Michael Menard, bake shop supply campus with treats

A three-person team, headed by Lead Baker Michael Menard, makes baked appurtenances for the entire campus. PHOTO COURTESY OF ANIAH Toll.

At 3 a.k. every 24-hour interval in Paresky basement, Michael Menard and the rest of the Paresky bake shop staff are already commencement work on a gargantuan task. On an average day, they make baked goods for all 3 meals at all 3 dining halls on campus. If a campus event requires catering, such as a Lyceum Dinner or a special Faculty House meal, the bake shop provides nutrient for that as well.

This undertaking relies on but iii people: Menard and 2 other broil shop employees, Richard Noyes and Robert Vachereau. While the small size of the grouping can make providing and then much food difficult, information technology besides creates a simplicity that makes for a productive and enjoyable surroundings, Menard said. The broil shop is separate from all other cooking and food preparation facilities on campus. The three bake shop employees have been working together for nearly ten years. At this betoken, the bake shop is a well-oiled machine. "We don't even have to say to each other what we need each other to exercise," Menard says. "We're at that indicate where nil needs to exist communicated verbally."

The small size of the bake shop too means that Menard has a cracking bargain of control over what goes on. He chooses with almost complete freedom what baked appurtenances to make each day. His first priority in selecting what to make is creating something students will enjoy, though in that location is also an element of pragmatic controlling to the task of baked-practiced selection. "I'm thinking of something I can commencement and finish in well-nigh two hours," Menard said. "Because then if I've got three different things, that's six hours right there, plus whatever catering and other things are coming up." This time crisis ways that Menard cannot always make the foods he would almost like to, but he's learned how to maximize efficiency. "I'm non interested in what's the fastest matter I can make," he said. Rather, he asks himself i uncomplicated question when deciding whether to bake something: "How difficult tin can I make it in two hours?"

Blistering, though, ways much more to Menard than simply a job that needs to be finished every day. Information technology is something that genuinely excites him and something he has devoted his life to. After growing up in Springfield, Mass., Menard moved to New York City in his early 20s to pursue baking. There, he attended the French Culinary Found and went on to work at Sylvia Weinstock Cakes and Levain Bakery.

Menard spent 16 years honing his skills and exploring his passion for baking in New York. Nine years ago, he began his electric current job in the Higher's bake shop, which is quite different from the pocket-size bakeries he worked at in New York. "[Levain Bakery] was a neighborhood bakery" he said. "[I] knew everyone at the fourth dimension they [came] downwards the steps. It was dainty having that kind of intimate community feeling."

Just what Menard's electric current job lacks in familiarity with customers, it makes upwards for in the opportunity to work with students. Menard has worked with many students in his time at the Higher, including 6 this semester. "They're wonderful to get to know, and they're also super helpful," he said. In detail, he enjoys the multifariousness of baking experience that students arrive with. "People have come up to work at the bake shop with absolutely zilch baking feel, and then some of them have more than I ever would have guessed," he said. And for some, the time spent in the bake shop ends up being far more than than just a fun campus job; Menard has worked with students who afterwards went on to pursue culinary careers.

Every bit he talked nigh the role of students in the bake store, Menard took out his phone and showed me pictures of a Harry–Potter-themed cake he had fabricated with a student. He so excitedly recalled blistering cakes shaped like Yoda from Star Wars.

When asked well-nigh the experience of working with the team every day, Menard chuckled and started smiling. "Everyone can get on each other'due south nerves once in a while," he said. "I'grand sure I get on [my coworkers'] fretfulness all the time. But mostly speaking, it'southward skillful. Information technology's fun when you're firing on all cylinders and y'all're getting things washed."