These have been tough times for people in the food business. Last week, friends of mine closed a coffee shop that they just opened in November. Here’s a reminder to give your favorite place some business. Even if you don’t feel safe dining inside, get carry out, curbside or delivery. We need places to hang on until there is a vaccine! But there are some encouraging stories, like this one.
In Spite Of Everything, A Cake Shop Expands
Over the past five years, Cakes by Rubina in Ann Arbor, Mich., has gained a great reputation for its elegant cakes, cupcakes, macarons and other pastries.
It did ample business with students and staff at the University of Michigan, and could count on parents to place orders to treat their busy offspring.
But owner Rubina Sadiq felt cramped in her 900-square-foot shop, in a collection of stores called the Courtyard Shops. The kitchen was crowded, her display space was limited, and she couldn’t offer the full line up of sweets that she wanted to sell.
“We were having growing pains,” Rubina says.
When she heard that the bicycle shop next door was moving, Rubina contacted her landlord and asked for the space. Work on the expansion got underway in February, including knocking down a wall between the two stores, and ordering new counters and cases.
As she was preparing for spring, a busy season thanks to commencement and weddings, word of the coronavirus began to circulate. By mid-March, Michigan’s governor had issued a stay at home order.
It seemed like the worst possible time to think about getting bigger. “Had I known about the appearance of COVID, I don’t think I would have proceeded forward,” she says. “Now, it is what it is, and there’s no going back.”
Endings offer opportunities
For the past five months, I’ve been writing about what I call the great restaurant contraction. In cities and towns, we’ve seen some owners decide to close lagging places permanently. In some cases, they don’t want to go to the expense and inconvenience of COVID-19 protocols, when it’s unlikely that their reduced capacity can cover costs.
Other restaurants with multiple outlets are consolidating operations at central locations. They’re transferring staff and sometimes menu items, so diners and shoppers will see familiar faces and favorite dishes.
As storefronts and cafes empty, opportunities are occurring, too. Landlords now have extra space to offer, without requiring a big move. Some are willing to be flexible on lease rates, given that occupied is almost always better than empty.
Across Ann Arbor, and elsewhere, we’re seeing expansions like Rubina’s taking place.
It’s a chance to try ideas that might have been risky in a smaller environment - or which previously seemed too ambitious for a new business owner, especially someone like Rubina who hasn’t spend a lifetime in culinary.
A new career in a new country
Rubina was born in Pakistan, and trained as a pediatrician. Her journey to new places began when her husband, Sohail, got an IT job in Australia.
Facing the requirement of doing a residency in order to be certified, she put her medical career to the side, although she got a degree in public health at the University of New South Wales.
While down under, the Sadiqs found they enjoyed baking and making desserts, sometimes spending hours preparing treats for their son Haris and daughter Maria.
The family came to Ann Arbor in 1997, when Sohail got a job at the Ann Arbor headquarters of Borders Books & Music (oh, how we miss it!) Searching for the European style desserts she’d become used to finding elsewhere, Rubina wasn’t happy with the quality of pastries that she found in the United States.
She picked up baking again, this time with the thought that she might launch a dessert company. In 2008, she started Cakes by Rubina, selling through the Web for local delivery. Her timing coincided with the Great Recession, almost ending her venture as it was starting.
Despite awful sales her first year, she persevered, and word spread about her exquisite buttercream icings and beautifully crafted sponges. Her custom cake business began to grow.
By 2015, she was ready to open her original shop on the north east side of Ann Arbor. Her business took off as the economy remained strong, and she drafted an expansion strategy, only to run into an even worse economic crisis this year.
A pivot that kept her cake business going
Even though other restaurants and shops had to temporarily close due to the state’s shutdown order, Rubina was able to stay open because her shop fell under the state’s agriculture classification. Cakes by Rubina did not have seating, so there was no need to overhaul it to reflect COVID-19 social distancing rules.
Since she did not rely on foot traffic, and with construction for the expanded shop looming, she suspended indoor operations and transitioned to curbside pick up.
Her social media accounts emphasized that customers had a wide variety of choices available through her website. It features the slogan, “Our cakes are as diverse as our community!”
The tabs on her toolbar reflect that. Under signature cakes, you find chocolate, cheesecake, ice cream cakes and coffee cakes. There are also cupcakes, macarons, wedding cakes and cakes for people with dietary restrictions. The stars, however, are her custom products.
You’ll see cakes that look like those designed by the finalists in the Great British Bake Off, including tiered cakes and cakes with figurines crafted from fondant. Clicking on “graduation cakes” brings up dozens of variations, but that section is now poignant, given that Michigan canceled its 2020 commencement, and the Big 10 conference has now scrapped fall sports.
“Commencement is one of our biggest events, and it was a bummer because it was canceled,” Rubina says.
