Family Epic

On Wednesday, after months and months of delays and frustration - we finally opened Family Food & Bakery.

Tyler was in at 4am to start the ovens and the Carrot Bay Satellite Kitchen was baking muffins and pie fillings. As the previous 72 hours had been a jumble of shopping and deliveries (fridges, flour, The Till, signs, labels etc) just about the last thing we had managed to get round to was the ......food.

We were so focused on trying to get everything ready that we hardly noticed our first customer at 7:31am. At the back of my mind I had a sense that this was a fairly historic moment and greeted him with a huge smile and a very loud "Welcome!" Our VIP then proceeded to mumble "Top Up Airtime and beer?" to which I had to, very disappointingly,  say "no, but wouldn't you like some freshly baked bread instead"? His reply was a fairly abrupt "nah" and walked out! Not a very auspicious start to our dream business but still a start nevertheless.

The past 4 days have passed in a blur. It's been a rollercoaster of heat, exhaustion, delight and an overwhelming relief that not only are we finally open but that we've been well supported.

It was probably a bit naive of us to think that we could slip under the radar with a soft opening  before the season officially starts again (1 October). We've sold out everyday with customers waiting patiently for things to come out of the oven. We are still in a building site and until some key things have been completed we cannot really employ staff. Knowing that this was always going to be the compromise (ie. keep waiting for the building to finish sometime-never or go bankrupt before we'd even opened) we chose this route.  We just have to keep going now and trust that it will all work out. 

James, left, in red vest and Georgie centre.  Photo Ed Childs.

On the family-family front, the boys have been racing all weekend with the RBVIYC 'Back to School' Regatta. Georgie got his first 'bullet' (came first in a race) ever in Green Fleet and James came a very respectable 16th overall.

Today we've tried to take it a bit easy before we get going again and I've sort of lost the Battle of the Houseas we're wading through a weeks worth of school clothes and nutty animal mess (Gracie shredded all our porcupine quills, for example, and downstairs now looks like a Graaf Reniet farmhouse).  A very concerted effort is needed to find a new cleaner before the house goes completely feral. [Postscript: Saturday. Huzzar!].

As all we had focused on was getting the bakery up and running on Wednesday, we've not thought too much about our new life as Mr & Mrs Baker & Kids. The reality is going to be a master class in juggling, scheduling and low level flying as we keep the show on the road. After 6 months of soul destroying stop/start wheel spinning this is a delightful 'problem' to have, however and we just cannot keep the smiles off our faces and the incredible feeling of knowing that we've finally done it - we opened the bakery!

An epic week for our family.

Watching paint dry

We finally have the keys to our bakery, all ready for fit-out which should take a couple of weeks.  It is tiny, as you can see above, but it's ours! It sits in the middle of a boatyard and we share the new building with lockers, offices and the local chiropractor. It's directly opposite the entrance to the largest yacht charter harbour, The Moorings and it is in the 'up & coming'  little area of Wickhams Cay II which is slowly converting from workshops and yards, to trendy shops and offices.

Double blue doors, to left of Tylers white Nissan

Starting with the big oven this week, all the baking equipment is arriving on-island over the next few weeks. I'm currently driving around with a 200 kilogram  Hobart mixer in the back of my car and our garage is now crammed full with stuff for fitting it out.  I've designed the shop fittings and counter and we're whittling down thousands of recipes for the baked goods and homemade goodies.  We have a small fridge for cakes, a good coffee machine and a large blackboard for daily specials. The main thing is the bread however, which will be baked on the premises - sourdoughs, pain de campagne, gluten-free, wholewheat, rye and ciabattas to name a few. We hope to have a 'soft' opening in Mid-June, provided that everything has arrived and some staff are in place, but that still feels like next millennium and not next month.

Big Baby in New York, pre shipping

A colleague (based in Kiev no less) and I were swapping rude emoticons on our internal instant messenger a few years ago, and he was bemoaning our fate chained to the corporate grindstone and I suddenly announced that I was going to run away and open a bakery on a Caribbean island.  I think he even sent me an emoticon to the effect of "dream on" and "hahahahaha good one" (this was before the days of ROFL).

Several years on and here we are, about to give birth to our little bakery. As we enter our final trimester, there is a now a sense of urgency to get all the other stuff finished up before the arrival takes over our lives. Today is a bank holiday and Tyler is busy painting the guest room for our Summer guests and I'm sorting out toys in amongst reading cookery books, pinning a few pics, looking at packaging to order and drafting some ideas for a potential biweekly column I may be writing soon (oohh yes!).

Another big push for a month or so will have us happily ensconced in both our completed home and the bakery. The kids will be on their long Summer holidays and another year would have passed, making it 2 years on August 28th since we arrived on this rather scruffy third world volcano and its eccentric island life. 

