Odette D’Aniello 5:16
after that. Wow. So tell us about your journey from because you went from culinary school. And you know, this is for people who want to go to culinary school. And it sounds like you’re a success story with that. So what was your journey like after culinary school? Did they How did you find the job? And what was that experience? Like? Yeah,
Lucy Damkoehler 5:39
So the culinary school that I went to, New England Culinary Institute, they have two internship programs. So the first internship I did was with Hamersley Bistro in Boston, and I just I really bonded with the chef Gordon Hamersley, he became such a, like a huge mentor to me. And so and he was on the board of our culinary school. So when it came time to going into my second internship, I was kind of thinking where I could go. And I reached out to Gordon and was like, hey, like, what should I do? Where should I go on an internship and he was kind of throwing out some restaurants and he had said Gramercy Tavern. And at that year, I think, Gramercy Tavern was they were definitely on the top, one of the top 50 restaurants in in Gourmet magazine. And I just kind of had a moment of like, wait, I, I can work there. Like, that’s something I can actually do. And it you know, small town, like you don’t think you get to work in the best restaurant in the country or top restaurants. But he encouraged me, he’s like, Yeah, of course. So I, you know, luckily was able to go in as an intern, which I think gave me the foot in the door. And from there, it’s just up to you as an employee to take it and run with it. So I started off in the savory program because I didn’t do baking and pastry. I did a savory culinary degree. I’m a little bit too old. The baking and pastry was not a thing at the time, when I was still became popular, like maybe a few few years later. But I’m really I’m glad that I didn’t specialize only in baking because it gave me the quote like the savory culinary skills that I have that has really hot like given me jobs a lot. So pastry chef jobs are kind of an amenity. So it’s a hard most restaurants don’t have pastry chefs. Yeah, it’s a luxury position. So with my savory background, I was able to go in and kind of advertise myself as being able to, I can butcher a chicken and I can decorate a wedding cake, you know. So you know, 50 cent baking and 50% I can, I can be whatever you need me to be and, and I was able to get a couple jobs, kind of being able to do both. And I so there’s the culinary program at school was savory. But then when I started at Gramercy, I was on the line for a few months and then finished my internship. And that’s when I started talking to the pastry department and kind of weaseled my way into the pastry department and settled in there for about a year and a half. And that’s when I really was able to, like, get my pastry education was once I got in. I grant mercy. So what was
Odette D’Aniello 8:13
different? So I know is, you know, I, I do know, like, from my experience that if you know how to cook, you know, it’s a it’s a skill that it’s translatable into baking, but bakers don’t necessarily know how to cook. You know what I mean?
Lucy Damkoehler 8:31
Yeah, I know. And I like that question, because so my kind of all over the place with my current venture right now is, I’m a bakery owner, I own a bakery. But we just opened a few months ago, we opened a cooking school. So we have a classroom available. And I started I’m teaching just open to the public, local people and a lot of its baking them teaching them but I’m also teaching some savory cooking. But my favorite thing to teach people like amateur bakers and home cooks, is about I think, because of my savory background, I feel like I have a little bit more flexibility in baking then or I feel a little bit more calm and more flexible with baking because baking is precision, but it’s also, you can add live a little bit. I mean, I some pastry chefs will probably kill me for saying that. But right now there’s a point where savory cooking everybody, like a lot of people who cook at home, say, oh, cooking’s easy, I can just throw this in a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And baking, you have to follow precision and you have to follow the recipe. And I agree with them about following recipes. And also not really throwing things in and out but at the same time, I think that with my savory background of training, it kind of helps me be a little bit more free with how I how I bake.
Odette D’Aniello 9:51
That’s super exciting that you opened up a cooking school. So tell us more about that.
