for heaven's cake

website

2011-11-18T04:38:00.003-05:00

i am searching for help to resurrect my shopping cart. it seems the data base will not convert to upload to my new server host. the company that i paid to build the site has held me hostage for huge fees to simply host they want 1500.00 per year. the same service cost is 80.00 per year. my problem is their database will not convert to upload. so far i can find no one to help me with this before the holidays or the quotes include expensive(1000.00) changes that are not really needed. i am feeling like i am dealing with a bunch of used car shysters or snake oil pitchmen. anyone out there in cyberville that can help please call me at the shop. 216-752-0828

2011-07-25T21:31:00.000-04:00

for heaven's cake: here we go again

2011-07-17T06:52:00.000-04:00

for heaven's cake: here we go again

http://ohioauthority.com/articles/region/inner-city-holler-Lucy's-Sweet-Surrender-bakery-Cleveland-robbery

here we go again

2011-06-06T06:56:00.002-04:00

To the greater Cleveland population...as we shrink in size the facts are clear to me. "Do more with less," a Cleveland policeman said to me. The detective assigned to our latest armed robber, told us they do not have a thumb drive to down load my video of the crime. I went to the store $30.00 later we gave him the tape. Unfortunately, the police video tech was laid of last month so now we are looking for a video expert to help us enhance the video to post the criminal's face online in hopes of some ID. on the guy. We suspect certain local area people but the evidence is speculative and the detective" cannot act on the information," and so it goes... Kurt was right. I am coming and going in time, in my head and heart the weight is crushing all that is good and could be again.My field of dreams is plowed over. A bitter taste has supplanted the sweet taste of my baked goods. The smog and rust and corrupt leaders that drove me to leave my home town back in the 70's is back like a virulent dis-ease is back with a vengeance. What do i do now? Throw it all away? 18 years on Buckeye rd. baking, sweating the small stuff, working towards the perfection of my art that never comes. It was always about the process, the daily work, every moment one tries to keep it together. To serve, to produce, to be in joy not anger at all this miasma. I am at a loss to find the path out and onward to the next moment. I am stuck in the image of the gun in face, the gasp of air as my ribs are crushed, the sight of my wife's eyes facing the same thug a second later. Then he is gone so fast the whole scene a minute of time, will last a lifetime.Do you know how i feel? Do you appreciate the deep loss of what i love to do, 30 years i have been this thing 10,12, 18 hours a day. For what? I cannot say anymore.

Why do i post this shit when i want to post about my wonderful food, my knowledge of food after 30 years of work and learning, my good life, and so it goes, it is a bad joke, it is a bad taste.

I would love some dialog from all of you not just sympathy i do not write this for that.Thank you if you do respond.

making connections

2011-03-24T15:11:00.002-04:00

The world is faster and more inter-connected than ever with the technology available.I have always been a little out of sync with this phenomena. I am working hard to make connections to the consumers out there that maybe do not know about Lucy's Bakery. A business that started in the "Happy Days" of the fifties when places like Buckeye rd. were filled with old world people in the "new world" of American optimism. I hope in the coming months i can communicate a sense of the duality and seductive flavors that are my daily bread. I feel the need to express how grateful i am to work in such a realm of fresh, quality raw materials creating the final products enjoyed by our long time and loyal customers.

The season of Passover and Easter is almost here.We will shift into producing all the wonderful seasonal specialties for these two groups of folks.Macaroons, Cheesecakes,Sponge cakes, and all the other matzo based bakery that is Passover.; then quick change to Easter egg shaped cakes, Nut rolls, Paska Bread, chocolate filled pastel colorful fondant glazed eggs...

Clevelanders, we are still here. tell your friends to check us out on the new website, facebook, and at the wonderful local farm markets that we are vending at all over the greater Cleveland area.

Help us to reach the new folks to the area, remember we deliver allover too!

michael@lucys

fall and the markets

2009-10-12T07:11:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-02T06:17:00.002-04:00

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

2009-05-18T11:04:00.002-04:00

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

2009-04-20T08:01:00.002-04:00

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

2009-03-23T20:40:00.000-04:00

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

2009-02-01T09:27:00.000-05:00

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

2008-12-16T06:43:00.000-05:00

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.

LA SHANA TOVA

2008-10-15T14:29:00.002-04:00

I hope this new year will bring the Cleveland community better times marked by a new awakening of the precious gifts we have here on the north coast. I am especially happy right now to report Lucy's is humming away with bakery activity. We produced over 900 fresh Challahs for the High Holy Days and now are busy again preparing for the fall season of farm markets and customers here on Buckeye rd. Hope that anyone reading might share with us your new year story for 2009. I light of the serious nature of these times we all need to inspire and care for each other more than ever before.

market musings

2008-09-04T10:30:00.002-04:00

So after labor day here we are at the farmers markets every week the tables are full with the bountiful harvest.The selection gets better by the week, i am curious why the consuming public always seems to thin out about the same time? This is due to 1. kids back in school 2. weather is less perfect 3. people have less time to shop. Are these accurate answers? i do not know but would love to hear from some people who could help understand this phenomena and suggest how we could increase the traffic when the food is so abundant. The interesting observation is how crowded the markets are in the spring when there is very little fresh produce here in Ohio and now when the market is full of choices where is everybody? I look forward to hearing from you. I am attaching a picture from the market of a wonderful bowl of trifle we served one year at Shaker Sq.

about the title

2008-08-22T08:30:00.002-04:00

For heaven's Cake was a wonderful coffeehouse that i managed on Haight street in San Francisco back in the 80's. i love the name and decided to use it here. thank you for the recent comments and i will be taking and answering any bakery/food questions anytime. i will be starting to post more about Lucy's and Cafe Marika as well as other subjects near and dear to my heart.
Today i would like to encourage anyone to seek out and support our local farmers and buy from the grower's mkts. that have proliferated all over Northeast Ohio.There has been much press and exposure about these new venues to buy our food, but i can say from my experience(14 yrs.) as a vendor that the majority of consumers still shop at traditional grocers for these foods. My opinion is that one wallmart super store will sell in one week what all the farms at a mkt. sells all season. the cost difference is growing smaller with transportation costs etc. and there is no comparison for taste of local fresh picked food. The story is always personal choice we need everyone to see there is choice in this and individuals can make huge impacts on the lives of these hard working family farms.

memo to our city leaders

2008-08-14T13:19:00.001-04:00

a bit of reaction to the call for more talk by THE GREATER CLEVELAND PARTNERSHIP AND 10'000 ideas...
i throw my growl towel for action
when will we finally talk it out enough then see some action. when miles kennedy had a vision for waterloo he put up his own money risked and lost but won a few too.look at waterloo and there is significant improvement from private investment.why do the pols need to use up the tax money for other millionaires ideas instead of directly to the needest areas. gateway, browns stadium,4th st. on and on it goes, but buckeye rd. st.clair,kinsman, fleet, we have to beg and beg to get crumbs of money for any projects. we need the rich suburbans who left the grit of city life behind to pony up some cheddar in copious amounts in all areas of this city. we need the leaders to actually lead not steal our hard earned money and heartfelt energy for change.

first blog

2008-08-08T10:43:00.001-04:00

Here i am finally getting the blog out. it is August already and high summer is full blown. Here in Cleveland, Ohio the mood is "desultory days". We are living in challenging times amid the economic and social strains of our surroundings. Yet, even as i groan under the weight , trudge daily through my appointed tasks, keep up with the ability to respond, i sense the wonder, feel the joy, wish to be more awake. The good people of the world i am here to say what i feel and hope all who find me will enjoy and be moved to connect with my words.