Something Precious 💖💖

I got a really sweet message today about a 6 year-old kid who has been dying to try dumplings ever since seeing Pixar's animated short film, Bao. I saw it recently with my daughter as well and it definitely made me tear up...I don't want to give it away if you haven't seen it yet but it's about a mother and her child. I didn't realize until I read more about the film that bao not only means "dumpling" in Chinese but that it can also translate to "treasure" or "something precious." It makes sense then that this story is about how precious our children are to us.

It also didn't dawn on me till after this conversation that there wasn't another place in town for this family to take their kids to for bao style dumplings. And I just can't let this be. Long story short...now that we have more hosting space for our Dumpling Pop Up unlike last time, we would like to add a lower pricing option for children, ages 10 and under, so that you can feel free to bring your whole family to the event. After all, that's what Lunar New Year is all about - family.
 
I know many of you have already reserved your tickets before this option was available. Just send me an email if it applies to anyone in your party and we'll take care of the difference right away :)

For those of you that haven't reserved yet, there are only TEN days left till the event. I really hope you can make it! You can purchase your tickets through our online shop.

🥟 Who Doesn't Like Dumplings?! 🥟

Earlier this week, my family and I were celebrating Lunar New Year and ushering in the Year of Boar around our house. The best part was definitely the fact that my mom is visiting right now from Mongolia and so we got to celebrate the occasion with much more tradition and custom than I normally would've if she wasn't here. It's such an important holiday for us back home and it's all centered around family, friends, and food. This is why I'm so excited to share with you all a part of my culture and invite you to our Dumpling Pop Up!

We had such a good time at our pizza party last month and I have no doubt that this month's pop up will be lots of fun as well. We're planning on making traditional Mongolian style steamed dumplings for everyone. It will be an all-you-can-eat set up again with some yummy salads on the side. Our friends from Prairie St. Brewing Co. generously offered to host it at the brewery this time so that we could fit in more folks...our January pop-up sold out and we weren't able to accommodate all the people who still wanted to attend inside our space at C&C. 

The event will be held on Friday, February 22nd from 6 - 9pm. Like last time, it's by reservation only and you can purchase tickets below.

Dumpling Pop Up - Feb 22, 2019

from 12.00

Age:

Select Age AdultChild (10 and under)

Quantity:

Count me in!

As I've mentioned before, our goal is to hold a few different special events leading up to the big move into our new bakery location at the Rockford City Indoor Market this April. The money we raise through these pop-ups/donations go towards our Brick & Mortar Fund and helps us pay for build-out construction costs as well as equipment purchases.

Please help us spread the word by letting your family and friends know about the Dumpling Pop Up! You can forward them this post or send them a direct link to our website. We have also created a Facebook event if that will make it easier for you to share the information. Thank you so much in advance!

❄ Hello, F E B R U A R Y ❄

Somewhere in between traveling out of town and defrosting my entire being from the polar vortex freeze, two weeks have gone by since our Pizza Pop Up...and I really would've liked to have shared this with you all much sooner!

The event was just amazing...the whole C&C crew was at the top of their game; the food was delicious and plentiful; we sold out of seats and fed over a 100 people that night; our humble space was filled to the brim with family members, friends, and loyal customers; and our hearts were fuller still from witnessing all that love and support. I just want to say that we are SO grateful to all who came to the event, to all who helped us spread the word about it, and to all those who generously sent in donations even though you couldn't attend!!! Oh and we also got a nice shout out on the news from WREX who made a point to stop in that night. You can view the story HERE.

A new month is upon us now and so is a new pop-up! We are getting our ducks in a row for it and will release more details in the next few days as soon as the event location is finalized and our website is ready to accept reservations. What is for certain now is that we will have it on the evening of Friday, February 22nd, so SAVE THE DATE!

🍕 Pizza Pop-Up Is Coming Up! 🍕

Our Pizza Pop Up fundraiser is coming up in just a few days and we have been anxiously getting ready for it...test baking a bunch of pizza, cleaning up, and decorating! We just want everyone to have a really good time and leave from here with a belly full of good food. Other than hosting monthly baking classes, our kitchen is not open to the public and this is the first time we will have this many people in our space. We are super excited!!

I have been absolutely blown away by the response to our event since we announced it last week. We have had loads of people reserving seats, sending donations, sharing the event online, posting about it everywhere, and, not to mention, all our wonderful friends stepping up to offer extra help for the night of. I'm stunned to say that we are nearing full capacity for seating. If you want to join us this coming Friday night, please buy your tickets sooner than later so that you don't miss out!

Pizza Pop Up - Jan 18, 2019

25.00

Count me in!

We have also had a number of generous people who have made donations to our Brick & Mortar fund. If you can't come to the Pizza Pop Up, I ask you to please consider making a donation in lieu of attendance. Every little bit helps towards our goal of building and opening Rockford's only artisan bread bakery!