Fancy French Pastries And Mackinac Island Fudge
But the atmosphere was festive this past weekend, when Rubina celebrated her grand-reopening. Customers were gifted with sealed boxes containing samples of cake, a rich chocolate chip cookie and a small square of a new specialty: Mackinac Island Fudge. (Take home souvenirs also included masks with the store’s logo.)
Rubina says she’s wanted to offer fudge for several years, and the flavors are proudly displayed in a new glass case.
I’m admittedly not a fudge fan — I ate way too much fudge as a kid that was made from melted Hershey’s chocolate and marshmallow fluff, and I generally avoid it.
However, Rubina’s fudge is a cut above what you find in the island’s souvenir shops and what you used to see in shopping malls. There’s a definite sophistication about it. The square I tried was velvety smooth and very chocolatey, akin to the ganache filling in a piece of See’s Candies.
Another case bears some of her newest features: luxury French and Italian pastries. Her tiramisu is individually crafted, and other desserts look like the fanciful creations you’d find at Pierre Herme’s shops in Paris.
Rubina’s hope is that with an expanded lineup and a more visible storefront, “more people will want to walk in.” This fall will be a key test, given that the university will not be back to full classroom capacity, and fewer people will be studying and teaching on site.
At the very least, her shop is a feast for the eyes, and a cool respite from the final weeks of a Michigan summer. It also shows that dreams needn’t be deferred despite the pandemic.
A Show You Might Enjoy
Netflix
I’ve had a little gripe with the big streaming companies. They’ve produced a lot of food series, but in the past, not that many have focused on women. Things are gradually beginning to change, however. And one of my favorite series, Street Food, is back on Netflix with episodes honoring culinary women in Latin America.
Street Food episodes offer vignettes that focus on specific cities and regions, their notable dishes and the methods of preparation. The first series looked at Asia. This new series depicts chefs, cooks and food vendors in places such as Buenos Aires, Salvador, Brazil, Lima, Peru, and Oaxaca, Mexico.
It was fun to see cities that I’ve visited, and the episodes are presented in both the local language and English, along with available English subtitles. You can listen to Spanish or Portuguese, then get a quick translation.
According to the series, there seem to have been two main ways that the women in the series got into the food business. Some are the latest generation in long lines of cooks. Others turned to cooking as a way to support their families or solve financial crises.
The food in the show is easily accessible, reasonably priced and relies on local ingredients. The women, who come from many backgrounds, have loyal followings, and express great satisfaction in feeding their customers.
Most of all, you come away with enormous respect for how hard these ladies work. Their dishes can take hours to prepare, yet they don’t seek shortcuts.
You’ll learn a lot from the series, and maybe experiment yourself. (After watching the Salvador episode, I now own two bottles of dende oil.) Tune in, and perhaps plan a trip when it’s safe to travel.
CulinaryWoman of the Week
I read cookbooks the way many people do novels, and I’m always interested in the people who write them. Even before Nigella Lawson’s show Nigella Bites made its debut on American television, I was aware of her work.
Her first books had intriguing titles, like How To Eat, and How To Be A Domestic Goddess. On a trip to London in 1998, I stood at a table at Hatchard’s in Picadilly Circus, skimming the latter book and laughing. Her writing was personal, informative and witty, different from the instruction manuals that cookbooks were than.
Despite Domestic Goddess’s heft, I decided I’d treat myself to it, and lugged it home to the United States where I read it thoroughly, cover to cover.
Of course, Nigella became a star in the States as soon as her program began airing. With her ease on camera and writing skill, she’s one of those figures in the culinary world who are instantly recognizable by her first name.
I’ve always enjoyed her casual, flavorful approach to food. She was the first person I saw use lime leaves in cooking (she keeps hers in the freezer).
On her programs, she threw together tea time snacks for her children and assembled dinners for groups of people in what seemed like no time flat, making delicious food in a way that wasn’t fiddly.
Nigella is something like a Julia Child for my generation, although admittedly a little more posh and glamorous. But what also appeals to me about her is that she’s faced the same heartbreak a lot of us have suffered.
She lost her mother to liver cancer when her mother was just 48. Her first husband, John Diamond, also died of cancer, and her second marriage to Charles Saatchi ended unhappily.
Yet, like so many of us who face setbacks, she kept going. She’s produced a book every few years, along with her television and Web ventures. She posts delicious looking dishes on Instagram, and her next book, Cook Eat Repeat, is set to be published Oct. 29. It promises recipes with narrative essays, and we’ll undoubtedly hear more about it as her pub date approaches.
If you watch the Netflix series Somebody Feed Phil, you can see her in the London episode, tearing into delectable looking anchovy studded bread at Brat and admitting she ate three loaves on her last visit.
For years of inspiration, I’m happy to name Nigella Lawson as our CulinaryWoman of the Week.
Recommend us to your friends and networks!
Are there some culinary people you’d like me to talk with, or are you spotting trends I should know about? I’d love to hear directly from you. Email me at mamayn@aol.com.
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Feel free to share this newsletter with your friends and networks. Stay healthy, wear a mask, and see you next Sunday.