Last Call Baking

- [Chanah] I think you, you eat with your eyes first.

So when I'm working on my cakes, I want them to look as appetizing as humanly possible.

Trying to bring things that I personally love like Japanese food, Korean food.

I lived in Japan for just a little bit and got to see a lot of how they create very detail oriented French inspired food.

And also trying to remember like my southern heritage, my Jewish heritage and trying to mush that all into like a big pie is like my goal.

(upbeat music) I lost my pastry job at Urban Standard when they closed at the beginning of the pandemic.

And I made an Instagram.

I was just like, let's see if people like this Japanese bread that I'm making in my apartment.

And they did.

And it got pretty serious pretty fast.

And now we're opening a bakery.

So yeah.

Here we are.

I grew up in Chelsea, Alabama in a space that at the time was not very developed like Chelsea, Alabama is now.

So there wasn't a lot to do.

So we cooked.

I spent, I was making choux pastry when I was like 10.

Just bored in my kitchen being like, "This will be great."

So it was like something that was a pastime for my family to just hang out in the kitchen and cook together.

I went to Sanford for Fine Art.

I was a painter.

I tried painting, I tried sculpture work, I tried photography and it just didn't hit.

And then when I started baking, I couldn't stop.

I was just like if I could make this the way that I would make a painting, this would make it 10 times better and I just started doing it.

A lot of things that I'm looking for when it's, decorating a cake when it comes to that is just the aesthetics, the textures of the items.

If the fruit looks bumpy and weird, how can I place this here?

If that fungus branches off in this great way, what kind of shadow does it cast when you're slicing it?

People are like, "What's up with these combinations that you're using?"

And it, there have been so many times, this is gonna sound like a bit, and I'm gonna sound crazy on camera or yeah.

But I'll like wake up from a nap and be like, "Oh white miso paste could go in that so well."

It's just something in my brain is looking for like very basic components and luckily, we as humans have developed really intricate ingredients for me to have all of those flavors at once.

And I try to find little pathways that connect to tasting the right thing.

And sometimes that looks like putting mushrooms inside of a cake.

And when that happens, I'm like, "Oh, it tastes perfect, that's exactly what I wanted."

(upbeat music) For me half the time it's just seasonality.

It's like just doing basic research.

What I know is going to be at, you know as delicious as it is peak during the season.

What's most sustainable for the season?

And then the other half is literally me spending half the week at local, like Mr. Chen's, we have here, Hometown Supermarket is amazing.

Red Pearl is amazing.

I spend most of my time there scoping out what they've brought in, what they think is important and what they think is going to sell best.

And then I try to take at least one trip to Atlanta or to like Memphis a month to visit my family who lives out there and go to as many markets as I can just to see what's going on and then sourcing it and bringing it back.

(upbeat music) Doing like a Passover Seder box.

These are foods that I grew up on and those flavors like live in my soul.

So trying to speak that kind of, that kind of deep spiritual feeling into something that I know I also love, like Japanese food trying to figure out a way to verbalize that through food has been kind of difficult, but it's my end goal, is to get there.

So right now it's a little strange, but it's a part of the practice.

It's a part of getting in there and baking and figuring out how do I tell people this without using words.

Watching people, like for me, when I post a cake on Instagram and I see somebody be like, "Oh, that's really pretty."

But then watching them be able to experience the flavors that I've tried to capture and the overall essence of what I'm trying to tell them through my food and watching them eat that is a very intimate experience.

'Cause it's like you've created 10 hours work of art and it's being destroyed in front of you and they're so elated and it's just, to me it's like giving somebody a bear hug.

It's like, "I've done this for you."

So that's, that's the big language I'm trying to speak to folks when they're eating the food.

It's a big bear hug that's really pretty.

(upbeat music) Something I would've loved to tell myself is just like, don't care too much about perception.

I think there were a lot of times during the beginning of this process where I kind of pitfalled into like, "Oh, I'm headed to this market.

This is definitely what they would like to see."

Or like, "Oh, I'm creating this content to try and brand myself in this certain way.

This is what these folks are gonna want to like try and see from me."

But at the end of the day, your personality is gonna shine through and if you're making something you really love, there's no way that you're gonna be able to conceal that identity.

So you might as well just do it.

You might as well be obnoxious if you wanna be obnoxious, you know, it's gonna happen either way.

So yeah, don't care too much, just do it.

(upbeat music)