Remember when your teacher would come into class one day and announce that you and your classmates were all heading on a trip out of school somewhere, and that could you all please remember to get your parents to sign the excursion consent form. I always forgot to get my parents to sign those annoying forms, but that didn’t get in the way of me going on the excursion. No no, no silly little consent form will stop me from traipsing out the school gates onto that bus. So I resorted to forgery (a useful tool of desperation), but I suppose if you were in that situation, you’d do the same. And i’m certain you’ve done the same. Whenever it came to school excursions, the day was always that much brighter, the air that much crisper, your crush boarding the bus that much cuter. Excursions were like those elusive diamonds in the rough of the school term, a half-day that would stretch out into a full-day of slacking off with your friends, road-tripping on the bus, finding out what really goes on outside of school (and feeling dorky in your school uniform).
From going on excursions, to organising them – that’s one of the perks of being at Brasserie Bread. Having the resources, the facility (Bakery Wonderland, hello?) and skills (artisan bakers not machines) all available at your disposal to create FUN. On Wednesday, we had 28 Year 1 students from St Pius Enmore toddle into the Wholesale Bakery and Baking School for an artisan baking tour and hands-on baking class. With the help of the lovely Miss Jane Taylor and several other teachers, the kids were split into 2 groups, one group ushered into the Training Room headed up by Michael, and the other group hustled into the Bakery by Matt the Baker. After 1 and 1/2 hours of solid baking and sliding across the floury floors into the Bakery to watch our loaves ‘wake up’ from the night before, and Pastry Kitchen for some brownie taste testing, the kids and teachers bagged up their pizzas and poppyseed bread rolls, and headed across to La Perouse Park to enjoy their hand-made lunches and loll around the grass in the sun. Now is that a pretty cool excursion or what – forget forgery, I’d resort to hijacking the bus and driving it there myself. and possibly make a detour to Mickey D’s along the way
Excursions are picking up, seeing that we’re almost tumbling into July (which means Winter Holidays). Vacation Care Centres are starting to pick up on our Baking classes and excursions, and as I mentioned a few weeks ago, uber organised mums have started booking into our Holiday Baking Classes. One of the more exciting things with the Holiday Classes is that we’re bringing in new recipes for the children to play with, as well as a focus on healthy and nutritious eating using different toppings like poppyseeds. Like the kids, our Trainers Yudha and Matt have to undergo training themselves, so Michael will probably be teaching them the new recipes in about a week or so.
Met the lovely Jennifer Soo, features photographer for the Herald and Sydney Magazine who came in yesterday to photograph our babkas. Ditched Jeremy in the office to go down and chat to her the entire time while she was shooting (semi-charmed kind of life I lead here in the office). Found out that she has a little girl who absolutely loves to cook and bake, so I invited her to join our Generation Mix class in the School Holidays. Gen Mix is shaping up to be pretty big – You usually run into 2 types of parents, hence the 2 types of classes (Kids Only, and Parent/child) : the ones who absolutely want to bake with their kids, and the ones who are happy to have 2 hours to themselves in the Cafe (but still be close enough to the kids just in the other room)
I suppose I better get back to the day. From one extremity to the other in true BB fashion (that’s how we roll): am trying to organise an excursion for the adults now, specifically our Canberra chefs. Getting them down to Sydney to the Bakery for Breaducation®, then onto the Restaurant 09 show, dinner (maybe Dank Street – must ask Michael) and getting sloshed on the bus back. No consent form required. Sound fun? I THINK SO!
Stay warm this weekend !