Lucy Damkoehler 9:56
Yeah, so when I when I first started in Seattle, I was working in Toluca restaurant in the Mayflower Park Hotel. Oh yeah, I worked for Wayne Johnson was the chef at the time. And so I started off as a pastry chef, and I needed to supplement my income because it wasn’t, you know, doesn’t pay on ton. So I needed to get a second job. And Wayne was a part of the Blue Ribbon Cooking School in Seattle. And so he was like, awesome. I’ve got a part time job for you. Come meet me down here. And I was like, Oh, Ah, I was like, 22. I was like, I’m not sure if I could do this. So I started I, I did one class and immediately fell in love with it. I just, I was so much fun. So I taught cooking classes in Seattle, part time, for the whole 12 years. I was there. It was awesome. So you know, sometimes I had jobs that are a little bit more intense, and I couldn’t do a part time job. And then other times, when I was a stay at home mom air quotes, I worked like 30 hours a week teaching classes. So it’s, it was really became a huge part of my life. So when I moved to Massachusetts, I wanted to make that a part of the business, but our kitchen is really small. And then, so it was really hard to get I was working, you know, 60,70 hours a week, trying to find time to take away from production to teach a class. And it didn’t end up really working. And then COVID happened. The story, you know, we our business actually, like blew up, which was really awesome. We did were really successful. And I was able to raise enough money to be able to put an addition on our building. Yeah, so now we have a separate space for it. .
Odette D’Aniello 11:37
That’s beautiful. The people who help you bake? How many employees?
Lucy Damkoehler 11:42
I have about I have like 13 or 14 employees. I have about six full time. And then the rest are part time some high school kids. So it’s, it’s huge. We started off with just me as the baker and I had a person helping me wash dishes and peel apples. And now I’m, I can sit here and do a podcast while my employees are baking. It’s pretty great.
Odette D’Aniello 12:07
Yeah, that’s awesome! So how was that experience going from the maker and the creator, to becoming a boss?
Lucy Damkoehler 12:12
I’m still living it. And it’s, it is the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever gone through. So I’ve been a pastry chef, where I’ve managed employees. But I’ve always been kind of like a working alongside chef manager, where I’m doing the labor with them and producing alongside them, and then just kind of making sure that they’re following recipes, and they’re making things correctly and you know, all the proper managerial stuff. Um, but in the last year, since I added the classroom, I’ve really had to figure out how to kind of manage from above or, and it’s really hard, it’s really hard, letting go. It’s hard. Not micromanaging your employees, but at the same time, it’s hard to give them enough freedom where you just watch them mess something up. So it’s, it’s a daily struggle, for sure.
Odette D’Aniello 13:05
Right, so what does your day look like? Like? How do you split your days.
Lucy Damkoehler 13:08
Um, so I usually get to the shop around four or five in the morning. And we’ll I’ll you know, I’ll do some paperwork and emails. And then I’m often in the kitchen sometime around eight or so just checking in on people, I very much like two times a week, three times a week, I’ll have to run errands to go shopping because we’re in such a small town that are our delivery vendors is pretty small. So it’s not I don’t have a lot of options for getting product delivered here. So I’ll run errands and then I come back, I try to take a little meantime in the middle of the day. And then when I have cooking classes at night, I often come back and start prepping for the classes around four in the afternoon. And then I’m home around 830.
Odette D’Aniello 13:56
That’s a long day.
Lucy Damkoehler 13:57
It’s not every day like that. But it’s right now it’s like two to three days a week. I’m actively trying to get to the point where I can come in a little bit later. And then also eventually have cooking instructors that will help me that can teach classes and I won’t be teaching all the classes. But for right now as we’re starting this new project. It’s all me.
Odette D’Aniello 14:19
That’s super cool. I remember Blue Ribbon Cooking school opened in Tacoma there. There was a venue there. Yep. Right? Yeah,
Lucy Damkoehler 14:26
it’s called the Sanders or maybe I don’t remember what it was. But yeah, there’s Yeah, they have a location that they do wedding venues that they they’re actually huge. They have a lot of vendors at this point they’re working with the cooking classes are in Eastlake. And they mostly specialize in corporate team building events, which are so much fun. And that’s what I love to do here too. There’s just really fun watching. employees work together cooking together. Yeah.
