October 2, 2023 • 55 mins
Auntie Anne's: Beyond Pretzels - A Delicious Story of Family, Community, and SuccessJoin me, Jim Serpico, on Bread For the People as I sit down with the legendary Auntie Anne's Pretzel founder, Anne Beiler, for an intimate and heartwarming interview.
In this episode, we dive deep into Anne's fascinating journey from being a humble farmers market vendor, just like me, to revolutionizing the pretzel industry with her iconic Auntie Anne's brand. But there's more to Anne's story than just pretzels.
Growing up in an Amish family in Pennsylvania, Anne shares with us the values instilled in her by her tight-knit community. We explore her unique bond with her parents and seven siblings, gathering for three meals daily and creating cherished memories around the table.
Anne's latest venture, her cookbook "Come To the Table," celebrates her family's rich history and traditions. Through this culinary journey, she shares the authentic recipes that shaped her upbringing and were passed down through generations. From hearty farm-fresh meals to irresistible baked goodies, we uncover the secrets behind these beloved dishes.
Prepare to be inspired by Anne's remarkable story as she built a successful business and maintained a deep connection to her roots.
Follow Jim Serpico on Instagram: @sidehustlebread and @jimserpico
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jim-serpico-bread-for-the-people-sourdough-pizza-life--5704379/support.
In this episode, we dive deep into Anne's fascinating journey from being a humble farmers market vendor, just like me, to revolutionizing the pretzel industry with her iconic Auntie Anne's brand. But there's more to Anne's story than just pretzels.
Growing up in an Amish family in Pennsylvania, Anne shares with us the values instilled in her by her tight-knit community. We explore her unique bond with her parents and seven siblings, gathering for three meals daily and creating cherished memories around the table.
Anne's latest venture, her cookbook "Come To the Table," celebrates her family's rich history and traditions. Through this culinary journey, she shares the authentic recipes that shaped her upbringing and were passed down through generations. From hearty farm-fresh meals to irresistible baked goodies, we uncover the secrets behind these beloved dishes.
Prepare to be inspired by Anne's remarkable story as she built a successful business and maintained a deep connection to her roots.
Follow Jim Serpico on Instagram: @sidehustlebread and @jimserpico
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jim-serpico-bread-for-the-people-sourdough-pizza-life--5704379/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
All right, you're ready. Thereis sure I want to You know you're
in charge, so tell me whatyou need and uh, just just follow
me. I love having freeform conversations. I did my research, and kay,
I think we'll be I think we'llbe excellent. All right, well,
I'm sure that. And if Imake any mistakes, we could we
(00:20):
could fix it. You can alwaysedit if if I make any mistakes.
Is that correct? Okay? Herewe go? Excellent? All right,
thank you. My name's Jim Serpico. And this should I start with my
name? What should I start with? This is bread for the people?
Do you like it? Like this? Welcome to bread? What do you
like it? Like this? Welcome? Ready, Welcome to bread for the
(00:41):
people? Mine? Is there ascript? People? Welcome the bread for
the people. I'm Jim Surpa,my guest today, is an author of
(01:03):
several books, including the book Cometo the Table, which is available right
now everywhere you get your books.I had the opportunity to read the book,
and I could tell you I thinkI gained ten pounds is reading it.
I'm very excited to go through thehistory of some of these Recipes's what
(01:26):
it's all about. And Bilin iswith me today. Besides writing all these
great books, and is an entrepreneur, a franchiser, a mom, and
a family person. She is alsothe founder of aunt Annie's Pretzels. And
(01:51):
welcome to the program. Well takeyou, Jim, and I'm so happy
to be with you today on yourprogram. And I love the fact that
what we have in common is wedo have predit in common. We actually
have a lot of things in common. I am a farmer's market vendor,
and I know that you kind ofstarted doing your thing with aunt Anis by
(02:19):
doing farmers markets, so we couldstart there and maybe go backwards. But
here's what I know about that.You were living, I believe in Pennsylvania,
correct, and to make some extramoney, you drove two hours each
way to Maryland to do a farmer'smarket where you were not just selling pretzels,
right, that's correct, You're right. You were selling pies, yes,
(02:39):
and candy and candy. And atsome point you realize the pretzel thing
after changing the recipe at your husband'ssuggestion, h was really starting to hit.
And then you're also a showman,because I believe what you did was
roll out the pretzels in front ofthe customers. So when we did that,
(03:00):
you know, Jim, we neverwe had no idea that it was
actually interesting to the people. Itwas kind of a theatrical kind of thing
and people would stand there and justwatch us make the Presso so I guess
maybe I am somewhat of a showmanshowwoman. I mean I like to think
that I am. And I sayto the other like friends of mine,
(03:24):
friends of mine, not a pizzamakers or breadmakers and other vendors of farmers
markets, like it's theater. Itis. What we're doing is theater.
And I recently this is my firstseason with a food truck. And the
reason I got it, even thoughI'm not using it for that, the
reason I originally intended to I wasgoing to make fresh muzdala in front of
(03:47):
the people and then sell it.And to do that I needed certain equipment
to get by the border health.But I am always aware of the theater
and what separates you from everyone else. And people like like the event aspect.
They like to see it and bea part of it. I think
the other part that they enjoy isthey can actually see, as you know,
(04:10):
ATMs, we make our product rightin front of the customer as well.
So we do all the mixing andI think how people and I don't
know how much they pay attention tothat, but if they want, they
can see exactly what we're putting inthe you know. So it's fresh and
it's made in front of them,and it feels it's a feel good product
and it's plus it tastes really reallygood. I mean, even before I
(04:33):
was into professional baking, I livein Long Island, the Roosevelt Field.
It was a big, big mall. You had a big presence there.
I could remember standing in front ofthat window being amazed at the skills.
It wasn't it wasn't about what ingredientswere going in at the current. From
(04:55):
me, it was more more theskills of the pretzel rolling skills. And
wow, this is how they doit. These people must have rolled so
many pretzels. They were just experts. It was cool to watch. Yeah,
and today, Jim, there's somany people come to me and tell
me as a kid, they didthe exact thing what shared describing. They
stood in front of one of theantian windows there and just enjoyed watching the
(05:16):
employees role the product. And soyeah, that is part of Antian's,
which that was not our plan,but we soon recognize that it's fun to
roll products and people comment on that. It just it just became. I
would when I was doing the storesof myself. My favorite part of the
job was to actually roll pretzels.So it is fun, really, Yes,
(05:41):
So when you say it wasn't yourplan, like at some point,
whether windows added or did someone comeup with the idea, let's let the
people see this. At what pointdid that become Was it after you started
franchising. No, No, wedid that from from day one, which
has built the store was built thatway. And you mentioned the Maryland Farmer's
(06:04):
Market. That's when I actually wasintroduced to handled pretzels in in July of
nineteen eighty seven, and in Januaryof nineteen I'm sorry, February nineteen eighty
eight. About six months later.Then we bought our own store in Downingtown,
Pennsylvania. But the store that Iwent to work for and they I
(06:28):
was a manager there, and that'show they built a store. And so
then fast forward seven months later,we bought a store sight unseen. We
had no idea what it looked like. We knew that the pretzels. The
people that were selling the store werealso selling pretzels, but that really wasn't
like our plan. So we getthere and the store once again had this
(06:54):
plexiglass for the window between the customerand the boy making the pretzels, and
I'm like, wow, okay,So it just became a part of how
we did anti MS from that pointon. Now, am I mistaken or
am I correct in that the originalstore, like you at the Farmers Market
(07:15):
wasn't just pretzels, but were youselling pizza? That's correct, we were
selling We bought pisstour that had pretzels, pizza, ice cream and drinks and
strumb woollies. So yeah, westarted out we had no idea, but
within seven months of buying the store, we had, as you mentioned,
(07:36):
perfected the recipe. And we werealready in our second store in Harrisburg and
my sister, who was running thefirst store, she called her said and
I cannot keep up with the pretzels. I can't make them fast. And
I'm said, I'm going to getrid of the pizza. And over the
telephone I argued with her, I'mlike, no, we can't, we
(07:58):
can't get rid of the pizza.I mean we have we do pretty well
with the pizzas. And I justsaid, well, I know I'm not
the boss, I don't own this, but I just can't keep up.
And I said, well, hey, do whatever you feel is right.
