How I started baking: my grandmother, she
loves cooking and baking so really
growing up I spent a lot of time in the
kitchen with her. I aspire to be the
grandmother that everybody wants to
eat their goodies. Want be able to come
into my bakery, be able to find exactly
what we want and then leave smiling.
I looked around a lot of different schools
not necessarily just in Alaska and they
weren't exactly meeting up to what i
wanted and I looked at UAA, realized they
had a culinary arts program, saw no complaints
from anybody about it, looked really good.
I  started the program - I actually work here
so I started working here before I started the
classes really enjoyed everybody here
thought it was a really well-rounded
program. I originally thought that I was
a good baker, but then I came into the
program and realized I had a lot to
learn. And we make croissant dough every day, I
make pretzels and I already
loved dough before but I've come to more
appreciate every aspect of making dough
and letting it rise and starting to
feel like their little yeast babies.
There's... there's so much more to owning a
bakery than just things that you like to
make there's things that are more
difficult to make and my chefs always
say, "good food takes time."
My favorite part about being in the
program is finally I get to actually get my
hands dirty and cook and bake and experience
it. For the first as semester they want
you to take your core classes like your
purchasing class, and your nutrition
class, and sanitation classes and
everything that you need to know before
you actually start cooking so that you
don't kill people. Having people
purchase the items that we make really
satisfying like nothing more satisfying
than that – having somebody come and like
say "Ah, your pretzels are the BEST, I love
getting one every day" and I'm like "I
make those!" or they say "the ham and cheese
croissants, I can't go without them on
Tuesday or Thursday" and then we're just
like "Ohhhh! Tell us more!" or "Oh, I didn't make them, really" (laughing)
It's really great
nothing's better than waking up; instead
of sitting at a desk all day I get to go
and, like, start kneading dough morning.
