Hi!

One of the real highlights of being a baker is that you get to surprise unsuspecting people with treats you’ve made them. Sam is exceptionally good at this — at the end of a slow day at the bakery, he’ll bring boxes of baked goods to any place we’re heading, and hand out baguettes like they’re old-fashioned lacquered lollipops to excited babies and their mildly confused parents. I tend to be a little more shy with my impromptu deliveries — but if I know you’re hankering for something in particular, chances are, next time I see you, I’ll slyly make it happen.

My ear surgeon (Dr. Ruck, if you’re reading this, hey!!) said he loved blueberry pie so often from the second I met him that I had no choice months later but to take the hint. On Monday, at a followup appointment where it was confirmed that my ear is fully functional again a month after surgery, I got to deliver a stack of blueberry hand pies to the otorhinolaryngology department at Penn. Before looking at what was in the boxes, one of the nurses asked me, “Were these boxes here before you got here?” And I stumbled over my words a bit: “Uh, no, Uh, I no, uh brought them.” (Shy.) Then a wave of chirps and chatter began outside of the room I was in, while I waited, feet dangling, to see the doctor. Needless to say, he was very pleased.

It’s such a nice feeling to give a baked good as a gift. I love doing it. When I told my mom about this later, she said something like, “Doctors love treats.” But hey, don’t we all? I always wonder, when you come into the bakery, are you buying a cookie for yourself and a muffin for a friend? Or are you bringing that baguette to a baby? (Babies seem to really love our baguettes — it’s the tastiest teething toy.) I hope you are! Reciprocity in treat culture is what makes the world go ‘round.

On that note, we have lots of goods to bring to your people this first week of August: our special Thursday loaf is a toasted sesame and dried apricot in a 100% stone-ground Castle Valley flour loaf. We will be running blackberry ice cream Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, made with blackberries grown IN PHILADELPHIA at Weavers Way Farms. (Though, one caveat: keep an eye on Instagram, as our ice cream machine has been acting fritzy lately. We’ll post with plenty of time to let you know if ice cream isn’t happening, for whatever reason.)

We’ll have fig leaf and sour cherry cake on Saturday. We’ll have our very special guava-flavored Pastry Passport item on Saturday 🤫 🇨🇻. We’ll have challah on Friday and soft pretzels on Sunday and lots of everything in between, including some new beautiful ceramics made by my own mother, Stephanie’s Ceramics.

Come one, come all. See you there.

xo,

Dayna

Dayna’s What’s Up Corner

I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried at the end of the second Alexander Calder biography. 1200 pages is a lot of time to spend with one person. I am now reading ‘Pemi Aguda’s Ghostroots and I freaking LOVE IT. I forgot how fun it is to read fiction after reading nonfiction. I’ve been cooking a lot lately, which is fun for me — though I did have two veggie dogs wrapped in a tortilla for dinner tonight, so maybe I shouldn’t speak too soon about this so-called “cooking.” I also saw Tony (the new movie about Anthony Bourdain) and I say this with no reservations: I did not like it. 😈