Well at that point that she actuallygot rid of the pizza and we went
on selling pretzels and that became ourour product. So when you first started
(08:20):
doing the pretzels, you were workingfor someone else, is that and you
started to become familiar with the recipeand interested in it and improving it.
No, I wasn't interested in improvingit. I we had a great product
in Burtonsville. This is kind ofa long story, but when I got
to my Downingtown market again, Iknew. I knew what we were the
(08:45):
ingredients that we had for Burtonsville.When we got to Downingtown, I didn't
understand, in a nutshell, Idid not understand there are a couple of
hundred you probably know this kinds offlour. And so what I did was
I used the flowers that we hadin that was left at that particular store
(09:05):
that we bought. They had somethey had a number of bags of clothes.
I mean the left over and theyjust left it there, and so
I used what they had and theresult of that was I had a horrible
pretzel and I could not understand why. I didn't realize what was it,
Dancer. I'm not even going totalk about it. I'm just telling you
(09:28):
it was a very different it wasa very different kind of flower. And
so because we didn't understand that,so one day I was going to take
the pretzels off of my menu boardbecause they were terrible. After maybe two
months of just really trying to perfectI don't know, the biking, the
trays, the ovens, the temperature, everything, nothing worked. And I
(09:50):
went down to parkt one day andmy husband happened to go with me that
particular Friday, and I said,huh, I'm done with the pretzels.
I'm not doing it anymore. They'rehorrible, we're not selling it up many.
They look terrible, they taste terrible, and I'm just going to take
him off the menu. And itsaid, now before you, before you
do that, let me try somethingthat may work. Now. Jonas was
a little Amish guy at home.We grew up Amish booth of Us and
(10:13):
he was the baker in his family. His mom was an invalid, and
he became the helper in the kitchenand he always made cookies and breads and
pies and cakes, and so hedo something about baking and he said,
let me just try something. Isaid, well, okay, I'm I'm
done. I'm frustrated. I'm done. So I said, well, just
(10:33):
wait. So he went to thestore and bought some ingredients and he came
back. We added to our recipeand voila and Jane's pretzel. It was
an instant overnight, I mean instantsuccess. After that, the product went
from nothing I couldn't even eat itmyself to I couldn't stop eating. It
(10:54):
was unbelievable. We just stood therein all like what is this? So
what we know today is that antiens was created by God because we could
never have figured it. We wouldnever have figured it out on our own
how to do this. And thenthen we became crazy about I just became
I call myself a wild woman.Everybody that walked past our store they had
(11:18):
to try the product, and soI would stand out there and give samples
or even whole pretzels. It didn'tmatter to me. You just had to
try the product. So hey,if you out there, you're trying to
tell something to make sure it's betterthan the best that's out there. So
cool. So you mentioned that youguys grew up Amish, and I know
(11:41):
there's many types of Amish, andI learned that by reading your book.
So I do want to get intothe book. Now, come to the
chapel. I love the first twelveor so pages really give a history of
you growing up and the regiment ofyour day and your family's day. And
(12:05):
you actually, as a family,I think you're one of eight siblings,
came to the table with your parentsthree times a day and had a meal,
and you guys loved it every daywithout fail. And I you know,
I don't attribute some of that tothe Amish heritage, but I also
(12:30):
believe that it's the culture of farmers, farming the farming community. There is
such a it's such a discipline lifethat it wasn't just my culture. I
think it's a farming community culture thatreally, even to this day, I
know that the Amish people, thefarmers, still hold that tradition very very
(12:54):
close to heart. And I meanit didn't matter where we were on the
farm. My dad may have beenout, you know, cultivating or mowing
hay or combining weed, whatever itwas. At twelve o'clock eleven thirty twelve
o'clock, everybody knew it was timeto come in. In the morning,
we milked the cows, and afterwe were done milking, everybody sat at
(13:16):
the table in the evening and fiveo'clock dinner just before we went to milk
the cows again. So it wasvery predictable. And there were no TVs
in our culture. There was noradio, if you can imagine that.
I know most people in the worldcannot even fathom that, but maybe you
can. I'm not sure what's yourages, but but we we just we
(13:39):
had no electronics. Well, youdidn't even have electricity originally, originally originally
until I turned I was about threewhen my mom and dad got electricities,
so I grew up with that.Can we talk about this for a second
and break it down a little bitof course, older please help me out.
Older Amish. There's a certain typeof Amish that really lives by the
(14:05):
book, in the Old Order Amish, all the Order Amish, and when
you were born, for the firstthree or so years, they were still
old Older Order orders. Yes,we were old old order Amish, so
no electricity. Correct, we hadwe had running water, but we had
(14:30):
an outside bathroom outside until I wasten, so we had no bathtubs we
had. It's a kind of crazywhen I think about that in my lifetime,
all of the changes that have happened. But yes, it was pretty
It was very primitive. But youlisten, let me tell you it was
a very safe environment. I learnedhow to work really hard there, but
(14:54):
we learned how to play hard aswell, and we understood the value of
hard work. The reward of hardwork wasn't It wasn't We're going to get
to the store and get candy orice cream? Is just the satisfaction.
I can feel that in my heartas I say that word to you,
The satisfaction of which is working aheart and given us your very best and
(15:18):
then Mom and Dad just being pleasedwith what you did. That was the
reward. And yeah, I don'tknow. I also, yeah, I
wonder if part of it. I'venever been a farmer, but I can
tell you that I know for sureI could make more money than I'm making
(15:41):
now. I am choosing to bake. And it's not very well, critic,
you know, but there isn't thissense of seeing physically what you did
at the end of the day.So I wonder that's the other thing about
farming. It's pretty tangible. Allthese people, this family comes together and
(16:03):
at the end of the day andat the end of the season, you
really see the results, right,absolutely, And if we didn't do our
jobs, all of us, alleight of us kids, mom and dad
of course, but uh, youknow, we would gather all kinds of
fruit and vegetables all summer long andfreeze them and can them for to get
(16:26):
through the winter. And Mom wouldkind of ration all the vegetables. You
don't say, well, we haveto we can't have corn today because we're
almost out, and we got aplant garden that winter is not over yet.
So we were constantly managing our food. We always had enough to eat,
So I don't want to leave youwith the impression that we didn't have
enough teat but we had to constantlymanage them food that we gathered in the
(16:48):
fall of the year. Yeah,and you didn't you didn't have refrigeration.
Yes, we did in the inthe let me think in the Amish when
when when we were Amish. Afterwe left the Old Order Amish. We
had electricity, so we did haverefrigeration and we had a freezer. Yes,
and you were at that point yourdad was what's called black car.
(17:11):
That's correct. You did read thebook, That's right. I read the
book and then and that kind ofAmish, black heart Amish meant that we
could have a car, it hadto be black, and we could have
electricity. And my dad was ableto farm with a tractor. And let
me tell you, we were movingon up in the world. But if
you looked at us pack, ifyou saw us pack in the day,
(17:33):
you would have said there were OldOrder Amish. We did. We looked
very much like Comish my whole growingup life. And didn't you move towards
milking machines or automated milking. Yes, we did milkymish cheese. But I
remember as a kid, I wouldgo my dad to the barn and he
actually milked the cows by hand.And I remember that clearly, because every
(17:55):
now and again he would try toescort us with milk and uh and yeah,
And I remember cleaning out by hand, the you know, the mess,
and the barn was always had tobe cleaned after every at the end
of every day, and yeah,so there was so much work. I
look at that and I'm amazed thatI don't know, like we actually did
(18:17):
all that. But yes, itwas hard work. But you know,
we never really were not allowed tocome well, we were not allowed to
complain. My mom always said todayis a good day. To stop grumbling.
She said that every day, soI guess we tried to complain,
but she instilled in us, don'tcomplain, just do the work with a
cheerful heart, and we tried todo that. I love the anecdote you
(18:40):
said you did. You all hadfun. You would make up games when
you're gardening to compete who could fillthat basket? That's right, quist.
And you find your ways to enjoythe process, Yes, which is interesting
because I do that. I reallymaking bread is very similar. Sure,
(19:00):
and you know my kids helped me, but they're also at different stages of
life and pursuing other things, andI'm not sure that they ever got to
the point where it's like, hey, I'm going to do this and figure
out how to enjoy it. Itwas more like I gotta get this done
so I could get well. I'mnot I'm not sure that wasn't some of
(19:22):
our motivation as well. But butwe had, you know, acres and
acres of tomatoes and potatoes and corn, and so it wasn't like it was
a one hour long job and you'redone. But it was more like a
all day, all day, allday. And uh, you know.
