Who Am I?
Well I'm not Martha Stewart Or Rachel Ray. I'm neither Nigella or Annabel Langbein!! I'm just me.... a little old lady who bakes with love. And this is my story...
In later years I had children of my own to bake for and I will never forget the look on their faces when they first smelled then saw what I had just baked cooling on the cooling rack. I loved it!!! And whenever my nearest and dearest had his mates over for a few drinks and several rounds of ping pong, I would always crank my music up in the kitchen and work my magic. The look on their faces was priceless too.
Then came an opportunity to work in a small bakery. While I could bake small amounts in my little kitchen at home, working on a commercial scale was a whole lot different. I started off making sandwiches and assisting the bakery manager. Within weeks I was thrown in the deep end and into the Managers position. And to be honest, I was scared!!! I had no faith in myself and thought everything I made was disgusting. But the customers didn't think so, to my surprise and my bosses were really encouraging. And for that I was very grateful.
One time my Bosses encouraged me to enter New Zealand Pie Awards. I had never made a pie in my life let alone enter one in a major competition! With a crash course at making a dozen seafood pies my next dozen would see the best two pies shipped off in an official pie awards box and off to the competition. That year 5400 pies were being judged and mine was one of them. And would you believe I came 6th in my category. The cafe down the road came in 9th place. I was soooooo happy that after that phone call nothing was stopping me. Having great people to work with made my job easy and enjoyable and if I could I would work with them forever. So thank you Elsie, Kita and Corrine.
Working at the bakery and seeing peoples faces and hearing their comments finally made me believe in myself and I felt good making other people full and happy. I loved it and didn't even mind the early morning starts. I worked there for a little over two and a half years and after that moved across the road to become the cook at the tavern. To be honest I didn't enjoy this job at all and in the end it became my downfall and the reason for my disappearing off the face of the earth for over 2 and half years. I didn't poison anyone!!! Just in case you're thinking that!! The barmaid was an ass and took great pleasure in putting me down and telling me all that was wrong with my food. Even looking at the positive comments on the internet about my cooking wasn't enough to make me ignore her hurtful comments. So when the opportunity came to get the hell out of there - I did! And unfortunately have wasted the last two years of my life trying to believe in myself again.
During this downtime I never stopped baking. Feeding my kids and their mates and anyone else who was hungry was what I lived for. And still do! I love putting smiles on peoples faces with my cooking, in any form and has always given me great pleasure. But now that my kids have all moved out and gotten their own lives, there is only so much baking dad and I can eat! Since I don't have the means to bake for everyone and make an income off it as I once did (to sell bakery products to the public they need to be made in a commercial kitchen) I thought it would be a great idea to write a recipe book of some description and share my recipes with you all.
While this is not quite the recipe book I was thinking of its actually probably better as it reaches everyone worldwide!! And that's what I want.... to make everyone happy. Some of the recipes are generations old, some are new, some are by chance but all are made with love. Most important ingredient of them all!!!
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