Donate

💌 You're Invited To Our Pizza Pop Up! 💌

Hello dear friends,

First of all, Happy New Year and hope your 2019 is starting off with a bang! From the moment we turned the calendar page over, we have hit the ground running towards our next big move. This will be the year we finally open our bakery cafe in downtown Rockford. The indoor market building on Madison St. has been under construction since the kickoff last spring and we are a few months away from taking over our spot in there. It's an enormous project and I take my hat off to all the people involved as they have been tirelessly working on restoring and beautifying the space for the community to enjoy.

I have never done this before...as it turns out, opening a bakery shop is a mountain of work and sometimes it feels overwhelming. Our current space is not a retail store; it's more of a production kitchen and so this whole new thing has come with a steep learning curve for me. Thank goodness I am surrounded by exceptional and knowledgeable people who are helping me through this process. My focus is on creating an amazing experience: for those who are visiting the cafe, for those who are enjoying our products, and for those who are working there. In making all this happen, there are so many factors to consider and, honestly, quite a bit of cost to bear.

For the last three years, we have met some amazing people through baking bread for all the farmer's markets, through our CSB program, and through our classes. All of you. We are hosting a Pizza Pop Up fundraiser on Friday, January 18th at our current kitchen space and you are all invited! All proceeds from the event will go to helping with build-out and construction of the bakery cafe. You have shown up for us wherever we were setting up, for whatever bread we had on hand, and however the weather turned out that day...and I really hope you will show up this time too because we can't do it without you.

Pizza Pop Up - Jan 18, 2019

25.00

Count me in!

Please help us spread the word by letting your family and friends know about the Pizza Pop Up! You can forward them this email or send them a direct link to our website. We have also created a Facebook event if that will make it easier for you to share the information. Thank you so much in advance and we can’t wait to see you there!

🎉 G O O D B Y E, 2018 🎉

We are back from Christmas break and hanging out at the bakery today mixing up the last batch of bread for the year. 2018 has been a BIG year for us at C&C... As we bid farewell to it, I reflect back on all that we have accomplished this year and all that is yet to be accomplished as we move forward:

We expanded our presence to a total of four markets this year and got to share our love for handcrafted bread with folks at Rockford City Market, North End City Market, Edgebrook Farmers Market, and Beloit Farmer's Market. We started retailing our organic sourdough loaves at Choices Natural Market and provided bread service at some awesome restaurants around town. We met so many lovely people who traveled from near and far to learn artisan bread baking in our workshops and our true-blue bread share members have kept our Community Supported Bakery program going strong for over a year and a half now since its inception. We found the perfect location to open our retail bakery cafe at and got featured by Our City, Our Story. We even got included in the Illinois Bicentennial 200 Years, 200 Stories project as well! We welcomed new members to our team and advanced others to new roles that furthers the pursuit of their true passions. And, oh my goodness, we just baked SO MUCH bread...

I want to thank you all so much for helping make this year as amazing as it was!

This coming spring, we will be moving into our new location at the Rockford City Indoor Market on Madison St. We are going to be giving our all to this project in the next few months and we want you to be a part of it. In January and February, we are planning a couple of special pop-up events that we'll be sending out invitations for once all the details are hashed out...we hope you will come out and support us!

The first one is January 18th, so SAVE THE DATE!!! 

I wish you all a safe, splendid New Year's Eve and a spectacular year ahead!

🎁 Just In Time For Christmas 🎁

We're kicking off our holiday baking craze at C&C today...for the next ten days, it'll be nothing but bottomless pots of coffee, Christmas radio, and larger-than-life loaves that get decorated to the max! If you're anything like me, you've probably got some serious gift shopping still left to do for your loved ones...here's how we can help you with that:

1. HOLIDAY MICHE

Every year, during Thanksgiving and Christmas only, we make our miches available for purchase. These large traditional French style loaves are made with organic high extraction wheat flour as well as a touch of dark rye, span over a foot in diameter, and weigh in at about 1.6-1.8 kilograms. We naturally leaven them with our sourdough culture, slow ferment them for a couple of days, and hand score each bread to produce a beautiful design on the crust. You can pre-order these until next Thursday through our website for pick up on either 12/22nd or 12/23rd at Artale & Co.

2. BAKING CLASSES

During this past year, we've had the pleasure of welcoming folks from near and far into our kitchen to learn the art of bread baking. Our classes focus on the fundamentals of sourdough and on how to recreate the effects of a commercial oven in the home environment. We teach the process from beginning to end and provide a "bread baking essentials" starter kit for all the participants. Currently, we are offering one class in January and one in February of 2019. 