So the other thing that I learnedon the farm a gym was a team
work. You know. I neverrealized way back then, it's like I
(19:47):
was being prepared for anti Ans becauseI took everything I learned on the farm
and with an eighth grade education,and hard work and loving people. Those
were their three key ingredients that Itook with me into the workplace. And
it really was enough, you know, to get me started and to then
(20:10):
of course bringing other people around us. And I've always said, all of
our employees made anti Ends what itis today, and it's the employees that
took Auntie Ends around the world.But I learned teamwork on the farm with
my brothers and sisters. Give methose three ingredients again, the three ingredients
(20:30):
for Oh my god, did Isay, maybe you said? It was
teamwork, teamwork, hard work,and I learned how to love people.
It was teamwork, hard work,and loving people. See, I I
know life isn't linear, and I'mnot I don't think it's supposed to be
(20:51):
correct. And I what I've realizedand what I try to say to my
kids, No matter what it isthat you're doing now, even if this
recipe is not going to matter ofhow you specifically make this bread, there
are bigger things around it that you'regoing to take with you for the rest
(21:12):
of your life. Yes, absolutely, And that's what I did with my
father, who was a musician butran a company that would book his band
as well as other bands, andhe had payroll, and he had all
this stuff. And I truly learnedabout business by watching him and being with
(21:33):
him, and it somehow inspired allthe other things I did in my life,
even though it wasn't the exact jobthat he did. You know,
sure, I think that we underestimatethe power of role modeling. You know,
my parents, and as you weredescribed, your father sounds to meet
(21:55):
like he role modeled. And myparents taught me most everything I know without
without telling me. You know,they didn't sit all of us down and
tell us, you know, howto shut corn or how to weed the
garden, or how to go outin the bar and like they did all
of that, and they role modeled, and role modeling, in my opinion,
(22:19):
is the strongest form of teaching.They gave you access without belittingly.
Oh my goodness, I was.I was in the kitchen as a as
a kid. I had hay feverwhen I was growing up, and I
was the only one of eight children. And my mom that that then just
(22:41):
gave me access or mom. Ibecame her help her in the kitchen.
I cooked, and I baked,and and as all the other kids were
outside doing the yard work and allthose things. Eventually I got out of
the field and I stayed in thekitchen and my mom, she never belittled
me anything. And I know Iwas a messy little kid eight nine,
(23:04):
ten years old trying to you know, bake and make cookies and pies.
But at the age of eleven andtwelve, my mom trusted me to the
point where she went to market inPhiladelphia one day a week on the Thursday
night. It was the only timethat she wasn't at home when I get
home from school, and she leftme a note and said, Annabeth,
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my real name is Anna, andshe would call me, annabeths tonight,
I want you to bake. Andshe had a whole hist of anywhere some
sixty to seventy pies and cakes thatI had to bake that evening after school
so that my dad could take themto market in the morning. And I
remember in the morning at night,I would go down literally many times crying
(23:45):
because I missed Mom. I wantedher to be there, and yet I
knew I had this job to do, and I did it alone. And
we had this huge pizza oven.It was like a big, a major
pizza oven, and my dad boughtso that I could bake a lot at
one time. And yeah, SoI did that every Thursday night for about
(24:07):
two years. And in the morningmy dad would I'd have everything already for
him and he'd come and put itin pie shelves and in cases and take
it to the Philadelphia market. Butthe look on his face and when he
picked up his pies and said,oh, these looked good, and just
complimented me in that way. Inever got paid for it. I didn't.
I didn't get one dime for it. But you know what, I
didn't. I didn't care. Itdidn't matter. I was contributing to the
(24:30):
well being of the family, andyou continue to do that for the rest
of your life. I mean,at the farmers markets, didn't you take
that money and give it to yourfamily? Exactly? All the money I
ever made until I got married,I gave it to my mom and dad
when I got home at the endof the work day, whatever it was.
And then as a repayment for that, they furnished our house when we
(24:56):
got married. Which furnished meant,you know, everyone who sued washer and
dryer, stove and the necessities inour home, and they provided all that.
So that was my reward for theyears that I worked for mom and
dad. That's really, you know, all I ever wanted to do in
life was to please my mom anddad. I don't know what that was
(25:17):
instilled in us as kids, youknow, is my mom always said God
first, and your family, andthen be kind each other, you know,
and she was. There was aline that she used often, and
she would say to us, probablyalmost every day, little children, love
each other, do not give eachother pain. When one speaks to you
in anger, do not answer themagain, you know. So she was
(25:38):
constantly telling us, giving us theseone liners every day to remind each other
to be kind, love each other, and you know, do whatever a
family should do. So, youknow, and then Jim, we didn't
have the interruption or of all theyou know, the opinions of what millions
and billions of opinions out there andouters face somewhere come into our homes nowaday
(26:00):
to you know, influence us.I don't know. It was a pretty
simple life and I'm grateful for it. Do you think that's an issue in
Amish life now? I know thatthings have changed for them. There is
still the old order Amish that tryreally hard, you know, to live
(26:22):
by the rules, by their traditionsand all the things that they were taught
growing up, and they're trying topass out onto their their children. And
there's still am I want to say, is smaller sect of Amish, old
order Amish that actually are able tomaintain that because now many of them have
(26:45):
their own companies and they I wantto say most of them. I don't
know that for a fact, butI should say many many of them that
own companies actually have a phone,and they have to have computers to do,
you know, to stay in pusiness. So the Internet and the electronics
of our day is changing them aspeople. And yes, I would say
(27:11):
trying to interrupt and interfere with familylife, but I have to tell you
that family is so important to themthat they will probably fight as hard as
they can to keep the I wantto say, the outward traditions, like
you know, go to church andsit around the table with your family and
(27:33):
work hard. You know. Ithink they still have a very good handle
on the most important things. ButI do believe that the Internet and all
of the electronics that they're they're they'refighting that today. I don't know what
I don't know what it's going tolook like in you know, in a
decade or two. But I dobelieve there's also the They under stand that
(28:00):
it's loosely held right now with theyoung people, but they also understand that
that they'll be able to keep theirpeople. They're young people because they were
they provide what their kids need forthem at a very young age. It's
love, identity, acceptance, recognition, and security, the five basic needs
(28:23):
of every man, woman, boyand girl in the world. And I
think that they have done a verygood job at that. Is the Amish
culture perfect no by no means,and they have their issues just like the
rest of us do. But theycan ask you that because because you were
lucky in that you had these rolemodels that work. Good role models would
work ethics, morals and absolutely theyknew how to you know, treat you
(28:52):
and and just like in life,you know, some people are unfortunately,
you know, have parents that aren'ttest good exactly exactly. And what we're
talking we're young, is what we'regoing to take with us throughout our life.
You know, I believe that,And I also believe there's hope for
anyone who's had a rough childhood andparents that have not parented them well,
(29:14):
and there's still hope for them,and they can still find a good role
model somewhere that they can follow andbecome better than even what their parents were
or what their parents taught them.I believe in that. But I also
believe that, you know, thebreakdown in family has really taken its toll
in our country, and I supposearound the world. Now, what do
(29:37):
you think about the access the transportationand money and people. Well, I
have a child, a middle childwho lives in California, which I understand,
you know, because when I wasa young person, I was chasing
the dream of being an entertainment executive, and I was willing to do anything,
(30:00):
uh, in terms of like moving, you know, and doing the
thing to achieve that goal. It'slike a major League baseball player. You
only have so many places to goto play baseball and if a team's calling
you, But what does that doto the family, Because now it's not
just baseball players, right, it'smy middle kid, it's moving to another
(30:22):
state. Yeah. I think thatwe're living a very different world now than
what it was like when I wasa kid, for sure, And you
might even say since you were akid, the world has changed. And
I think that our priorities are notplain and simple, not even maybe our
values. I mean, for me, it was it was God. It
(30:45):
was faith, family, community andworking together for the good of their community.
And back in the day, that'skind of what everyone did. Right
today, I think life has gottenharder for families and has interruptive family life.
