My mother would organize huge parties for my elementary school classmates. To prepare, she would go back to the bakery in her old neighborhood of Inwood and get special shamrock cookies. Hawaiian Punch was served and we had shamrock napkins. It was a lot of fun.
My father was a lesson. He had his own bakery, and it was closed one day a week, but he would go anyway. He did it because he really loved his bakery. It wasn't a job.
I don't like a too-perfect cake. You want people to know it came from your kitchen and not the cake case in the bakery aisle.
My first job was at a local bakery, and when I graduated from high school, I was promoted from retail sales to cake decorator.
When I got a deposit on my very first cake, I took that deposit and I bought some cake mix with it. I've never taken a loan - ever. And we're doing this expansion just like everything we've done in this bakery as we've grown. If we weren't able to afford paying for something cash, we didn't buy it.
Shifting gears from my journalistic work to bakery life allows me to step away and see things from a different perspective. Some of my most creative ideas or biggest aha moments have come when I was immersed in one job while thinking about the other from a slightly removed point of view.
Whether I'm pursuing a story or conducting an interview or I'm at the bakery implementing policy and procedure, I have a team who is looking to me. I think my persona is the same for both jobs - perhaps a little bit more in command with the bakery. I say that only because we have so many more employees, and ultimately I make every single decision.
I grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts. My background was modest, and I worked at a Portuguese bakery in town.
Homeboy Bakery is an alternative to kids who have found themselves, regrettably, in gangs and want to redirect their lives.
Because you don't live near a bakery doesn't mean you have to go without cheesecake.
