Greetings friends!
Back in my solo baker days, what feels like a hundred years ago now, I found this old bread slicer at a used restaurant equipment store. It was a pretty small unit that had clearly sat in that warehouse for a long time...it was small enough for me to be able to load into my Jeep with minimal help and old enough for me to be able to afford. I was very excited because I knew my farmers' market customers would love some sliced bread. But the slicer needed LOTS of TLC before we could even think of touching food with it.
Enter a couple of friends of mine who agreed to help me bring this slicer back to life on a random weekend. After an intense session of watching YouTube instructional videos, my friend Lauren and I were able to take apart the outside components and get rid of the rusty old blades. It took so long that we had to stop at that point. My friend Chris took over the next day to help me scrub & clean every single piece of the slicer's insides, install the new blades, and to assemble it back together. This was not an easy job because the machine was absolutely gross from sitting unused for so long!
After what felt like forever, we were finally done with it and some time after midnight, we both stood there staring at a nice shiny bread slicer and excitedly brought over a loaf of Country White to run through. To our shock and dismay, IT. DIDN'T. WORK. The opening area where you insert the loaf was so small that my bread wouldn't fit through to even touch the blades! I couldn't believe what a stupid rookie mistake I had made by not even thinking to measure the cutting area dimension before I bought the dang thing and was ashamed about wasting all of our time and energy.
But he just laughed and thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world...and I'm pretty sure that it was in that moment that he and I started thinking of each other as the best thing since sliced bread! :)
Chris has been such an enormous part of our bakery from day one....there he is in the picture above painting the whole shop where we all gather every day now to work and commune. There he was helping cook breakfast every Saturday and every Pizza Night for the last few years for you guys. There he was being the best partner to me as we’ve gone through the ups and downs of small business life, and there he was being an amazing father to our two kids through all of this. I never share this much about him but I'm glad I can today.
We often joke around at the bakery that it's really Chris' Crust & Crumbles and for this upcoming Father's Day weekend, we are honoring that sentiment by baking up a menu of Chris' favorites. He loves things with citrus, passion fruit, kimchi, and bourbon...and maybe the special father or father figure in your life does too. We will be open later hours until 8pm on Friday with lots of extra treats as well as have special menu items on the breakfast menu on Saturday, so please join us and bring your "Chris" along too! <3
Sending love to all the amazing dads out there,
Jojo