And yes, moving to another statefollowing your dream your career, is
(31:07):
it wrong? No, I don'tthink it's a right or wrong, but
it is very very different. Andin the Amish world, they have still
been able to somehow they're still veryintact. And part of the reason for
that, I believe is that fewof them actually ever move out of the
community. If they do move outof the community, they move in groups
(31:30):
of anywhere from five to ten families. So they seldom go out there on
their own. And I think that, you know, today we go out
on our own, we go tocollege, we have a career. I
travel all around the world by myself. Wow, that was startling to me,
you know when I actually did that, to where there's no one around
me on the plane with me,or when I get to Indonesia and there's
(31:52):
franchise. I don't understand the culture, but while it began, it began
to change me. Like there werelike in my community, everybody knew who
I was. Everybody knew me evenbefore I was Auntie. And it's just
the community. You're just you're alwaystogether, the same church, the same
school, the same you know,your family. We're always together and there's
(32:15):
a lot of protection in that.But I believe that when we go outside
and follow our careers and we openourselves, that we become I say,
more vulnerable. And I can youknow, I experienced some of that when
I became antie Ann and began totravel around the country and around the world,
it was scary for me because Iwasn't I wasn't familiar with that.
(32:37):
So I think kids today are encouraged, of course to go to college and
follow the career. And again nota right or wrong, but it's very
different. Yeah, we find thatyou have to work very hard to keep
(32:57):
the family intact, make it apriority even though you live in other states.
Absolutely, And it's too easy toget consumed with your own stuff and
say I don't have time. Absolutely. My wife always says this is the
reason she loves the holidays more thanthe religious reasons, is it forces everyone
(33:22):
to get together under the same roofand at the same table. Absolutely.
And you know, and I thinkthat when you go out and you move
away to another community, and wehave done this twice down in our lifetime
and recently or not recently. Aboutten years ago, we moved to Texas,
and I had a brother here andhe had a daughter, and so
(33:43):
there was a little bit of familyand my one daughter was here. But
you know, in Leicester County,Pennsylvania, where they amish in that culture,
if I lived in Pennsylvania right now. My grandkids, who are anywhere
from sixteen to twenty six, couldhave gotten a job anywhere at any time,
either the farmer's market because everybody kneweverybody and there was always something for
(34:07):
them to do. You could alwaysfind them a job. So we moved
to text us and how our kidsare those ages now and they don't know
anybody. You know, it's avery very different culture here. And to
break into the into the to thelabor market right now, and just to
find a job, it's very difficult. So I think that's part of the
(34:31):
negative of everybody, the transitioning thatwe do within our families. We're always
moving around, We're always going tocommunities. We don't know anyone, so
therefore we don't have the connections,and then I think they're along with that.
I think there's some accountability that welose. Like, you know,
when I was in my community,I always kind of wanted to be good
(34:52):
because then everybody was watching. Imean, everybody knew me, right,
But when we go out and noone knows us, it's a very different
way to live. Interesting, Yeah, and to have your family come together
even once a week around the tablelike really is that even possible anymore?
Right? Uh? Not for me? And probably right, and you're probably
(35:19):
the norm. And you know whenthat change for me is when we started
Auntie Ann's and we went from twostores to two stores in one year,
and then the next year twelve,and the next year thirty five, the
next year fifty and suddenly my littlefamily, my husband, have three daughters,
one daughter that was killed when shewas very young. We have two
living daughters at that time they wereeleven and sixteen, And almost overnight we
(35:45):
were not able to come to thetable anymore. As the name of my
cook book is come to the table, and it really broke my heart because
that's all I ever knew. Soto come to the table will take an
effort. Although the title of myCup of that is kind of a call.
(36:08):
And again, is it possible?I think that, you know,
whatever is really most important to us, I don't know. Yeah, I
got That's why I say it couldcome in different forms, but you have
to figure out a version of it. It doesn't necessarily have to be five
(36:30):
o'clock. It could be Sunday ateleven in the morning once a week,
and that's a great, great wayto stake that. Yes, true,
So let's let's dive into the cookbook. These are inspired by I guess it's
the types of things you guys madeas a family. And in all seriousness,
(36:51):
like the breads are all enriched.It's not like the breads I bake,
although I would bake these, andI would I look forward to trying
them. Uh, everything's got butter, milk, and sugar. Can you
make anything without those three ingredients?I don't know, you don't know.
(37:12):
Okay, that's pretty cool, man, tell me about it honestly, Like
you guys were out in the fields, and I guess you weren't grazing on
food in the cabinet all day,so you were able to stay pretty fit.
Yes, absolutely, there there werego ahead. This is this is
(37:35):
comfort food, absolutely, you know. I guess. Also every culture has
got their own way of making food, which is of course, and I
mean this is all I knew.And interesting that you would point that out
because it is comfort food. Andeven the Antians pretzel it's a comfort food
(38:00):
and h you know the butter onthe pretzel, Like wow, I would
never have thought about that except thatI love butter, and uh, you
know, it's not so bad forus because you dip a hot pretzel into
hot butter. If people are like, oh, I can't take all that
butter, it's very very minimal.It's not very much. But you're right.
(38:22):
We As far as snacks between breakfastand lunch, no, there were
no snacks because we're all we're allworking between lunch and dinner. No,
And I do remember at times becauseI'm in the kitchen, I would ask
my mom going to have a cookieor but I would never go into the
(38:44):
pantry and grab a cookie, right, So I guess we were able to
absorb the sugar in the butter andthe milk because we were active. And
you know, the other thing isthis is not processed, right, so
it's also very different Exactly. Ihave a little bit of an issue,
(39:05):
like my wife's always dropping the allthe butter, the butter, and it's
like, I believe this stuff isactually okay for you if you're eating it
in pure form and you're eating itin moderation, and you're if you're making
it from scratch. I mean,there's no preservatives in this stuff. And
(39:25):
I feel like Prossess Foods is reallywhat's killing us. Process it's killing without
question, as well as the andI guess included in that is the process
flowers, which I don't bake with. I'm very against it. I'm trying
to help spread that message that there'sa real bread campaign out there, the
(39:46):
bread in the United States. We'rethe only country that allows this bleached flower
to be used on a mascal.Absolutely no, yeah, I totally agree.
The process food in whatever form ittakes, uh is truly It's not
something that we as a kid,as we were going up, we never
(40:07):
ate process I say, never acandy bar or even ice cream. We
made that from scratch. So butyou know, I think that you can
live life and enjoy food that isnot processed, but you have to,
you know, change your way ofliving right now. Your your cookbook runs
(40:28):
the gamut from from breads that andbiscuits, right yep. Uh, And
I love the well before I getto that, and then it also has
like there's a lot of healthy stuffin here, grapes, grape salads,
uh, A lot of stuff withvegetables, yes, fruits, jams yes.
(40:52):
So it's all types of things anda lot of it. Uh.
I kind of liked and I'm interestedin trying something like the peach French French
toast perfect, it's a little differentthan slicing one piece of bread and making
a piece of French toast. It'salmost like a casserole. Yes, it
is. It is. Yes,So I think that no matter what what's
(41:14):
your style or what it is thatyou enjoy, I think that we have
a little bit of everything. Butbut I truly what you mentioned earlier,
I truly grew up with you know, butter, sugar, milk, and
we put it in everything almost youknow, a pinch of sugar or a
(41:35):
pinch of salt, or a teaspoonof butter in our vegetables or whatever.
We just said that in my growingup years. And so there is a
lot of that in the in thea lot of that. And I know
when as we were putting it together, the people that were helping with this,
they noticed the same thing as myhuh okay, all right, well
it's so what I've done. It'swhat I've done all my up. But
(41:55):
you know the other thing is Ithink that growing up as kids, we
were not of us forever obese orthat was my point, overweight, And
it's it's truly it's truly what youeat and how you work that out in
your body. I agree, Andalso I don't think it's a bad thing.