Odette D’Aniello 14:56
So how did you guys do it? Did you have menus? How do you How did you do it? it in Seattle? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Lucy Damkoehler 15:04
they it depended on the with the client chose but there was a menu of classes. And then but the more popular one was an Iron Chef competition. So they would split the group in half and they would compete against each other there was like a secret ingredient and they would have to make each group would have to make a dessert, an entree, and a side dish. And
Odette D’Aniello 15:26
it was it was fun. That is so cool. That’s I love that whole thing. I mean, I’ve taken that class. I don’t know if it was Blue Ribbon, but it’s always just so fun to eat what you make. Yeah, yeah.
Lucy Damkoehler 15:41
Watching their faces and, and feeling like, wow, I could I could do that. It was really? Yeah. And then I also helped. I taught classes at Whisk, which is in Bellevue, or like a kitchen store and classroom. About a year and then I had got pregnant with my second kid, so I had to back off, but that was that was fun, too.
Odette D’Aniello 16:05
And then you helped open the hot hocolate company.
Lucy Damkoehler 16:10
Yeah, I was the opening kitchen manager with Hot Cakes. And that really gave me an opportunity to kind of get firsthand what it’s like to own a small business from a female pastry chef.
Odette D’Aniello 16:23
What was the name? What was her name?
Lucy Damkoehler 16:25
Her name is Autumn Martin. We sold the company recently Hot Cakes is still in existence. But I think she she co owns Frankie and Joe’s in Capitol Hill. It’s an ice cream shop. But oh, hotcakes, but it’s still it’s still open?
Odette D’Aniello 16:40
That’s fine. I love that. Yeah. That’s I love their product. That’s so good. Yeah,
Lucy Damkoehler 16:47
it was awesome. It was a really, it was a good way to see what it was like to, you know, to start up a company and really understand the amount of time that it takes to run a business. It’s it’s a huge, it’s a huge dedication. As
Odette D’Aniello 17:02
you’re experiencing it. Yeah. Yeah. But it seems like you are have been very, very successful. Tell me about like, how do you feel inside? You know, your this is a dream come true. I mean, what is how is how do you see your life like in this perspective, like where you are now? But yeah, I
Lucy Damkoehler 17:21
mean, it’s like anything, it’s probably hard to reflect when you’re living it and but it absolutely is a dream. Although I never really knew that this was a dream. Like I always had the idea that I wanted to get a pastry chef job or, you know, a job in the restaurant food industry and have a job that I love that I can stay long term. And in the end, I ended up you know, doing my own business, which is what, it just kind of dropped in my lap. And this the story that the way that I got this business is pretty magical. I mean, it was, it’s pretty incredible.
Odette D’Aniello 17:54
Tell us a story.
Lucy Damkoehler 17:56
So I’m from Bernardston and I was I was raised here I moved when I was 18, to go to culinary school. And about two weeks before I went off to culinary school, this adorable little red barn building got turned into a bakery, it was a real estate office. But these people came from, from New York and they renovated the building, turned it into a bakery. And I was so bummed that they had only opened right as I was going to culinary school, I would have worked for them when I was that’s the bakery, I would have worked at it, I worked at a different one, you know, a little further away. So I went in and introduce myself and just kind of made friends with them and then went off to culinary school. And then over the years, like 18 years over, you know, every time I’d come home for summer Christmas, I would stop in and say hi and chat with them. And they became kind of mentors that I never really worked for. But just that kind of, you know, anytime I had any advice that I needed, I would bounce ideas off of them. So they’re really amazing people and I got to know them pretty well. And then I was in Seattle working at Seattle University as the corporate pastry chef for Bon Appetit management company, and bon appetit had been the management company in that building for 20 years, but the contracts became up for renewal. And we all just kind of assumed that we thought it was gonna get it. Yes, yeah. So you’ve decided to go with a different company. And so we saw our VP pulled us into an office basically to tell us that we didn’t get the contract but about an hour before the meeting happened. My mom called me and said, Hey, I just got a message on the on our landline that never nobody has anymore but online from Mike from the bakery asking for your contact information because he has a bakery opportunity. I was like oh, whatever okay, I had my my daughter was like, I’m not even a year yet and we were maybe talking about the idea of moving back but and I had told them that I wanted to open something maybe in like in Vermont somewhere not in my hometown like never know I didn’t really think anything of it, then we sat down to hear that we were going to be losing our jobs, basically. And I had this moment of like, oh my gosh, what is this bakery phone call? Anyway, turns out the same day I found out I was getting laid off was the day that Mike and Kay said, we want to give you first refusal to buying the bakery.
