Brasserie Bread descends to new levels of madness when the school holiday season comes around. Yes, the roads are clear, everyone’s happily cruising at 60 in an otherwise 40km/hr school zone, and the kids are pawned off onto grandparents/aunties/uncles/cousins. But here in the Bakery, phones are going off with last minute bookings, kids are tramping in and out of the Baking School, the floors are coated with a thick layer of flour and no paperwork gets done. Well, not until after 4pm anyway.
Matt and company
The stories from kids baking are endless. Every day, after waving goodbye to hungry kids and frazzled parents hustling them out of the Bakery back home, Matt, Yudha and I convene in the Baking School mopping down the benches and exchanging stories about how the class went, which kid was the craziest, which one was the sweetest, which one let loose the random swear word, which one was actually younger than 5 (yes, we have some sneaky enrolments here). Believe you me, you can tell their real age when their attention span hits its 1-hour limit: eyes glazed over, eating random bits of dough – that’s when you know they’re just over it.
It’s only the 4th day, and we’ve already had a stowaway in the wholesale bakery (specifically, the Pastry Kitchen but found by the boss in about 2 minutes, whose eyes are all-seeing in this bakery) , and another doing a mini spew on his pizza (from guzzling too much cordial too fast). One wanted to live in our ovens because it was ‘nice and warm’. All of them are obsessed with MasterChef. Getting hosed down by the air spray counts as a highlight. A class full of rowdy boys one day; a group of squealing girls the next. (give us a group of 5 year old girls ANY DAY) Chocolate chip supplies in the Bakery have gone down by about 150% – kids will eat anything, AND everything they can get their hands on. And NO, it does not matter if it s on the bench, on the floor, on someone else s shoe if they want it, they ll get it one way or another.
It s also interesting to watch how differently Matt and Yudha (kids trainers) work. Yudha booms and excites; Matt reasons and chats. Yudha is about imagination and fantasy, Matt is about real life in the bakery. The funny thing is both approaches are equally successful with the kids. But patience is an essence they have in droves. I d be hard-pressed to find any better trainers than both Matt and Yudha I may schedule and organise Baking classes, but they re the ones who pull it off.
More updates on School Holidays next week. Stay warm and toasty 🙂 I know the perfect spot by the ovens..
We work them hard
M