(42:15):
And I wasn't applying that, andI know you know I wasn't because
like, here's how I use I'mgoing to use this cookbook. I'm not
going to use this cookbook every dayand make every meal for the rest of
my life book, right, butbut I'm going to pick out things that
I'm going to try for all differentreasons and all different occasions because there are
things that I've never made or neverhad, and I think that's really interesting
(42:37):
to introduce my family and my friendsto these types of recipes. Yeah,
and the pake coulds. I mean, I mean, really, can anybody
make something really good? Pay createitem without sugar and butter and a little
bit of salt? No? Andyou know what, it cracks me up
speaking about that, because I'm standingat the former's markets. I still do
(42:59):
them, and I'm selling bread,and so many people will tell me,
ah, I'm off the bread.I'm off the bread. And then I
look two booths down and they're onlinefor these giant cookies, you know or
something. So if they're fooling themselves. That's right. No, no,
(43:21):
you know, if you want tohave a healthy body by the time you're
sixty or seventy, you gotta startwhen you're thirty and forty or even before.
I guess, I don't know.I don't know. It's habits.
It is habit. It's habits,you know, absolutely unless we break them.
You almost have to break them,like truly break a habit, and
then every now and again you cantreat yourself. And one of the ways
(43:44):
that we did this as a familymany years ago, it was after at
an started and we were eating pretzelsand I would come home and uh,
you know, and have makes somekind of a dessert over the weekend or
whatever. One day my husband saidto me, Hunts, if you don't
make the dessert at home, thenwe won't eat them when we're here.
Stop making desserts. Well, I'vedone that all my life. So speaking
(44:07):
of habits, but that's when Istarted to stop making desserts at home.
And if we had casts sober,I would always make a dessert. But
I really started and I was probablyat that time, I may have been
forty five years old. So wejust don't make desserts anymore at home,
so we treat ourselves when we goout. See, my father was not
a good eater. He was obeseand you know, from the Italian American
(44:31):
culture, and we grew up eatingnow sure, so it is probably I'm
fifty five now, it's probably somethingthat still sticks with me, unfortunately,
and I'm constantly fighting those habits andwhat I'm used to. Well, I
think that the Italian way of cookingis there's also a lot of carbs,
right, yeah, that's that's inmy cookbook. I mean, you can't
(44:55):
get you just can't get around it, you know. But yeah, so
let's talk about browning butter and howimportant that is to Amish cooking. It's
hard for me to explain that,but it's in the recipe. It will
show you a picture what it's supposedto look like and how to do.
It's very simple, because I've doneit all in my life. But you
take a I don't know, tablespoonor a stick of butter, depending on
(45:19):
how large your portion is, andyou mouth the butter very slowly, and
you keep your you don't leave,you keep the pan on the burner,
but you don't leave the pan.You stay there with it, because it
browns very very quickly. And asas it's browning, you'll see it begin
to bubble up in the middle oflike in the middle of the pool of
(45:39):
butter that you have in there,and you'll begin to see it kind of
bubbling up, and it gets alittle golden, a little more golden,
a little more brown, and afterbit you'll see the whole pan of butter
is brown. It takes a littlebit of time, but you don't want
to leave the pan or it willburn. And then it's so good.
But you can pour that over noodles, over mashed potatoes, or you can
(46:04):
even put on top of vegetables.It just adds a flavor. It's much
better than just butter. I stillcook that way whenever I get and is
it, is it better or isit? This is now a habit,
and I'm used to the way ittastes well both it's better. It's better,
and I'm used to the way ittastes. I brown butter on mashed
(46:28):
potatoes. The next time you makemashed potatoes, if you make will if
you make maybe five or six nicehished potatoes, you could actually do a
quarter a stick of butter and brownit and uh, and then just pour
it over the top of the mashedpotatoes and you'll taste the difference. Yeah.
(46:49):
And the breads that you do talkabout in the cookbook, are they
breads that you made daily? Didyou always have bread during the day,
like at some point we always hadbreakfast, lunch, and dinner. We
always had toast in the morning breadat lunch we either maybe sandwiches, but
(47:10):
always had bread on the table.My mom, when we would set the
table it was, she would say, I can said better in Dutch bruett,
vassa and steel. She would sayto me, Anne, do we
have the bread, the water andthe chairs at the table? So,
I mean, this sounds silly,right, but in order for ten people
(47:31):
to come together every day, wehad to make sure everything was in order
so that when everybody came to sitdown, we all had our certain place
to sit. And yes, sobread was we had at every meal.
Now, the i'mish sweet dough breadreminds me of what I think of a
sandwich bread. Sure, it canbe a sandwich bread or it can be
(47:54):
just a slice of bread. Andthe other thing was we always ate our
bread with butter, and jelly always, so you know, yeah, here
we go, we're really loading upon the carved and the sugar. And
I guess if you don't want processedfoods to make the things that are in
(48:15):
my cookbook, then you can alwaysget the vegetables and the fruits and you
could make your own jelly which orbuy it at a farmer's more. Absolutely,
absolutely there are places that you canget pretty wholesome and healthy foods.
Yeah. Speaking of wholesome and healthy, let's jump to the chicken and waffles.
(48:42):
I love that. How how oftenwas that a treat or was that
something that was in the rotation?I made chicken and waffles very often,
and it was kind of a somewhatof a specialty dish for me when I
was even when I would entertain withAntie and folks, I would make chicken
(49:06):
and waffles because it was a veryunique. Nobody had ever had chicken and
waffles. What do you mean chickenand waffles? So the way it's subscribed
in the coke hook and the wayI would make it. I would always
use legs and dice and some whitemeat if you prefer, but cut it
up me bake it. I wouldbake it just very it would fall off
of the bone. I would justcook it it falls off the bone,
(49:29):
and then I would take it andcut it up in very small chunks.
And then I would make a creamsauce which is subscribed in the cookbook,
and cream it all together with thechicken and the cream sauce. And again
the cream sauce is made out ofcanned milk, a little bit of flour,
butter and eggs. And you wouldmake this sauce and then pour it
(49:54):
over the cut up chicken, andthen you would make waffles. However you
make waffles, I mean today,if you want to go to the store
and buy frozen waffles, if youwant to cut it short, you can
always do that. But I alwaysmade my own waffle batter, and that's
also in the cookbook. And sothen you would take a waffle and it
(50:14):
just pour over some of the creamedchicken and wow, it's really good.
And then with that I would alwayshave a side tish of sweet peas green
peas, which was always a veryWe had lots of peas growing up because
we had our gardens, and greenpeas was always that's what we would eat
(50:37):
with the chicken and waffles. Soyeah, it's a special to dish.
It's not very fancy, but itis very it's unique. Yeah, and
some of the stuff, I mean, this really is a book for the
home baker. Yes, it is, the absolutely because some of it's pretty
simple, That's what I'm saying.I'm not a gourmet chef. So if
you open, if you buy thebook and you're looking for something really amazing
(51:00):
complicated, it's pretty It's down homecooking. And although some of the recipes
may seem a little complicated take moretime than others, most of the recipes
you can make be for dinner,Like you know what I mean. It's
it's like you can think through whatyou're gonna have for dinner that night,
(51:22):
and I would often just throw stufftogether maybe within an hour, hour and
a half of having dinners. Soit's not complicated, but like anything,
until you learn it, it canfeel it can't feel overwhelming at times.
Yes, well, I enjoyed itand I do plan to to try a
(51:42):
lot of it, so I'm lookingforward to that. Well, I hope
that you text me let me knowwhat's your favorite. I know you're gonna
you won't do everything but you know, for example, if you want homemade
jelly, if you love jelly jam, I have a recipe there pineapple and
strawberry jelly or jam, whatever youprefer. It takes ten fifteen minutes to
(52:07):
make it, and you put itin a little jar and you seal it
and it is the best jam.Of course there's sugar in there, but
it's very simple to do. Foragain, I'm okay with the man.
I really I'm I don't mean likeI don't care about health and I don't
really think that's a problem if youeat this stuff in moderation and you're not
(52:31):
eating this stuff all day long,which is I am a victim of that.
So well, everything in moderation.I really believe in that. Yes,
yeah, so uh, I reallyappreciate you coming on. I do
want to ask you one one lastquestion about Antie Ends. Is it still
going strong? Are you still involved? Anti Ends was sold. We sold
(52:54):
it in oh five okay, yes, and my second cousin bought the company
at that time, and he grewup in the Amish culture, so that
was a perfect fit for me tosell to him. And then he owned
it for about five and a halfyears and sold it to a company in
Atlanta, Georgia focused brands in theparent company to that is called Rourke and
(53:19):
Asians is still growing at the rateof speed that it always has. And
you know what, I still singthe praises of antiens, and I've said
this when I was at when Iowned the company. My biggest concern and
my passion was if you do thepretzel perfectly like we teach you how to
(53:44):
do it, it's a perfect product. The customers will not be able to
resist it, and the company willcontinue to grow. But if you take
shortcuts and you don't follow the followthis system. And you know, any
recipe, Jim, you know,you can take a recipe and give it
(54:04):
to ten different people and it maycome back and there's ten different ways to
actually, you know, make this, and it may not taste at the
end of the ten the person.It may not taste like your bread.
