Baking Second Chances is now released, and to celebrate this second book in what we expect to be a three-part series on Haut’s Bake Shoppe, we decided to throw a party! The book is set in the 1950s, and tells how Olean, NY cookie baker Icky Haut grew his kitchen operation into a business that distributed product across the northeast quadrant of the nation. That meant two things: first, a mid-century theme (we chose a backyard picnic), and secondly, a menu that included cookies! A lot of cookies!
In the month before the event, Mark (Icky’s son, both in real life and in the book) mixed and froze dough for peanut butter, chocolate chip and icebox cookies, and then, in the last couple of days before the event, we baked tray after tray so each variety would be fresh. (This strategy also made sure we would not eat all the goodies before the party . . . because one of us—and I’m not pointing a finger here, but the kid grew up in a bakery—can’t resist cookies.)
We have large gardens behind our house, and they’re full of day lilies, canna lilies, three varieties of rudbeckia (black-eyed Susans), rose of Sharon shrubs, hydrangea bushes, butterfly bushes, drift roses, black and blue salvia, spirea, Perovskia (Russian sage), chrysanthemums, ruellia, croscosmia, and gladiolas—all of them in bloom at the same time now because it’s been so hot, plus hanging baskets and large pots filled with annuals. Loud color is everywhere, so we didn’t need to decorate; we just needed to keep the deer from eating everything, which, thankfully, we were able to do.
On Sunday, Mark grilled large hot dogs for about fifty people. Guests brought their own lawn chairs, and set them up under a canopy next to the gardens. Some people wandered back into the air conditioning in the house as the temperature soared to the mid-90s. Thank goodness we had plenty of beer, too!
Writers are often introverts, and we’re not great at hosting parties, but I am grateful that our guests know this, and whooped it up despite my quiet nature. As Mark and I clean up from our revelry, I realize how exhausted I am. But I’m also energized to get back to the research for the third book. (Hint: The working title is Good to the Last Bite. We'll see whether or not it gets changed, but it's good enough for now.) My guess is that writing, rewriting and editing will take about three years.
See you all again when it’s done!
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