Odette D’Aniello 20:21
I was like, wow, oh, my gosh, that’s me. So
Lucy Damkoehler 20:24
I went home and, you know, quickly started working on a business plan. And it was about two weeks into working on the business plan that we were sitting on the couch, and I was my husband was, you know, we’re just watching a TV show. And I looked at him. I’m like, wait a second. I never actually asked if you wanted to do this, like, yes, of course. But it was just, it was just really incredible. That that became that became available. So it was awesome. And we would come home for Christmas. And every time we were home. He’s from Illinois, but he Oh, it’s so beautiful. Here. We should move back and like no, never moving back.
Odette D’Aniello 20:58
And here you are like your hometown girl. Yeah, you have a fan base.
Lucy Damkoehler 21:03
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was it was really cool. There’s five kids in my family and my mom was really involved in all the schools. She’s a fiber artists. So she would so everybody knows her name. It’s a very unique name Damkoehler. So so moving back, and I kept my I kept my maiden name. Everybody just was like, God, you’re done killer. Like, awesome. And, and there’s our town. I think it’s really friendly. But I do think that a small town, they welcome their own faster than they would a transplant. So I have that going for me. And, um, yeah, it was like immediately right out the gate that we had a massive support system here. It’s been it’s been incredible. Angie
Odette D’Aniello 21:40
was like, you have to interview there. You have to I was like, Okay, I will. I will. Yeah, and easy.
Lucy Damkoehler 21:48
It’s been really, I mean, it really is. Back to the dream, you know it. I think the idea of being able to own a bakery in a small town is such a dream. Of course, you have to live the dream. So it comes with a lot of it’s not quite all fairy tales. But I’m just I’m just so lucky. It’s, it’s
Odette D’Aniello 22:07
incredible. It was like it was meant for you.
Lucy Damkoehler 22:11
It was so meant for me. Yeah, it absolutely was meant for me. When I was a younger kid, like sixth grade or something, we were across the street in the park and big thunderstorm came. So we needed like shelter. So we came into this building, and I just remembered the feeling that I had when I was in the buildings sitting on the stairs, like it just was this like, such a cozy memory and the buildings always really been very special to me. So um, so yeah, so I’m just I mean, I’m incredibly lucky the building never won on the market, I was able to just like super hidden and, and, you know, open up my own and we I opened my own business, they closed their bakery, and we did our were D bought all their equipment. And so you were Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was turnkey. Um, so it was really, really a special opportunity that I had that, that I’m really grateful. And I’ve been so
Odette D’Aniello 23:04
lucky. So you also prepared yourself for it. It wasn’t just luck. Right? Right.
Lucy Damkoehler 23:12
Yeah, and I mean, I put 20 years and before I open and I think that the path that I took was really led me this way. So you know, I had multiple different places that I worked out on my resume. So I worked in a small startup being Hot Cakes, I worked for corporate dining, which is where I learned how to do panels and kind of the more the business part of it, working in restaurants and understanding the demand for quality and consistency. Not to say that bakeries don’t that they absolutely do, too. But I think there’s, you know, some of the finer dining restaurants, there’s really a high high demand for, for consistency. And I think that really helps a lot. So and then
Odette D’Aniello 23:53
you travel to you. You were Hawaii. Tell us more about that.