So it's very important to follow therules in my cookbook, and Auntie ns
knows it's really important for the frenchisethese to follow the rules as a system.
(54:27):
And as long as they do that, then they will continue to grow.
And I still love Auntie Ann's I'mnot involved in any way except that
when I in all of my travels, I will stop by the stores and
say hello to them, and youknow, just give them a little encouragement
and love on the people, becauseit's really all about the people. There
you go, and that's why wecall the show Bread for the People.
(54:50):
I love that. I love that. Yes, it's been a pleasure to
talk to you. And thank you. Thank you for the conversation, thank
you hire for your time. AndI really appreciate and I bless you and
I pray that you just sell lotsof bread the next five tin. I
don't know, as long as youwant to. I hope that it goes
well for you. I appreciate it, all right. This episode of Bread
(55:12):
for the People was brought to youby Side Hustle Bread, Long Island's handcrafted
artisanal bread company. Side Hustle Breadis a family run business that's bringing the
neighborhood field back to Long Island,one loaf at a time. If you
like what you're hearing, don't forgetto head on over tie iTunes and rate
and review this episode. Reviewing andrating is the most effective way to help
us grow our audience. This episodewas produced by Milestone TV and Film.
(55:36):
I'm your host, Jim Serpico.Less it be the bread everyone,
All right, you're ready. Thereis sure I want to You know you're
in charge, so tell me whatyou need and uh, just just follow
me. I love having freeform conversations. I did my research, and kay,
I think we'll be I think we'llbe excellent. All right, well,
I'm sure that. And if Imake any mistakes, we could we
(00:20):
could fix it. You can alwaysedit if if I make any mistakes.
Is that correct? Okay? Herewe go? Excellent? All right,
thank you. My name's Jim Serpico. And this should I start with my
name? What should I start with? This is bread for the people?
Do you like it? Like this? Welcome to bread? What do you
like it? Like this? Welcome? Ready, Welcome to bread for the
(00:41):
people? Mine? Is there ascript? People? Welcome the bread for
the people. I'm Jim Surpa,my guest today, is an author of
(01:03):
several books, including the book Cometo the Table, which is available right
now everywhere you get your books.I had the opportunity to read the book,
and I could tell you I thinkI gained ten pounds is reading it.
I'm very excited to go through thehistory of some of these Recipes's what
(01:26):
it's all about. And Bilin iswith me today. Besides writing all these
great books, and is an entrepreneur, a franchiser, a mom, and
a family person. She is alsothe founder of aunt Annie's Pretzels. And
(01:51):
welcome to the program. Well takeyou, Jim, and I'm so happy
to be with you today on yourprogram. And I love the fact that
what we have in common is wedo have predit in common. We actually
have a lot of things in common. I am a farmer's market vendor,
and I know that you kind ofstarted doing your thing with aunt Anis by
(02:19):
doing farmers markets, so we couldstart there and maybe go backwards. But
here's what I know about that.You were living, I believe in Pennsylvania,
correct, and to make some extramoney, you drove two hours each
way to Maryland to do a farmer'smarket where you were not just selling pretzels,
right, that's correct, You're right. You were selling pies, yes,
(02:39):
and candy and candy. And atsome point you realize the pretzel thing
after changing the recipe at your husband'ssuggestion, h was really starting to hit.
And then you're also a showman,because I believe what you did was
roll out the pretzels in front ofthe customers. So when we did that,
(03:00):
you know, Jim, we neverwe had no idea that it was
actually interesting to the people. Itwas kind of a theatrical kind of thing
and people would stand there and justwatch us make the Presso so I guess
maybe I am somewhat of a showmanshowwoman. I mean I like to think
that I am. And I sayto the other like friends of mine,
(03:24):
friends of mine, not a pizzamakers or breadmakers and other vendors of farmers
markets, like it's theater. Itis. What we're doing is theater.
And I recently this is my firstseason with a food truck. And the
reason I got it, even thoughI'm not using it for that, the
reason I originally intended to I wasgoing to make fresh muzdala in front of
(03:47):
the people and then sell it.And to do that I needed certain equipment
to get by the border health.But I am always aware of the theater
and what separates you from everyone else. And people like like the event aspect.
They like to see it and bea part of it. I think
the other part that they enjoy isthey can actually see, as you know,
(04:10):
ATMs, we make our product rightin front of the customer as well.
So we do all the mixing andI think how people and I don't
know how much they pay attention tothat, but if they want, they
can see exactly what we're putting inthe you know. So it's fresh and
it's made in front of them,and it feels it's a feel good product
and it's plus it tastes really reallygood. I mean, even before I
(04:33):
was into professional baking, I livein Long Island, the Roosevelt Field.
It was a big, big mall. You had a big presence there.
I could remember standing in front ofthat window being amazed at the skills.
It wasn't it wasn't about what ingredientswere going in at the current. From
(04:55):
me, it was more more theskills of the pretzel rolling skills. And
wow, this is how they doit. These people must have rolled so
many pretzels. They were just experts. It was cool to watch. Yeah,
and today, Jim, there's somany people come to me and tell
me as a kid, they didthe exact thing what shared describing. They
stood in front of one of theantian windows there and just enjoyed watching the
(05:16):
employees role the product. And soyeah, that is part of Antian's,
which that was not our plan,but we soon recognize that it's fun to
roll products and people comment on that. It just it just became. I
would when I was doing the storesof myself. My favorite part of the
job was to actually roll pretzels.So it is fun, really, Yes,
(05:41):
So when you say it wasn't yourplan, like at some point,
whether windows added or did someone comeup with the idea, let's let the
people see this. At what pointdid that become Was it after you started
franchising. No, No, wedid that from from day one, which
has built the store was built thatway. And you mentioned the Maryland Farmer's
(06:04):
Market. That's when I actually wasintroduced to handled pretzels in in July of
nineteen eighty seven, and in Januaryof nineteen I'm sorry, February nineteen eighty
eight. About six months later.Then we bought our own store in Downingtown,
Pennsylvania. But the store that Iwent to work for and they I
(06:28):
was a manager there, and that'show they built a store. And so
then fast forward seven months later,we bought a store sight unseen. We
had no idea what it looked like. We knew that the pretzels. The
people that were selling the store werealso selling pretzels, but that really wasn't
like our plan. So we getthere and the store once again had this
(06:54):
plexiglass for the window between the customerand the boy making the pretzels, and
I'm like, wow, okay,So it just became a part of how
we did anti MS from that pointon. Now, am I mistaken or
am I correct in that the originalstore, like you at the Farmers Market
(07:15):
wasn't just pretzels, but were youselling pizza? That's correct, we were
selling We bought pisstour that had pretzels, pizza, ice cream and drinks and
strumb woollies. So yeah, westarted out we had no idea, but
within seven months of buying the store, we had, as you mentioned,
(07:36):
perfected the recipe. And we werealready in our second store in Harrisburg and
my sister, who was running thefirst store, she called her said and
I cannot keep up with the pretzels. I can't make them fast. And
I'm said, I'm going to getrid of the pizza. And over the
telephone I argued with her, I'mlike, no, we can't, we
(07:58):
can't get rid of the pizza.I mean we have we do pretty well
with the pizzas. And I justsaid, well, I know I'm not
the boss, I don't own this, but I just can't keep up.
And I said, well, hey, do whatever you feel is right.
Well at that point that she actuallygot rid of the pizza and we went
on selling pretzels and that became ourour product. So when you first started
(08:20):
doing the pretzels, you were workingfor someone else, is that and you
started to become familiar with the recipeand interested in it and improving it.
No, I wasn't interested in improvingit. I we had a great product
in Burtonsville. This is kind ofa long story, but when I got
to my Downingtown market again, Iknew. I knew what we were the
(08:45):
ingredients that we had for Burtonsville.When we got to Downingtown, I didn't
understand, in a nutshell, Idid not understand there are a couple of
hundred you probably know this kinds offlour. And so what I did was
I used the flowers that we hadin that was left at that particular store
(09:05):
that we bought. They had somethey had a number of bags of clothes.
