Despite logic
At Heart 2.0
According to my pro/con list, I should be making someone else’s pastries right now. Here in Atlanta, where the French bakery reigns — there is no brick and mortar Mexican bakery within Atlanta city limits1 — that would mean croissants. I wrote the pro/con list in the early weeks of March, back when I was contemplating walking away from my bakery. A business opportunity with another baker had just crumbled before my eyes, and I wasn’t sure I could stomach more heartache, more uncertainty as a self-employed person. A list seemed the logical way forward.
On the pro side of working in someone else’s bakery, in order of appearance: “Working in a kitchen, which I love,” “Getting pastry experience I don’t yet have,” “Reliable paycheck.” Meanwhile, a single con: “Taking time away from pan dulce.” Continuing on with At Heart meant “No boss! I call the shots,” Independence as a baker and worker” — but also, “Need a commissary, and they are $$$.” The logic of the list combined with the sourness of my mood that day meant that someone else’s steady money was probably my answer.
The idea of reliable work in a different bakery making French pastry did seem for a minute like a rescue mission in tumultuous seas. I reached out to a local bakery that makes my favorite chocolate and cherry financiers to ask about a job. They weren’t hiring, but invited me to come stage. Before I could accept the invitation, the director of a local farmers market reached out to ask me to be their new vendor, baking pan dulce under At Heart. Unfortunately for my nervous system, what sounds good on paper will never hold me the way a fun, new challenge can. I’ve been referring to the new chapter as “At Heart 2.0.”
I love croissants as much as anyone, but I haven’t centered French pastry as a baker. My devotion is to Mexican pan dulce. I’ve seen the concha rise in the gen pop consciousness over the last several years thanks in large part to bakers like Mariela Camacho of Comadre Panadería in Austin and Arturo Enciso of Gusto Bread in Long Beach, CA – the two pillars of the contemporary Mexican bakery in the States. The concha which, according to a recent Bon Appetit piece, is “America’s new favorite pastry” (ok….tell that to people in Atlanta who still ask me after five years, “What’s a concha?”) continues on as my life’s work.
Why do I choose the concha, my small bakery, myself at the helm again and again despite what feels like a stack of cards against all that? Being a Mexican panadera has become as much a part of me as having brown eyes, or needing to see the positives and negatives of a situation listed out in front of me. Just now as I’m writing, a baker acquaintance in Los Angeles announces she is shutting down her own panadería to be with her kids, in favor of a “slower life.” I sob when I read this. The work is hard and many of us are struggling and sacrificing. Some of us do walk away.
I didn’t think I could handle more self-employment uncertainty, but I know for sure I could not have at all dealt in a healthy way with making French patisserie instead of Mexican pan dulce. I’m very aware of the French influence on Mexican bread. Concha dough is derived from enriched bread, my recipe is basically a brioche dough, only with water in place of milk, but that’s not what I mean. Even if I was relieved of the independent worker stress and anxiety working for another baker, trading croissants for conchas wouldn’t have sat right with me. It just would have felt like turning my back on myself, my culture, my customers, everything I’ve spent five years building. I didn’t know when I started At Heart in 2021 that doing so would be choosing myself, my culture again and again. I choose my gut despite the logic.
Today I’m in the hellish process of researching business loans to help cover some newer costs for 2.0. I need a small market van, a proper pastry case. After five years of baking out of my home as a cottage baker, I now drive 10 minutes to an actually very affordable collaborative kitchen where I have access to equipment that makes my job easier, quicker, more efficient; the commercial dishwasher that gets its own job done in minutes; a sheeter for which I do not yet have a need but just knowing it’s there is nice. God, I do crave efficiency!
By the time you read this on Friday morning, I’ll be in the kitchen guiding At Heart’s first pastry assistant (also named Teresa, also from California and yes this is the height of comedy to me) through my recipe for concha toppings, raspberry lime this week. I’ll show her how to pleat the beans and cheese empanadas to reduce the chance of filling spillage, then how to tell when concha dough is ready to be checked for window pane. Teresa, now a dear friend, is someone I met through the Atlanta pop up community – in fact, every one of my good friends in this city are people I met through my bakery. I just think that means something — what, I don’t yet know. Even if all it meant was how else would I meet friends when all my time is spent making pan dulce, I could live with that.
Before any locals come for me please remember Norcross isn’t Atlanta; Marietta isn’t Atlanta; Doraville is not Atlanta! One shouldn’t have to get on the damn highway for a concha!
Sounds like a divider or divider rounder would really help. It is the hot new pastry in general on the west coast competition is fierce. Clarity - no logic prevails. Yes, a more even paycheck would make some things easier. I often did a side gig that I was good at and enjoyed- but didn't love while I was baking at times. However- you always bake what you love and that love produces the better baked goods. It takes a lot of exposure to educate the public. Do what makes sense to you- not always logical.
Ain’t nothing like using a sheeter. The efficiency! When I was at the farmers market with Butter Moon my sidekick was also a Sarah (my first name) and sometimes I miss those days 🥲
Keep your head up, T.