Lucy Damkoehler 23:57
Yeah, I had a friend that was the chef at Hotel Hana Maui, and their pastry chef was leaving. And so I had, I had just left New York, my father passed away. So I kind of came home for a little bit and was looking for my next adventure. And he called and said, Hey, we’ve got a pastry chef position at this point. You know, I was young, and I had not been a manager, a pastry chef yet. So that was my first job as a pastry chef. But I mean, I jumped at the opportunity. I didn’t know where I had no idea what Hana was. I literally did not do my research. I was like, sure I’ll be the phasor job. I don’t care where it is. And one of my friends was like, do you understand where you’re moving to? Somewhere in Hawaii, and I landed and I realized, oh, yeah, this is a really, really small town, but because I’m from a small town, I think it worked well. I did get a little island fever and was ready to travel after that year. But we changed the menu every night because it was such a it’s like a remote area. So the chef didn’t want our guests To be bored with food. So he asked, he required for us to change the menu every night. So I had a massive opportunity to build a repertoire of desserts. Some of them were amazing. And I still do, some of them were, I feel so bad for whoever came in and
Odette D’Aniello 25:15
it was regional, probably you had to use the regional
Lucy Damkoehler 25:22
ingredient, it was pretty awesome. Because I could take like some of the French techniques that I learned in culinary school, and, you know, and apply it to different flavors. And then, again, I think that gave me a really good opportunity to, I think what the way that I like to explain my I really relate to being a new American bakery, instead of new American restaurant, I feel like we’re a new American bakery. So French techniques with some kind of American whim of creativity and the melting pot.
Odette D’Aniello 25:51
What’s an example of a new American?
Lucy Damkoehler 25:55
So basically, not extremely French, like, you know, following again, following French techniques, but perhaps maybe adding a little bit more modern, you know, twist to it and some ingredients and a little more whim than the nice
Odette D’Aniello 26:15
specialty.
Lucy Damkoehler 26:18
My specialty, you know, um, I don’t really know it’s hard to like to say that like to identify for myself, but I will say that when I was in Seattle, I was obsessed with the twice baked croissants from Bakery Nouveau. them like all every Sunday, it was my favorite thing. So when I moved to Massachusetts, I was in withdrawal mode. I’ve never been a croissant baker, like I trained myself on how to make croissants. But I was like, Well, I have to have these twice bakes, I can’t live without them. And so now we’re making like 150 croissants a day, 200 croissants a day, just to get them stale to make twice baked. So those are really probably one of our most popular items. And then we have this like a raspberry pronunciate. We call it raspberry cornbread. And that one is, has become like, surprisingly really popular. So we bought we do we mostly specialize in breakfast pastries. We do some cakes.
Odette D’Aniello 27:19
Do you do wholesale?
Lucy Damkoehler 27:22
We do a few we have a couple of restaurants that we work with. But honestly, retail has been so great for us that we haven’t needed to tap into that realm yet, which has been kind of nice. Great. Yeah. And then we started doing take and bake frozen meals, and 2020s that ended up being like, really crazy, great for our business. So, you know, the idea is when we went into quarantine and lockdown, like we were essential, so we were able to come to work, but I didn’t feel okay with bringing people out to buy $3 Cookie, I couldn’t sustain my business. I felt like it wasn’t a need. So we started making like chicken pot pies and mac and cheese and casseroles. And it just it was a it was giving people a reason to come in, people would come and buy like five or six of them, drop them off at their neighbor’s houses. It was really, it was a really good pivot. And honestly, I am so I was so grateful. I knew how to cook. So
Odette D’Aniello 28:21
that’s exactly what I was gonna say. You know how to cook.
Lucy Damkoehler 28:24
Yeah, because I have that savory background. I’m not pigeon holed into just doing cookies. And I really had a good sense of how to make food. And you know, I mean, I was I was so happy when I opened the bakery and I didn’t have like one breakfast sandwich. And that’s it no savory, anything, I don’t do sandwiches like a traditional. I was like, This is amazing. We’re making this happen just because if I didn’t have to ever cut an onion again, I’d be so happy. And then, like sustain my business, we were able to really do good for the community. I mean, you know, as a mom myself, I knew the struggle. Thank God we hired babysitters, to homeschool our kids while we had to but but just the idea of like having to deal with that all day and then cooking it was it was really a pivot that we had to make. And it was it’s been awesome. It’s been great for our business now. So we have now we tried taking it away for a couple of weeks in the in December because I was so overwhelmed and busy with adding the cooking school in and customers were bolted. So there,
Odette D’Aniello 29:28
that’s awesome. Well, you know what that taken big is so I think that’s one of those things that that grocery stores have really focused in on because it becomes your second kitchen. You know, it’s like one less thing you have to think about right? And exactly
Lucy Damkoehler 29:45
and especially I think the locals really love it because they you know they trust us making it and you know we there it’s an open kitchen they can literally see everything we do. So, yeah, to be able to have a trusted source that you can Get it from. And there. We had. We had a restaurant in town and they closed and they never were able to reopen. So, you know, we only have we’ve got two pizza places in town. We have a general store and the bakery for food. Wow. So it was really my responsibility as a business owner in town to be able to provide food to people. I promised I would nourish them, so it was a natural step. They
Odette D’Aniello 30:29
are so lucky to have you. Yeah, well, we’re lucky. Lucky to have you here.