I mean the left over and theyjust left it there, and so
I used what they had and theresult of that was I had a horrible
pretzel and I could not understand why. I didn't realize what was it,
Dancer. I'm not even going totalk about it. I'm just telling you
(09:28):
it was a very different it wasa very different kind of flower. And
so because we didn't understand that,so one day I was going to take
the pretzels off of my menu boardbecause they were terrible. After maybe two
months of just really trying to perfectI don't know, the biking, the
trays, the ovens, the temperature, everything, nothing worked. And I
(09:50):
went down to parkt one day andmy husband happened to go with me that
particular Friday, and I said,huh, I'm done with the pretzels.
I'm not doing it anymore. They'rehorrible, we're not selling it up many.
They look terrible, they taste terrible, and I'm just going to take
him off the menu. And itsaid, now before you, before you
do that, let me try somethingthat may work. Now. Jonas was
a little Amish guy at home.We grew up Amish booth of Us and
(10:13):
he was the baker in his family. His mom was an invalid, and
he became the helper in the kitchenand he always made cookies and breads and
pies and cakes, and so hedo something about baking and he said,
let me just try something. Isaid, well, okay, I'm I'm
done. I'm frustrated. I'm done. So I said, well, just
(10:33):
wait. So he went to thestore and bought some ingredients and he came
back. We added to our recipeand voila and Jane's pretzel. It was
an instant overnight, I mean instantsuccess. After that, the product went
from nothing I couldn't even eat itmyself to I couldn't stop eating. It
(10:54):
was unbelievable. We just stood therein all like what is this? So
what we know today is that antiens was created by God because we could
never have figured it. We wouldnever have figured it out on our own
how to do this. And thenthen we became crazy about I just became
I call myself a wild woman.Everybody that walked past our store they had
(11:18):
to try the product, and soI would stand out there and give samples
or even whole pretzels. It didn'tmatter to me. You just had to
try the product. So hey,if you out there, you're trying to
tell something to make sure it's betterthan the best that's out there. So
cool. So you mentioned that youguys grew up Amish, and I know
(11:41):
there's many types of Amish, andI learned that by reading your book.
So I do want to get intothe book. Now, come to the
chapel. I love the first twelveor so pages really give a history of
you growing up and the regiment ofyour day and your family's day. And
(12:05):
you actually, as a family,I think you're one of eight siblings,
came to the table with your parentsthree times a day and had a meal,
and you guys loved it every daywithout fail. And I you know,
I don't attribute some of that tothe Amish heritage, but I also
(12:30):
believe that it's the culture of farmers, farming the farming community. There is
such a it's such a discipline lifethat it wasn't just my culture. I
think it's a farming community culture thatreally, even to this day, I
know that the Amish people, thefarmers, still hold that tradition very very
(12:54):
close to heart. And I meanit didn't matter where we were on the
farm. My dad may have beenout, you know, cultivating or mowing
hay or combining weed, whatever itwas. At twelve o'clock eleven thirty twelve
o'clock, everybody knew it was timeto come in. In the morning,
we milked the cows, and afterwe were done milking, everybody sat at
(13:16):
the table in the evening and fiveo'clock dinner just before we went to milk
the cows again. So it wasvery predictable. And there were no TVs
in our culture. There was noradio, if you can imagine that.
I know most people in the worldcannot even fathom that, but maybe you
can. I'm not sure what's yourages, but but we we just we
(13:39):
had no electronics. Well, youdidn't even have electricity originally, originally originally
until I turned I was about threewhen my mom and dad got electricities,
so I grew up with that.Can we talk about this for a second
and break it down a little bitof course, older please help me out.
Older Amish. There's a certain typeof Amish that really lives by the
(14:05):
book, in the Old Order Amish, all the Order Amish, and when
you were born, for the firstthree or so years, they were still
old Older Order orders. Yes,we were old old order Amish, so
no electricity. Correct, we hadwe had running water, but we had
(14:30):
an outside bathroom outside until I wasten, so we had no bathtubs we
had. It's a kind of crazywhen I think about that in my lifetime,
all of the changes that have happened. But yes, it was pretty
It was very primitive. But youlisten, let me tell you it was
a very safe environment. I learnedhow to work really hard there, but
(14:54):
we learned how to play hard aswell, and we understood the value of
hard work. The reward of hardwork wasn't It wasn't We're going to get
to the store and get candy orice cream? Is just the satisfaction.
I can feel that in my heartas I say that word to you,
The satisfaction of which is working aheart and given us your very best and
(15:18):
then Mom and Dad just being pleasedwith what you did. That was the
reward. And yeah, I don'tknow. I also, yeah, I
wonder if part of it. I'venever been a farmer, but I can
tell you that I know for sureI could make more money than I'm making
(15:41):
now. I am choosing to bake. And it's not very well, critic,
you know, but there isn't thissense of seeing physically what you did
at the end of the day.So I wonder that's the other thing about
farming. It's pretty tangible. Allthese people, this family comes together and
(16:03):
at the end of the day andat the end of the season, you
really see the results, right,absolutely, And if we didn't do our
jobs, all of us, alleight of us kids, mom and dad
of course, but uh, youknow, we would gather all kinds of
fruit and vegetables all summer long andfreeze them and can them for to get
(16:26):
through the winter. And Mom wouldkind of ration all the vegetables. You
don't say, well, we haveto we can't have corn today because we're
almost out, and we got aplant garden that winter is not over yet.
So we were constantly managing our food. We always had enough to eat,
So I don't want to leave youwith the impression that we didn't have
enough teat but we had to constantlymanage them food that we gathered in the
(16:48):
fall of the year. Yeah,and you didn't you didn't have refrigeration.
Yes, we did in the inthe let me think in the Amish when
when when we were Amish. Afterwe left the Old Order Amish. We
had electricity, so we did haverefrigeration and we had a freezer. Yes,
and you were at that point yourdad was what's called black car.
(17:11):
That's correct. You did read thebook, That's right. I read the
book and then and that kind ofAmish, black heart Amish meant that we
could have a car, it hadto be black, and we could have
electricity. And my dad was ableto farm with a tractor. And let
me tell you, we were movingon up in the world. But if
you looked at us pack, ifyou saw us pack in the day,
(17:33):
you would have said there were OldOrder Amish. We did. We looked
very much like Comish my whole growingup life. And didn't you move towards
milking machines or automated milking. Yes, we did milkymish cheese. But I
remember as a kid, I wouldgo my dad to the barn and he
actually milked the cows by hand.And I remember that clearly, because every
(17:55):
now and again he would try toescort us with milk and uh and yeah,
And I remember cleaning out by hand, the you know, the mess,
and the barn was always had tobe cleaned after every at the end
of every day, and yeah,so there was so much work. I
look at that and I'm amazed thatI don't know, like we actually did
(18:17):
all that. But yes, itwas hard work. But you know,
we never really were not allowed tocome well, we were not allowed to
complain. My mom always said todayis a good day. To stop grumbling.
She said that every day, soI guess we tried to complain,
but she instilled in us, don'tcomplain, just do the work with a
cheerful heart, and we tried todo that. I love the anecdote you
(18:40):
said you did. You all hadfun. You would make up games when
you're gardening to compete who could fillthat basket? That's right, quist.
And you find your ways to enjoythe process, Yes, which is interesting
because I do that. I reallymaking bread is very similar. Sure,
(19:00):
and you know my kids helped me, but they're also at different stages of
life and pursuing other things, andI'm not sure that they ever got to
the point where it's like, hey, I'm going to do this and figure
out how to enjoy it. Itwas more like I gotta get this done
so I could get well. I'mnot I'm not sure that wasn't some of
(19:22):
our motivation as well. But butwe had, you know, acres and
acres of tomatoes and potatoes and corn, and so it wasn't like it was
a one hour long job and you'redone. But it was more like a
all day, all day, allday. And uh, you know.