For now, we're not even feeling the Braxton-Hicks's yet (not to be confused with our neighbour India Hicks) but I think life is just about to change fairly dramatically for les Famille Dawson.

Since I think everyone is now officially bored to tears with the prolonged gestation of our bakery, I'll write about something else next week until the happy announcement. 'What to Expect in the First Year' probably.

The week past

William

OK, it's official: Impatient mothers have less intelligent kids: Apparently mothers who speak in 'nurturing' tones as opposed to the ones that 'heavily scold' actually lead to a larger hypothalamus in kids. The study didn't seem to cover mothers who rant, swear and curse at their children - but I suppose that's left up to Child Welfare.

As you can see I've been spending way too much time on the Internet again, but luckily T managed to hook up our new, just-back from St Thomas TV yesterday, so now we're back on the BBC & ITV iPlayers, so will be able to watch copious amounts of the Olympics, when it starts.



Grade 5 Croque en Bouche with Guest Chef



In amongst lots of pinning and scolding last week, James & Georgie managed to pass their Royal School of Music exams (James with merit) William played 3 soccer matches, Georgie fell head first over his bike (and survived) and we carried on unpacking boxes.  Last week was also the Cedar School Gala Auction. Tyler made a Croque en Bouche with the Grade 5's and it was auctioned off for $600. This was not an entirely un-stressful thing to do in 100% humidity. He didn't quite superglue the concoction together, but close.  Anyhow it ended up looking a bit like the island (as you can see right) as the base just got wider and wider, but he still managed a smile for the camera.

Georgie & I also planted our first vegetables here (heirloom tomatoes, okra, artichokes, herbs, spinach, lemon trees) and disturbed our resident VI Tree Boa who leapt higher into the air with surprise (about 1 metre away from me) than I did. Georgie said very sweetly that we should actually consider ourselves lucky to have one in our garden as they are endangered. So are middle-aged 'heavily scolding' mothers, I thought to myself, not feeling very nurturing at that particular moment and swearing. A lot.

The island continues to delight, and sometimes not. You would have noticed that news of the bakery  has gone rather quiet. After being promised the building on the 1 April and then the 1 May, we are clearly starting to reach the end of May with no building in sight and our phone-calls are being studiously ignored by the contractor. As we've now ordered all the equipment and have our first employee starting with us in a weeks time, this makes for interesting times. Luckily we think we may have a temporary kitchen, so we'll just have to make it happen, despite an actual lack of bakery, which we may see anytime between next week and next Christmas.

I've also gone completely native and signed up to run in a half-marathon in Puerto Rico called The Divas. It's legendary and one is met by hunky half-clad chaps bearing champagne and roses at the finish line plus an "ageless category for those keeping the secret". Ha, I love it!  Since everyone here seems to be fairly fanatical about sport (tennis, sailing, mountain-biking, squash, surfing, spinning, diving, running, stand-up paddling, triathlons - the list goes on) and I hadn't quite found my metier yet, I thought this was as good a place to start as anywhere. This also means we can fit in a bit of Christmas shopping in PR as well so what's not to like? The fact that I can only run about 1.5 miles at the moment without keeling over is a minor issue and it's still preferable to the bee pollen diet from last year.  

We're settling into Carrot Bay and it's bliss. The house is beautiful, serene and airy. We're slowly getting into the island lifestyle especially now that T is around again. Yesterday we even had the Perfect Saturday: Soccer matches in the morning, a good lunch with homemade pesto, a busy DIY afternoon and a scrumptious braai in the evening with a hilarious Graham Norton on the iPlayer after the kids had gone to bed. Our first like that, I think, in 18 months.

Getting there slowly

Christmas cookies

I only have about 5 minutes to post this as I need to jump in the car and pick up the kids, drop them off at piano, do the shopping, come home and make supper and carry on baking (is everyone already in a coma with boredom, because I am).

I've been loitering around at home today with flu - or whatever a swollen throat, achy body and thumping head is called (exhaustion?).

Anyhow it did give me the opportunity to take the photos' for the famous website that never seems to get finished. Since we actually start selling on Thursday (DON"T REMIND ME) it would seem fairly critical at this stage.

Anyhow I'm quite pleased with the results with my first attempts at food photograghy, given that I hardly know how to use Tyler's fancy Nikon and coudn't even get the tripod open let, alone use it. Also had to chase chickens and push the cat off the table several times and got very dizzy standing on the table looking down on the biscuits to get all those professional-looking shots but think, in the end,  it was worth it. Have to keep reminding myself that's this is meant to be a dream and not a nightmare.

Stollen