CrankyCakes

I think it’s time to forgive myself for thinking of Vermont as the center of the universe of good food, ideas, and people.

I had the good fortune to have a recent peek at the soon-to-be-completed Bien Fait bakery in Greensboro with Trish & Bill Alley. Trish is the director of Greensboro Wonder & Wisdom, which serves young and old, and seeks to ” inspire lives and communities of purpose and meaning by providing intentional, innovative, learning opportunities in which people of all ages discover who they are and are encouraged to realize their full potential.“  They provide year-round and summer programming for children, and enriching programs for seniors.  Very imaginative, engaging, whole-life learning kind of stuff.

But lofty goals have to be supported by real money, and that’s where Bien Fait comes in.  Founder and chef Alice Perron has built a wonderful reputation baking delicious cakes, and was a partner in forming an L3C corporation of the enterprise.  With this special designation that allows an entity to exist to support a charity, receive grants, and is officially “low-profit”, “Bien Fait Specialty Cakes”  now gives all of its profits to support Wonder & Wisdom.  In 2008 they sold 2000 cakes, and this year they’re hoping to crest 5,000.

Half-sheet pans in the Bien Fait kitchen.

To support this, they’re nearly done with the renovation of a small house that is soon to be home to a professional bakery.  We got a tour of the bright and comfortable space, which felt like an especially spacious and beautiful home kitchen – except that there were hairnet and handwash stations at its entrance, and ovens that could bake 90 one-pound cakes at a time.

Bill opened doors to coolers, showing us where they keep the dried fruits and nuts and dozens upon dozens of eggs.  When they’re fully operational, they’ll employ four local folks to bake and ship their goods.  Every step of their process shows their commitment to quality, consistency, and personal service – from their decision to source local ingredients whenever possible, to provide a comfortable and home-like working environment for their staff, to their attention to personal customer service.  As Bill talks it becomes clear just how much he’s researched this business, and how perfectly its mission and its financial potential fit with the work of Wonder & Wisdom’s multi-generational programs.

All of which would be very nice, but disappoint terribly if the product weren’t good.  But oh friends, what I’ve tried is so very good, every last morsel.  I had intended to post a picture of a slice of Golden Jewel Fruitcake here, but this was what I was left with:

Maybe you can at least see how moist these crumbs are.

Moist and sweet and dense with fruit and flavor, crunchy with nuts.  And complex with the different sorts of sweetness and acidity from the different fruits.  Really wonderful.  But then, I’m a fan of fruitcakes, even those with the cliched, unnaturally colored cherries.  But if you’re not, you too would have loved the Lemon Berry Teacake , or the Caspian Crunch Granola that accompanied the fruitcake we went home with.  This may be the best granola I’ve had yet, richly flavored, and full of its best ingredients.

And they have so many products and flavors and permutations that there’s plenty left to work through, secure in my smug knowledge that I live in a feel-good food paradise.  Yum, yum, yum.

I was at a meeting with the committee that runs the Craftsbury Antiques & Uniques Festival fund raiser for work, when the talk turned (not unusually) to food.  Suzanne got a faraway look in her eye and started talking about Parker Pie in West Glover.

Parker Pie?  West Glover?

Yes, they assured me.  Parker Pie.  Delicious sandwiches, they said.  Amazing pizza, they said.  Specifically, Buffalo Chicken Pizza with Jasper Hill blue cheese.  Or any other of their thin-crusted pizzas.

So of course I asked if we could go there for our next meeting, and we planned our trip.

A little background on my life with pizza:  I grew up in the very Italian northern New Jersey town of Passaic.  Though there’s plenty to hate about Passaic, the pizza (like lots of the Italian food there) was cheap, widely available, and really, really good.

I didn’t know you actually could get bad pizza until I moved to Vermont in 1986.  I found it confusing.  Why would people make bad pizza?  Why would people eat it?

Of course, pizza has changed in the last 23 years.  Now we have really good stuff (my favorites are New York Pizza Oven for NY-style and American Flatbread for its sheer deliciousness).  But nothing else I’ve had in Vermont is as good as Parker Pie.  Thin-crusted, with a New York pizza’s light and chewy texture, cooked in a traditional pizza oven.  The sauce was good (I don’t know if it’s homemade) – not too sweet, and the right amount was in between the cheese and the crust.  We had to substitute feta for the blue cheese, which was just fine.

I have to admit that I was so excited about the food that it took me a few minutes to realize that this excellent stuff was being served in the back of the town’s general store.  They have a few tables and booths, a couple of bar stools at the bar, a laptop available to use, funky colors on the walls, and, when I was there, a show of local color photography.  It’s casual counter service, and you won’t hurry the staff, who are likely to be chatting with neighbors across the counter.  But don’t worry – they’ll be chatting with you when it’s your turn too because they’re really nice.  They’ve got 3 or 4 beers on tap, and wine, and you can grab a soda or iced tea from the store if you prefer.

It’s worth the trip.  But because I was unlikely to get there again too soon, I brought one home to share with the monkeyboys for dinner tonight.  Oh – and stopped at Greensboro’s Willey’s Store to get some of that blue cheese so I can taste the pizza as it was meant to be.  I can hardly wait.