Newspaper Page Text
CM K
She Sttnes
gainesvilletimes.com
Midweek Edition-December21-22, 2022
Rachel Estes Features Editor | 770-718-3421 | life@gainesvilletimes.com
‘You just kind of have to go with the flow’
Photos submitted to The Times
Feldman is the pastry chef behind Baked and Caked, a licensed cottage bakery specializing in custom cakes and cookies for
all occasions.
How quarantine hobby became Gainesville baker’s life calling
Feldman spends an average of eight to 10 hours a day in her roughly 200-square-foot kitchen
and spare bedroom turned decorating studio, whipping up custom cakes and cookies for all
occasions.
Feldman has no formal education in cake and cookie artistry, but wields skills she’s picked up
along the way along with those imparted by her grandmother.
BY RACHEL ESTES
restes@gainesvilletimes.com
When her serving and bar-
tending job hit a two-week
pause in 2020, Jess Feldman
leaned into a hobby that,
unbeknownst to her, would
soon fold into something
sweeter.
The pastry chef behind
Gainesville-based cottage
bakery Baked and Caked,
Feldman was studying to
become an art teacher when
the COVID-19 pandemic
upended the food service
industry and “I was like,
‘What am I supposed to do?’”
she said.
At 26, Feldman enlisted her
Kitchen Aid mixer — a gift
from her mom — and a child
hood affinity for baking and
began crafting sweet treats,
sharing them on social media
just for fun.
“Then one thing led to
another and one friend was
like, ‘Hey, can you make my
son a cake?’ And I was like,
‘I’m sure I can. I never have,
but I mean, I’ll try it,’” she
said. “After that, it was like
one person after the next and
it just kind of took over. ”
Now two years later, Feld
man spends an average of
eight to 10 hours a day in
her roughly 200-square-foot
kitchen and spare bedroom
turned decorating studio,
whipping up custom cakes
and cookies for all occasions.
But the thing that tends to
catch her clientele by sur
prise is her age.
“You’ll meet clients who
you’ve never met before and
they’re like, ‘Wow, I didn’t
expect you to be so young.’
And I’m thinking, ‘I’m 28. Do
I have to be some old lady to
make you a cake?’ But then
they try my stuff and they’re
like, ‘Wow, you know what
you’re doing.’ Don’t judge a
book by its cover.”
According to Feldman,
running a cottage bakery
was the furthest thing from
her mind when she settled
in the kitchen that day; for
her, baking was simply a fun
and familiar way to pass the
time until her workplace
reopened.
While she’s still serving and
bartending on the side, she’s
placed the pursuit of an art
education career on the shelf
in favor of a different kind of
creative outlet.
“Decorating cookies and
cakes, you never do the same
thing, ever,” she said. “It
really is like art.”
Feldman has no formal
education in cake and cookie
artistry, but wields skills she’s
picked up along the way along
with those imparted by her
grandmother.
“Growing up, my mom
didn’t cook at all, so I would.
My grandma taught me
everything. I was always in
the kitchen with her. Thanks
giving, Christmas, I was mak
ing all the meals — even at 12
years old, I was making green
bean casserole. It definitely
makes sense looking back.”
As a kid, Feldman remem
bers making cakes and
brownies from boxed mixes
her mom would bring home
from the store — sans the
frosting, which she had a par
ticular disdain for until she
discovered homemade choc
olate buttercream.
She watched a lot of
Food Network segments,
too, namely those involv
ing Giada De Laurentiis and
“Chopped.”
“‘Chopped’ was my jam
— not knowing what the
ingredients are and seeing
the pressure,” she said. “I did
watch ‘Cupcake Wars’ a good
bit, too, but it never triggered
anything in me. Now that I
look back, I should have been
more interested in it than I
was.”
Among Baked and Caked
fan favorites are Feldman’s
strawberry shortcake —
complete with a jammy pre-
serve-style center and vanilla
buttercream frosting — red
velvet and key lime pie cake.
