Last year, I served pastries at The Golden Globes. Well, not at the awards show, but at a pre-event gifting suite. When I got the call asking if I was interested, I really had to think about it. Would it make sense to go, even if I didn’t have a shop location in LA?
Ultimately, I decided to do it. And I’m so glad I did! My friend Alison, the creative force behind a girl defloured blog and Ginger & Fox Bake Shop, lives 45 minutes outside LA so she offered to come help me prep and serve. Given that I’d be baking all the components in the bake shop in Oregon, shipping them down and assembling them in my hotel room, I was grateful for the help. Plus, I just love spending time with her!
Alison picked me up from the airport and we headed to the Beverly Hills L’Ermitage to check into our room. Prepping pastries in a hotel room, even a REALLY nice 1,000 square foot hotel room (which was 250 square feet bigger than my bakery at the time), is not without its difficulties. I had sheet pans of treats spread over every horizontal surface, and quickly realized that I needed more parchment paper. And something to put in the treat boxes so the pastries wouldn’t rattle around.
A quick search on google maps revealed a Michael’s Craft Store 5.1 miles away, so we called down to valet services to have them bring Alison’s Honda Pilot around. I’m now kicking myself for not taking more photos of the whole experience, but when we got downstairs, we saw her Pilot sandwiched between black Maseratis. On the other side of one Maserati was a silver Lotus. The other Maserati had a black Mercedes Maybach. And here we were, giggling to ourselves as we got into the Pilot.
I knew LA traffic could be beastly. I had no idea it would take us 48 minutes to get to the Michaels store. But we made it back to the hotel and began putting together the treat boxes.
Dot-Marie Jones, aka Coach Beast on “Glee,” was super friendly and a lovely person. It was quite surreal meeting a bunch of people who I’ve seen on TV. I think overall, I was mostly struck by how short a lot of these celebrities were. Not Dot-Marie, of course, but there were actors who look like they’d be 6’7″ on television…and then I met them in real life and was eye to eye with them. And I’m only 5’8″!
That evening, while all the stars were getting gussied up to walk the red carpet, Alison and I met up with her husband Matt and headed to Jar Restaurant. We had heard great things about it, and they have duck fried rice, which made it an easy decision. After going through the gluten-free options on the menu, we settled on sharing a bunch of dishes, family style. Purple Okinawan sweet potatoes with creme fraiche and chives! Hangar steak! Pea shoot salad! Gingery Applesauce! And aforementioned Duck Fried Rice!
The food was really tasty, but it was the applesauce that blew me away. Not-too-sweet, but super spicy/gingery, it was the first dish to be completely devoured.
As soon as I returned to Portland, I started thinking about making more. This is super easy, and can be done in the crockpot (no stirring!). The most time-intensive thing about making this is peeling the apples, which isn’t strictly necessary, but I prefer the smoother texture you get if you do peel them.
Make this. You won’t be sorry!
I love your recipes and visit your shop as much as possible. I live a good 40 minutes away , but it’s worth the trip. My favorites are the Almond poppy seed scones and the chocolate glazed donuts! I love reading all your stories. My daughter is going to Le Cordon Bleu in Portland and she stops by and brings me treats as I am Celiac. Thank you so much for sharing your stories and recipes! God Bless, Robin Klopfenstein
Hi Robin,
So glad you like the shop and my recipes! Those chocolate glazed doughnuts are definitely one of my favorite things too! Thank you so much for visiting my blog!
Kyra
You can cook your applesauce on high for 4-5 hours throughout the evening, or you can cook it on low heat for 8-10 hours overnight.