

Unfortunately, we’re not sure we’ll have paczki for Mardi Gras this year.  We originally intended to have them out this week and through Mardi Gras, but a project to upgrade our fryer hood in West Seattle turned into a longer one than expected.  The contractors on the project are working as quickly as they can, but at this point, we can’t say for sure what our roll-out date will be. 

Also, there’s no frying at our Capitol Hill location as there is no fryer exhaust hood and no fryer-specific fire suppression system.  There was really no space to even consider it in the build out. 

Believe me, the staff is as unhappy about it as a some of you might be!  A number of us were looking forward to warm paczki straight off the fryer this season. 

The silver lining to all this is that when the upgrade is finished, we’ll be considering doing other fritters - I’ve even heard the word ‘beignet' whispered (I’m not promising, as I’ve only heard it whispered- and this blogger still wants an in-house apple fritter…)

We’ll be posting to Facebook and Twitter as soon as we know when we’ll be able to start frying, and if it will be in time for Mardi Gras (fingers crossed, but it’s not likely since it’s next Tuesday). In the meanwhile- we truly apologize we’re not on schedule for them this year- we want our paczki, too. 

We hope you have a wonderful day with your loved ones! 

Yesterday, Bakery Nouveau turned 7 years old!   We’d just like to say thank you to all of our customers, past and present, since without you, we’d not be here.  We’d also like to thank West Seattle- this is a great place to be, and the community is just incredibly supportive of it’s local businesses. 

While our Capitol Hill location has only been open a few months, we can definitely say the same- it’s a great, supportive community, and we’re really happy to be there. 

Here’s looking forward to another great year!

Now is as good of time as any to dust off the bakery blog- we’ve had a really busy few months, what with opening the new location up on Capitol Hill, and all the shuffling around that entails.  A couple of catch up posts are on the way, along with the return of new product details, photos, and occasional deep discussion about food and food related issues.

Today’s post is about Thanksgiving though- both the holiday, and a little thanksgiving of our own.

To start with- Thank you to all of our customers, old-friends and new, who voted for us in King 5 Best of Western Washington.  We arrived in 1st Place for Best Bakery, and 3rd for Best Dessert!  Pulling top 5 in one category is amazing.  In two though?  That just rocks.  Especially considering how many great bakeries and patisseries there are in the greater Seattle area, let alone western Washington.   

Following that, we found out that we were in the top 50 of bakeries across the nation as selected by the website, The Daily Meal.  Local favorites Macrina, Grand Central and Café Besalu also made the list!

So again, thank you, everyone, who has been a customer over the years.

For those of you sharing a meal with family and friends next week, we will be open regular hours at both shops on Wednesday, the 27th, and closed on Thanksgiving day itself.  We are definitely taking orders now at both shops, for pickup on Wednesday, and we’ll continue taking orders until the end of day on Saturday, the 23rd. 

What are we offering this year?  Once again, in addition to our full assortment of bread, pastry and dessert, we’ll have our brioche rolls and holiday rolls, our pumpkin, pecan, and chocolate pecan pies, as well as pumpkin cheese cake. While we’ll be fully stocked up on Wednesday, we do recommend placing an order if there is something you really want. 

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

We’re having some technical difficulties with our phones.  Our voice mail is currently not working properly, so we may or may not be able to check messages left in the next day or two (and you might not be able to leave any). Hopefully this will be resolved by Friday. In the mean time, if you need to call, please do so during business hours, or please use the contact email box on our website, and we’ll get back to you as promptly as we can. 

It’s Friday, it’s sunny and spring-time-warm, and if you aren’t playing hooky yet, you should do so, even if it’s just 10 minutes worth of running away from the office to get some sun (we do understand work needing to be done in spite of fantastic weather). 

If you have a little longer, we do have some tables outside, hot cross buns to share with a friend (or even someone you just met in line or share a table with), and of course, lots of good food to take home and sit on a porch or deck and enjoy this wonderful spring weather on Good Friday.

We will be open all weekend, although for Easter Sunday we will close at 5 pm, instead of our normal 7 pm. 

Have a great weekend everyone- enjoy the spring weather, and if you celebrate it, have a wonderful Easter with your family and friends.