3. BLIND DATE WITH A BAKER

While this is isn't an actual blind date with one of us (sorry!), it's our version of a Community Supported Bakery program. Our weekly bread shares feature baker's choice loaves and so members never know which type of bread they're going to get. Our CSB has pick up locations on both East and West sides of Rockford. If you have someone who loves good bread and might enjoy the surprise element, this is a good one for them! You'll find more details on how the CSB works at the link above.

Holidays with C&C 🎅

Although the year is coming to an end, it has felt like a time of new beginnings around the bakery. After a long search for the perfect person to add to our production team, I'm glad to say that we have found her. Cecile has started her training as our new baker a couple of weeks ago and she is doing really great. What's really interesting about this story is that I met Cecile exactly one year ago when she became a CSB bread share member and then signed up to attend my very first sourdough baking class...talk about serendipity.

Our retail bakery cafe at the indoor market is going to open its doors this coming spring, so we are all anxiously preparing for the start of that - planning out construction, planning out the interior design, planning our menu, and testing recipes. I'm equally excited and nervous about this move...it's definitely my biggest undertaking yet! This past weekend, our friends at The Norwegian opened their doors to the public and we were so thrilled for them because they have come such a long way for this momentous occasion. We are also thrilled because C&C will be providing the bread for service there moving forward. When I delivered fresh loaves to the restaurant on the eve of their opening day, I was so inspired and thought to myself..."that'll be us soon too."

Anyway, with all that said, the show must go on in the meantime. With the holidays around the corner, I'm happy to say that we have put together our Christmas offerings and made them available for purchase in our online shop. We are now taking pre-orders for holiday miches to be picked up at Artale & Co. on the weekend before Christmas. We have also posted baking class dates for December, January, and February. This is also a great time to sign up for a CSB bread share membership for 2019. I hope that you'll make us a part of your holiday season and that one of these options will be the perfect gift for the bread lovers in your life!

Bread for Thanksgiving 💛

All summer, all I wanted was for it to cool down because our bakery gets overwhelmingly hot during the height of market season. And, of course, as soon as it does get cold outside...I long for the opposite because our workload eases and so does the kitchen temperature. I will say though that my favorite thing about this time of year is being able to keep toasty in front of the fireplace at home and eating up all the food that accompanies the holidays.

One of my favorite meals of the year is coming up in a couple of days...and I'm so excited for it! Five Forks Market is having its annual Beaujolais Nouveau Party this week where bottles of this year's wine are uncorked at everyone's table and bottomless bowls of special peasant stew are served. No joke, this stew is SO ridiculously good! I look forward to not only gathering with friends to attend this dinner, but also to be baking for it...this is the third year that C&C will be baking all the bread for the event. If you don't have plans for Thursday night, you should definitely come join! Call the restaurant to make reservations.

For Thanksgiving and Christmas, we'll be baking up our miches again (pictured above). These enormous loaves are perfect for family gatherings as they span over a foot across and weigh in at about 1.8 kilos. We have made it available for purchase in our online shop today and will be taking pre-orders from now through midnight Sunday. The miches will all be delivered to our friends at Artale & Co. the day before Thanksgiving for pick-up. We sold out of these loaves fairly quickly last year so I encourage you to get in your order soon - here's the link to our SHOP.

Lastly, we are holding our second bread class for November at the bakery this coming weekend. There are a couple of openings still left if you're interested in joining and learning about working with natural leavening. You can sign up for it HERE.

🔥 L E G A C Y 🔥

Years ago, I got an excited phone call from a friend who said, "Hey Jojo, I got a new oven...come over!!!" It was the summer that Alchemy was going to open at Giovanni's and Al had just installed a beautiful Bongard deck oven back in the kitchen. House made breads, hand-cut pastas, and woodfired pizzas were going to be on the menu. It had been some time since I'd stepped away from baking so I was thrilled to get back into it and lend a hand in setting up the bread portion of it.

It was a really fun summer and just the energy buzzing through the entire place on opening day was unmatched. I imagine Al and his team are feeling the same thing right now with getting ready for the highly anticipated opening of their new steakhouse featuring Argentinian Asado cooking, Legacy. While I may not be there as part of the crew this time around, I'm still feeling that same thrill because Crust & Crumbles will be providing bread for the restaurant! I've been tweaking some of our formulas in preparation of opening day so it can be a perfect addition to the dining experience. Legacy will open doors on October 22nd.

In other news, there are just a handful of market days left till the season is completely done. Tomorrow morning we will be at the North End City Market and the Beloit Farmer's Market with fresh loaves for ya. On the menu, we will have Organic Country White, Seeded Whole Wheat, Olive Oil Semolina, Cranberry Walnut, and Baker & Brewer. We look forward to seeing you there :)

Oh and P.S. - Don't forget to sign up for a bread baking class!