Lucy Damkoehler 30:33
It’s an amazing town. I love this town. There’s only 2000 people in this town. There’s no stoplights. It’s really small. Well,
Odette D’Aniello 30:42
I can’t wait to visit I have. I would love to come and visit because I, you know, I, there’s, there’s something about eating food from people who really love what they do. Yeah, it makes it it’s different than I walked on mac and cheese or just a cake that’s just thoughtlessly made. Right. But if it’s made with intention, I would love the energy really translates.
Lucy Damkoehler 31:10
Yeah, for sure. And it’s Yeah, and we you know, we live and breathe it and and I feel really lucky to be able to have the I feel it’s great that I can give this opportunity to some other kids but anyone really any like person that’s really interested in their career in the food industry in Western Massachusetts, there’s not a lot of places that they can go and you know, practice their skills professionally. So it’s been it’s been nice watching. I’ve got a couple employees that are, they have so much they’re doing awesome. And watching them grow has been really fun. And I gotta open a second place now. So they have a place to go. I don’t want them to.
Odette D’Aniello 31:52
I mean, it’s like your mentor, mentored by Gordon. And now you’re the mentor. Yeah,
Lucy Damkoehler 31:57
yeah. Yeah. So it’s not I mean, it’s, it’s pretty cool. There’s, I do think that our town has allowed me to really just do whatever platform I want to do. So it’s up to me with what I want to do, though, they’ll accept it. So that’s
Odette D’Aniello 32:13
amazing. Well, it’s been a pleasure. I just have one more question. Yeah. If you were to talk to or if you had a chance to talk to your younger self, what would you tell her?
Lucy Damkoehler 32:28
Oh, tell her to calm down and chill out. It’s all gonna be okay.
Odette D’Aniello 32:33
You know, that is the common answer. For every person. I’ve asked that. Like, it’s gonna be okay.
Lucy Damkoehler 32:42
I mean, I appreciate my younger self and how hard she worked. And it’s gotten me to where I am. So maybe I should be my younger self should be talking to my older self. Maybe the opposite.
Odette D’Aniello 32:51
Awesome. Oh, my gosh. Well, one more question. What is that cake behind you?
Lucy Damkoehler 32:57
Oh, that’s our lemon olive oil cake.
Odette D’Aniello 32:59
Oh, yum. What’s on the top?.
Lucy Damkoehler 33:05
It’s a macaron, actually. Everyone wants to take the macaron class.
Odette D’Aniello 33:14
Oh, yes, everyone does. I mean, I would love to I love macarons. But I have a nut-free facility. We don’t do almonds. Yeah, but thank you so much for this amazing, inspiring talk. I really, I’m so grateful that we met and that you’re in this podcast and that, you know, you’ve inspired me to, you know, follow my dreams, right. And absolutely. Other people to like, be open and prepared for those great, amazing opportunities.
Lucy Damkoehler 33:47
Yeah, that’s such a good way. I love how you say that. It’s yeah, being open I think is is what gotten has gotten me to where I want to be. Well, thank
Odette D’Aniello 33:57
Well, thank you, Lucy.
Lucy Damkoehler 33:58
Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. This was awesome.
Odette D’Aniello 34:01
Thank you.
Outro 34:05
Thanks for listening to the Celebrity Gourmet Podcast. We’ll see you again next time. And be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.