seabird has been my dream since I was a kid
I (Brea) have been baking since I was about ten. It began when I used to get sick at every birthday party I attended, even my own. My mom eventually figured out that it was due to a sensitivity to an ingredient in the cakes from the bakery at the grocery store. I decided that I wanted to try baking the next birthday cake, and it became a tradition in our family. The cakes were hideous, they probably tasted awful, but my family enthusiastically encouraged me to pursue this thing that interested me, buying me cookbooks and an Easy-Bake-Oven (what a joke!). I always said that I wanted to be a baker when I Grew Up.
I ended up going to culinary school in my twenties, but focused on cooking instead of baking. I hated it! Cooking in restaurants was NOT fun for me, and I quickly worked my way onto the pastry side, learning how to make desserts from wonderfully patient and talented mentors. My husband, Matt, also spent his twenties working in kitchens, but after a decade of cooking he decided to transition into farming.
We spent an anniversary weekend on Orcas Island in 2016, and spent a few years dreaming of moving to the island; me working at a restaurant and him on a farm, and we would live happily ever after with our dog on said farm. In 2019 we somehow managed to make all of that happen, and moved up for the summer with just the things that fit in our car. Matt found a work-trade on a farm where we lived on site, and I got the job at the restaurant. It all happened on a whim, and I think we were more shocked than anybody when it all came together.
Living on the farm really introduced me to local, seasonal food. I saw Matt and the other farm hands every step of the way, planting seeds, watering, weeding, trellising, digging, harvesting, washing and packaging up. I was delivering boxes of produce to island restaurants, including the one I worked at. Knowing exactly where that food came from, whose hands had touched and tended it, what land it was grown on; it really gave me a deep appreciation for every bit of produce that I was putting on a plate and serving to customers. I cared so much more about the food I was serving when I knew about it’s life cycle.
I was also learning about foraging edible native plants, and how to to use them in my cooking. There’s a whole world of delicious food all around us, and I became eager to explore on every hike, dog walk, and often just walking through town on my way to work.
When COVID disrupted everything, I began selling donuts made with local produce and some foraged ingredients. I’d sell boxes out of my car once a week, both to make a little money and because there was nowhere else to get fried dough on the island, and I wanted to fill that hole. People loved it, and I started to expand to wood-fired pastries as well. I was so excited to bring my love of local produce to pastries, because I feel like they often get left out of the farm-to-table conversation. Eating a pastry made with the most ripe, fresh fruit is an entirely different experience than a pastry made with canned or shipped fruit. Just like with restaurants, I believe bakeries should change their offerings with the seasons based on what is locally available. There’s no reason to eat a strawberry danish in November when there are local apples that could be used instead. (Unless you freeze local fruit in the summer, which is what I do to get through the worst of winter, when we’re all so tired of apples and squash!)
Weekly boxes graduated to pop-ups, and once spring rolled around I had to either give it up and get ready to work full time at my real job again, or go all in and make it my real job. I decided to take a chance and have a booth at the Farmer’s Market for the summer. It was a hard, scary decision, but I’m so glad I trusted myself and went for it. Setting up my tent each week next to the farmers who were providing me with incredible produce was amazing. I loved being able to tell customer that the berries they were about to enjoy came from the people next to us. It has brought me so much closer to our community, and taught me more than I could have imagined. My real job is baking, the thing I’ve always loved more than anything else. I get to pair that with foraging, experimenting, doing pop ups on farms, making friends, and spending Saturdays baking and boxing up pastries with my husband. I can’t think of a better outcome in life, and I think 10 year old me would be pretty pleased with where I am now.