There is a wonderful Pastry Chef who I met through Instagram a few years ago. I wrote a little note about him in one of my blogs early on when he had posted a recipe for a coffee cake from the New York Times that I was pretty sure was one my mother had read years before and used to recreate a coffee cake her father who was a baker from a family of generations of bakers had made when she was growing up. It's a very special cake to me and one I make as often as possible, and when I saw the post and the recipe I had had sent a note to the Pastry Chef to tell him I thought it was a recipe that I recognized. At the time I asked him if I could write a blog post about him, but he said he was just creating pastries for fun and mostly for friends and family, but that maybe one day in the future if he ever became more professional about it we could talk about a blog post. The years went by and I kept seeing his gorgeous creations. Although he said he was just doing it for fun, what he creates is always so intricately beautiful and so full of knowledge, history and craftsmanship that it seemed to me that he really was a professional although he kept saying he was not.
From time to time I saw that he was making special orders for people, and then last year I saw that he had started an online company and that he was making deliveries and taking orders for pickup, and so I reached out to him again about the possibility of a blog post. I didn't hear back and then I saw just a few months ago that he was making moon cakes for the special moon cake holiday celebration, but I had missed the post with the deadline for ordering. He posted one more time about it, saying that there might be one order available and that he would announce by Friday if there was, and whoever was the first to send him a direct message to order it would be the one who would get it. The person who ordered it would have to pick it up, but that didn't bother me. I don't mind traveling and because I haven't been traveling much these days at all it seemed like a lovely idea for an adventure. I made sure to look at his post first thing, and sent him the message, and so finally I was able to place an order, and one lovely afternoon in September I headed out to find my way to the place where he made his beautiful creations.
The moon cakes were not only lovely, but they really were delicious in a way that truly artisanal baking is. There was something that was indescribably special about them, and each one was made with such care and such artistry that when I arrived home I kept finding different ways to photograph them. Even the packaging was special and so carefully done that I felt as if I had received a very special gift. When I picked them up I was able to find out just a bit about them from from the person who met me and gave them to me. It wasn't the baker himself because he was working that day, and so I have still not met him, but what I learned in the few moments when I picked them up confirmed to me that he is a very special person. The recipe he had used for one of the cakes was from a very special family recipe, and he had taken the time to learn the tradition of what he was creating as he does with all of the pastries he makes. There is a respect for tradition and the skill of an Artist that goes into this Pastry Chefs careful work. I think there must be much love and the wish to give people something that is not only beautiful but also that will taste of the finest and most memorably enjoyable moments. In the words written on his website, "Bringing you sweet happiness is our mission." He has found the way of revealing the beauty in pastry, and in his effort and skill and remarkable creativity he has brought the tradition of a craft and artistry into the lives of those who are lucky enough to meet him.
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