fall and the markets

Here we are autumn and the farmer markets are in full harvest. i am hoping people will realize how short and sweet the farm bounty is and take advantage of it.last Saturday at crocker park and Sunday at kamm's corner i was sorry that more people were not taking advantage. the question is how to convince people to buy local when the season is at the peak.
so that is my take, now here is a nice email we just received from a new customer from Cincinnati.

Hi,

I was in your store last month looking for rétes -- specifically cabbage, because my parents always raved about it. I bought 3 different frozen ones back to Cincinnati with me.

Just wanted to tell you they were terrific -- just like I remember from my childhood in Connecticut -- and I'm so pleased to have found your shop.

Hope to get back to Cleveland -- the sooner the better -- and will definitely stop by again.

Meanwhile, wishing you the very best.

Suzanne

michael

independence day

so it is 7-4-09
what does this mean? celebratory remembering? nostalgic musings of past times locked in the mind like so many others so much clutter.
the eve of change may be upon us or is this still just a narcissism condition of condition we're in?
question of balance could answer the unified theory of Albert if only i had the capacity to see.
i am humbled again. i am busy in life, moment to moment i forget again and again. i start over from the beginning, look out of the side door of the bakery at dawn and see the clouds, sun, and my next chance to be.

bonpo/just-is-ness

My efforts to do something about the bakery building and move to other place is hitting the wall of the present conditions.

"Open awareness is totally spontaneous and effortless. The only way to experience it is to stop trying; paradoxically, any form of effort automatically blocks it. The technique is to do nothing reflexively...you can't make it happen. Doing and not doing are equally inappropriate. This effortlessness is referred to "artful endeavor" and as spontaneous meditation."
parabola summer2009
book review Unbound Wholeness by:Anne Carolyn Klein and Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpche
reviewed by J.M. White
pg.110

I direct my efforts to daily production, bill paying, pragmatic effort neither good nor bad just is.
Probabilities are like the horizon ever in front of me pushing me along like a favorable wind. I will trust in the flow of life, no worry.

The spring is almost gone to summer the farmer's markets are open see you there.
shaker/crocker/twinsberg/chargrin falls/kamm's corner

spring hope eternal

hope springs eternal.
yes the flowers are blooming,yes the sky is brighter,longer day,longer light,how we are moved by the external effect serves as a reminder of how little we DO. i make a conscious decision to BE more aware of my inner voice and stumble to some greater effort to be shown the folly of my solitary effort.
we are ready to let go of the Cafe Marika it will be something else. hope is what feeds the illusion i have some control. today i decide to let it go. today i go back to work and try to stay present quiet aware of the small twitch left eye always present.muscles,bones, and still i think there is more to it but that really is all there is.
when i drive through the city of cleveland, quincy,cedar,all the numbered streets so empty and full of boarded up bldgs. i am those places too. i hear the thousands of faint voices left to echo the way we were back when the fullness, lives living as me trying to DO.

updates and spring

SPRING
better days ahead, maybe...just heard that a great local food supplier is OUT OF BUSINESS AFTER 100 YEARS. ALopresti. this is only the start of many to come. "the only thing that doesn't change is the will to change"
small comfort from this fact of life.
here we are facing the spring, the new buds popping out of the dead leaves of last year's bounty.we are trying to do the same as we plod along the process to sell off the history of buckeye rd. to the phoenix of our new place still unknown.
onto the new work, it is almost Easter and Passover we are busy making the many unique products for the season,easter eggs of chocalate,yellow cake lambs, paska bread and
for passover we have macaroons,macaroon crusted cheesecakes,huge sponge cakes, rich chocolate tortes and all from the matzoh baked for this special year 2009.
come see us soon.

new year/crime and response

so here i am on super sunday, time to reflect and update everyone about the recent weeks and aftermath.the link to the story says it all but i want to say also how many people have contacted us by phone,mail, and email. hundreds of you have expressed the theme keep Lucy's open, somehow.we are trying to sort out just what to do and in the meantime we are open at buckeye rd. tues.-sat. 7am-4pm. i want to thank everyone here and now for heartfelt words and gestures, we were given generously by several fellow bakers who sent us actual cash to help us, something we never expected but much appreciated. the many comments and letters are amazing a small example are the 95 comments at the end of the news story. we have received tons of get well cards many with personal letters written about how important lucy's bakery has been and is to their lives and family events and holidays.the future is yet to happen and we are hopeful in the coming weeks we will find a plan to keep our wonderful business healthy and stable.please keep it in your mind how crucial and fragile every small local business is during this terrible economic state we are in. we can make a difference by keeping the money we spend right here in our town.stay tuned/stay awake/stay engaged in your life and place.
michael and marika

december-endings and beginnings

December the darkest month here in north America yet from the moment of darkest comes the beginning of more light/the cycle of our lives played out as a lovely sonata or brisk winter wind across the cheeks of a child/ who ever forgets that sense of wonder looking up at the winter snow or frozen puddle/is that my face looking back at me?
I SIT HERE IN MY BAKERY THE SMELLS OF IT FILL MY HEART WITH JOY/ even as i ponder the fate of this LEGACY, the history is short by geology but long in tooth of those that have memories from childhood,who come back like lemmings to partake once again in strudels,dobos, and their own specific taste they must have again. when you eat memories you nourish a place within that only you can feel but all people feel too.
we are on the brink of the end of an era, the cafe is on life-support, the buckeye rd. a shadow memory of what was once good.like the a field of dreams i long for some light to come out of the darkness to renew and sustain toward the unknowable desired result of my years of work, i do not know what will be and i am ok.
peace to all who find it in their hearts to pray for more donuts for the NEW year.