Feldman’s own palate
leans toward the chocolate
and nutty side of the flavor
spectrum: German chocolate,
chocolate cake with rasp
berry filling and chocolate
buttercream and humming
bird cake — a banana-pineap
ple spice cake that, according
to the New York Times, is
believed to have originated in
Jamaica.
“I don’t know who thought
of pineapple in a cake, but
I love it,” Feldman said. “I
■ Please see BAKERY,2B
Christmas presents
in Appalachians came
in humble packaging
At the turn of the 20th century and on into the
mid-1950s, life in the Appalachians was a tale of
black-and-white gothic existence.
Hollywood pretends it knows the truth when it
shows little girls in tattered coats handed down
many times and mended
repeatedly, while men wear
overalls and women are
covered in dresses, thick
stockings and sweaters that
sometimes lasted 25 or 30
years.
At Christmas, a scrawny
tree was dragged in from the
piney woods and decorated
with rustic, homemade
ornaments and, if possible,
strands of popcorn. As Mama
told it, each child had an old
sock for a stocking. On Christmas morning, nothing
thrilled the children more than to find fresh fruit
— a real luxury to those who barely had enough to
eat.
This story I will always recall her telling: My
uncle Doyle, 3 years old, could not talk plain. He
had pulled out an orange and a few pieces of hard
candy when he realized the sock was still heavy.
He dug back in and found another orange, stuck in
the toe of the sock. He was overcome with pure joy.
“Wook!” he exclaimed, dancing around the bare
floor and cold room. “Me got another ‘wrange.’”
For the rest of her days, Mama would remem
ber the joy those two oranges gave her baby
brother.
In the mountains, especially in the Depression,
folks would often say, “It’s gonna be a hard candy
Christmas,” meaning there would be no toys. Only
fruit and hard pieces of candy.
A Christmas never comes that I don’t think of
Mama and her love for peppermint sticks. In fact,
in the kitchen of her house, I still have the jar with
the last seven or eight peppermint sticks that were
left over from the Christmas before she died in
February.
Dolly Parton made a Christmas standard of a
song called “Hard Candy Christmas.” Once, Tink
and I were discussing songs of hers that would
make good movies. I commented, “‘Hard Candy
Christmas’ would make a terrific movie.”
Dolly replied, “I didn’t write that song. Carol
Hall did.”
I was stunned. “It sounds just like you.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t write it but I lived it.”
Later, I read that Carol Hall, a Broadway com
poser, had been inspired to write the song after
reading Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory,”
one of my favorite short stories.
Appalachian folks from that era — the one in
which Mama was raised — had a mournful woe
woven into the timbre of their voices when they
recited poems or stories. It was a sad melody born
into their voices that never escaped them. It could
be chillingly haunting, like Mama’s voice when
she recited a lengthy ode that she had learned as
a child.
A gloomy tone, it is 90 lines long. Mama knew
each by heart. Sometimes I, or later my niece,
Nicole, would climb into bed with Mama and ask
her to tell the story. In her best Appalachian, mel
ancholic tone, she began:
The room was so cold and cheerless and
bare,with its rickety table and one broken chair
a cradle stood empty, pushed up to the wall, and
somehow that seemed the saddest of all
It was a Christmas tale for us, about a man who
left his dying wife and baby without food or heat to
go to “The Drinking House Over The Way” — the
title of the poem.
Occasionally, Mama would stop and gather her
thoughts but she always remembered all 90 lines.
Over 100 years old, it ends with the lines: And,
please, when I’m gone, ask someone to pray for
him at the drinkin’ house over the way.
Nicole asked Mama to write down the words.
Recently, while going through my desk, I found
a notebook of Mama’s where, in her distinctive
script, she had written the poem. It was almost as
powerful in her writing as it was in her voice.
A gothic Christmas tale of Appalachian woe.
Ronda Rich is the best-selling author of several books,
including “What Southern Women Know About Faith.”
Sign up for her newsletter at www.rondarich.com. Her
column publishes weekly.
RONDA RICH
southswomen@
bellsouth.net
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