Meet the Baker: Kathy Andrews

From images of the medieval baker at work, such as this one, taken from Le Pain : le grain, le boulanger et la ronde des pains, an informative little book by François Isler on the history of bread, it is striking to see that, except for the electric mixers, the baker’s work has not changed much over the centuries:

Almost everything is homemade at Empty Nest Bakery, including the bakery itself which Kathy and George built in an attached porch, replacing the existing screens with windows, refinishing the walls, building furniture and, often, retooling equipment bought second-hand, except for the big mixer and the ovens which are brand-new.
But for about four years, before the porch was changed into a gorgeous home bakery, Kathy baked 85 to 100 loaves every Friday in her two home ovens. Each oven could only handle three “bâtards” (football-shaped breads) or four boules at a time and since the heat was inconsistent, each of these loaves had to be turned at half-time.
As dough doesn’t wait, she had to do her mixing by increments, staggering it so that the ovens would be available when the bread was ready to go in. It took many long hours (even without taking into consideration the innumerable rustic pastries and savories that Kathy was also baking) and an extraordinary level of determination but she did it! And George helped.

How do you get from being a home baker who bakes for her family to a professional baker who sells on a farmers’ market? Well, in Kathy’s case, what did it was an attack of the empty nest syndrome. She had been a Nancy Silverton aficionada and a serious baker for years and was quite content to bake for her husband and their four kids.
But the kids grew up as kids tend to do. One by one, they left the house and all of a sudden she was left with only two mouths to feed and dancing fingers which itched to mix, shape, score and bake. There was no way George and she could eat all the breads she wanted to create.
So one day, without even notifying George of what she was about to do, she went and registered with the Hillsborough Farmers Market (which takes place once a week on Saturday in the Hillsborough Home Depot’s parking lot) and just like that, Empty Nest Bakery came into being.

When George came home that evening and heard the big news, he was flabbergasted. His reaction was : “Okay, I understand that’s what you need to do and I will support you. I will come help you set up the first few times but after that you are on your own. As you know, my Saturdays are for flying” (George is a fervent amateur pilot). “Fair enough”, replied Kathy, “bread is my thing and I’ll manage”. That was five years ago and George has yet to voluntarily skip a market. Just like Kathy, he is hooked.

Like her, he loves meeting new customers or chatting with the regulars. As aptly put by Steven Kaplan in his magnificent book, Good Bread is Back: A Contemporary History of French Bread, the Way It Is Made, and the People Who Make It, “like a sort of societal gluten, sources of bread constitute networks of sociability that structure daily life”.
Kathy says that being part of the Hillsborough Farmers’ Market has given them both of them a deep sense of community and one only has to watch her and George interact with their customers to understand that indeed, beyond the business relationship, they perform a social function. They anchor the client in space and time. They give him or her a sense of belonging, the sense that someone indeed notices when they don’t show up and wants to hear whether or not they went on a trip or were doing poorly or were too busy with kids or grand-kids to get out of the house. Someone cares about what they like and will try to provide it for them.
For instance Kathy doesn’t always bring scones to the market but on that particular Saturday an elderly couple who had been away for a couple of weeks was expected back and George reminded her they always liked to have a scone with their coffee. So she baked a batch.

One of the afore-mentioned fig tartlets? Or if you are more into savories, maybe a mushroom quiche?