Bad at Business

And a cookbook zine update.

Consuming me post-election are thoughts of how best to continue running a bakery in a fascist world. I think the limitations of a cottage bakery are, for me, beginning to chafe against this moment where something deeper is needed. On Wednesday morning—after staying up too late watching state after state called red—working from home, away from the people who show up every week to get pan dulce from me, felt like the last place I should be. Instead I envisioned providing a safe space to sit, to feed people, to be with people, to comfort, to say fuck these fascists.

Obviously, as a baker who along with her husband, just paid for their own tiny wedding, I don’t have the money to begin building a brick and mortar. Since the beginning of At Heart, I’ve been pretty against the idea of doing business in a traditional manner. I’ve been dead set on keeping At Heart small, on doing the most, the best I could within the boundaries of the cottage baking industry. And for almost four years now At Heart has grown organically into a bakery I’m really proud of. Atlanta Magazine Best Of list in 2022 for the cakes, one year after starting this work and only nine months after offering cakes on the menu; pop ups that sold out in 45 minutes; my work is in the latest cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen! All happy accomplishments, and yet to quote Rachel Pollack, “However much we follow our standards and instincts or seek our own development, the work we do lacks meaning if it does not serve the community.” I want At Heart to go deeper.

Thinking of one day having a brick and mortar reminds me of the gaggle of people on Twitter (still never referring to it as “X”, out of defiance) who told me I was “bad at business” last month when a tweet I didn’t think twice about went mega-viral. I’m not linking to it here, you can easily find it on my Twitter if you care to look. Going viral on that app in 2024 is atrocious, a terrible experience. It was my bad for tweeting at all, but unless it’s a cake picture, my tweets usually stay within 100 likes. I didn’t expect anyone other than my mutuals to care that FanDuel, the online sports gambling corporation worth multiple billion dollars, reached out about ordering 50 conchas for a Hispanic Heritage Month event at their Atlanta offices, and requested from me, a marginally successful cottage baker, a discount on what would have been a $250 invoice.

I of course denied the order request and let them know I’m not in the business of giving discounts to major corporations, to which they never replied because what could they even say. If you have a thinking brain, I wouldn’t have to explain myself, but the tech bros who worship one of the worst people to walk the earth unleashed on me in my replies, some of them bots but a lot of them not. I’m a stupid bitch, a drama queen just looking for attention, someone who “doesn’t want more business.” Hundreds of people liked a tweet replying to me that other bakeries in Atlanta would jump at the chance to work with a big corporation and thus run me of out of business; another reply stated At Heart would always remain small “with that attitude.”

A key, willful misunderstanding is that I care at all about business growth for business growth’s sake. That I have an ounce of respect for an unethical corporation who makes their billions off of people’s gambling habits and problems, and care to work with such a company. But how could they know this about me? All they see is a woman with conviction making a decision they can’t understand and don’t agree with, and therefore hate both her and her decision. That she has a decision at all. And some of them probably voted like it.

When I think about At Heart as a brick and mortar, I’m thinking of things like non-traditional business hours so I can achieve some work/life balance (admittedly, I suck at this); keeping my Pay-What-You-Can pricing model so anyone in the metro Atlanta area who wants a garden cake can have one. These are “bad business” decisions, just like not wanting to discount a very large company who can certainly afford it when I’m having to transfer small amounts of money from my Stripe account multiple times a month so I don’t overdraft myself again. But being labeled “bad at business” just means that I’m a bad capitalist. And even as a small business owner who probably actually bad at running a “lucrative business” (I have news for the capitalists about most bakeries), I take that as a compliment because it means, to me, I’m doing something right. I see and am trying to demonstrate in my work a better, less extractive, less destructive way to run a successful bakery.

The way forward for At Heart in a fascist world is to just continue. Continue feeding people—anyone who wants pan dulce and cake regardless of budget; continue providing a safe, fun space for people at the weekly pop ups; continue to envision and see the fundamental importance of having an imagination for what could be, outside of the world as it currently is; to plan for ethical, responsible business scale, brick and mortar or not. I’ll be continuing to work and resist within the confines and death grip of capitalism.

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I did not mean for a whole month to pass since my last newsletter! After the wedding last month, I had to immediately switch gears into pan de muerto season, one of the busiest times of the year at the bakery. It left no time for writing this newsletter even though I desperately wanted to write. I chose rest and relaxation when I could, but please forgive me for my radio silence.

Not writing the newsletter the last month though did give me time to finish writing my cookbook zine, Panadería. At long last!!! Which means the zine is DONE and ready for preorders. As a reminder, all newsletter subscribers get early access to the preorder link and paid subscribers receive a free copy. When I last wrote, this newsletter had 77 beloved paid subs, and as of this writing 97 people will be getting a free copy of the zine in exchange for their paid subscription. I am incredibly thankful. The first issue of my ongoing zine project goes up for preorder next week, and it would mean the world to me if you got a copy. Since the beginning of this year I have been trying to figure out a way to still create and share recipes, just at a slower pace and I’m so happy to have finally figured it out with the cookbook zines.

I printed out the zine at home to see how it would feel and read while in my hands. So thrilling!!