So the other thing that I learnedon the farm a gym was a team
work. You know. I neverrealized way back then, it's like I
(19:47):
was being prepared for anti Ans becauseI took everything I learned on the farm
and with an eighth grade education,and hard work and loving people. Those
were their three key ingredients that Itook with me into the workplace. And
it really was enough, you know, to get me started and to then
(20:10):
of course bringing other people around us. And I've always said, all of
our employees made anti Ends what itis today, and it's the employees that
took Auntie Ends around the world.But I learned teamwork on the farm with
my brothers and sisters. Give methose three ingredients again, the three ingredients
(20:30):
for Oh my god, did Isay, maybe you said? It was
teamwork, teamwork, hard work,and I learned how to love people.
It was teamwork, hard work,and loving people. See, I I
know life isn't linear, and I'mnot I don't think it's supposed to be
(20:51):
correct. And I what I've realizedand what I try to say to my
kids, No matter what it isthat you're doing now, even if this
recipe is not going to matter ofhow you specifically make this bread, there
are bigger things around it that you'regoing to take with you for the rest
(21:12):
of your life. Yes, absolutely, And that's what I did with my
father, who was a musician butran a company that would book his band
as well as other bands, andhe had payroll, and he had all
this stuff. And I truly learnedabout business by watching him and being with
(21:33):
him, and it somehow inspired allthe other things I did in my life,
even though it wasn't the exact jobthat he did. You know,
sure, I think that we underestimatethe power of role modeling. You know,
my parents, and as you weredescribed, your father sounds to meet
(21:55):
like he role modeled. And myparents taught me most everything I know without
without telling me. You know,they didn't sit all of us down and
tell us, you know, howto shut corn or how to weed the
garden, or how to go outin the bar and like they did all
of that, and they role modeled, and role modeling, in my opinion,
(22:19):
is the strongest form of teaching.They gave you access without belittingly.
Oh my goodness, I was.I was in the kitchen as a as
a kid. I had hay feverwhen I was growing up, and I
was the only one of eight children. And my mom that that then just
(22:41):
gave me access or mom. Ibecame her help her in the kitchen.
I cooked, and I baked,and and as all the other kids were
outside doing the yard work and allthose things. Eventually I got out of
the field and I stayed in thekitchen and my mom, she never belittled
me anything. And I know Iwas a messy little kid eight nine,
(23:04):
ten years old trying to you know, bake and make cookies and pies.
But at the age of eleven andtwelve, my mom trusted me to the
point where she went to market inPhiladelphia one day a week on the Thursday
night. It was the only timethat she wasn't at home when I get
home from school, and she leftme a note and said, Annabeth,
(23:25):
my real name is Anna, andshe would call me, annabeths tonight,
I want you to bake. Andshe had a whole hist of anywhere some
sixty to seventy pies and cakes thatI had to bake that evening after school
so that my dad could take themto market in the morning. And I
remember in the morning at night,I would go down literally many times crying
(23:45):
because I missed Mom. I wantedher to be there, and yet I
knew I had this job to do, and I did it alone. And
we had this huge pizza oven.It was like a big, a major
pizza oven, and my dad boughtso that I could bake a lot at
one time. And yeah, SoI did that every Thursday night for about
(24:07):
two years. And in the morningmy dad would I'd have everything already for
him and he'd come and put itin pie shelves and in cases and take
it to the Philadelphia market. Butthe look on his face and when he
picked up his pies and said,oh, these looked good, and just
complimented me in that way. Inever got paid for it. I didn't.
I didn't get one dime for it. But you know what, I
didn't. I didn't care. Itdidn't matter. I was contributing to the
(24:30):
well being of the family, andyou continue to do that for the rest
of your life. I mean,at the farmers markets, didn't you take
that money and give it to yourfamily? Exactly? All the money I
ever made until I got married,I gave it to my mom and dad
when I got home at the endof the work day, whatever it was.
And then as a repayment for that, they furnished our house when we
(24:56):
got married. Which furnished meant,you know, everyone who sued washer and
dryer, stove and the necessities inour home, and they provided all that.
So that was my reward for theyears that I worked for mom and
dad. That's really, you know, all I ever wanted to do in
life was to please my mom anddad. I don't know what that was
(25:17):
instilled in us as kids, youknow, is my mom always said God
first, and your family, andthen be kind each other, you know,
and she was. There was aline that she used often, and
she would say to us, probablyalmost every day, little children, love
each other, do not give eachother pain. When one speaks to you
in anger, do not answer themagain, you know. So she was
(25:38):
constantly telling us, giving us theseone liners every day to remind each other
to be kind, love each other, and you know, do whatever a
family should do. So, youknow, and then Jim, we didn't
have the interruption or of all theyou know, the opinions of what millions
and billions of opinions out there andouters face somewhere come into our homes nowaday
(26:00):
to you know, influence us.I don't know. It was a pretty
simple life and I'm grateful for it. Do you think that's an issue in
Amish life now? I know thatthings have changed for them. There is
still the old order Amish that tryreally hard, you know, to live
(26:22):
by the rules, by their traditionsand all the things that they were taught
growing up, and they're trying topass out onto their their children. And
there's still am I want to say, is smaller sect of Amish, old
order Amish that actually are able tomaintain that because now many of them have
(26:45):
their own companies and they I wantto say most of them. I don't
know that for a fact, butI should say many many of them that
own companies actually have a phone,and they have to have computers to do,
you know, to stay in pusiness. So the Internet and the electronics
of our day is changing them aspeople. And yes, I would say
(27:11):
trying to interrupt and interfere with familylife, but I have to tell you
that family is so important to themthat they will probably fight as hard as
they can to keep the I wantto say, the outward traditions, like
you know, go to church andsit around the table with your family and
(27:33):
work hard. You know. Ithink they still have a very good handle
on the most important things. ButI do believe that the Internet and all
of the electronics that they're they're they'refighting that today. I don't know what
I don't know what it's going tolook like in you know, in a
decade or two. But I dobelieve there's also the They under stand that
(28:00):
it's loosely held right now with theyoung people, but they also understand that
that they'll be able to keep theirpeople. They're young people because they were
they provide what their kids need forthem at a very young age. It's
love, identity, acceptance, recognition, and security, the five basic needs
(28:23):
of every man, woman, boyand girl in the world. And I
think that they have done a verygood job at that. Is the Amish
culture perfect no by no means,and they have their issues just like the
rest of us do. But theycan ask you that because because you were
lucky in that you had these rolemodels that work. Good role models would
work ethics, morals and absolutely theyknew how to you know, treat you
(28:52):
and and just like in life,you know, some people are unfortunately,
you know, have parents that aren'ttest good exactly exactly. And what we're
talking we're young, is what we'regoing to take with us throughout our life.
You know, I believe that,And I also believe there's hope for
anyone who's had a rough childhood andparents that have not parented them well,
(29:14):
and there's still hope for them,and they can still find a good role
model somewhere that they can follow andbecome better than even what their parents were
or what their parents taught them.I believe in that. But I also
believe that, you know, thebreakdown in family has really taken its toll
in our country, and I supposearound the world. Now, what do
(29:37):
you think about the access the transportationand money and people. Well, I
have a child, a middle childwho lives in California, which I understand,
you know, because when I wasa young person, I was chasing
the dream of being an entertainment executive, and I was willing to do anything,
(30:00):
uh, in terms of like moving, you know, and doing the
thing to achieve that goal. It'slike a major League baseball player. You
only have so many places to goto play baseball and if a team's calling
you, But what does that doto the family, Because now it's not
just baseball players, right, it'smy middle kid, it's moving to another
(30:22):
state. Yeah. I think thatwe're living a very different world now than
what it was like when I wasa kid, for sure, And you
might even say since you were akid, the world has changed. And
I think that our priorities are notplain and simple, not even maybe our
values. I mean, for me, it was it was God. It
(30:45):
was faith, family, community andworking together for the good of their community.
And back in the day, that'skind of what everyone did. Right
today, I think life has gottenharder for families and has interruptive family life.
And yes, moving to another statefollowing your dream your career, is
(31:07):
it wrong? No, I don'tthink it's a right or wrong, but
it is very very different. Andin the Amish world, they have still
been able to somehow they're still veryintact. And part of the reason for
that, I believe is that fewof them actually ever move out of the
community. If they do move outof the community, they move in groups
(31:30):
of anywhere from five to ten families. So they seldom go out there on
their own. And I think that, you know, today we go out
on our own, we go tocollege, we have a career. I
travel all around the world by myself. Wow, that was startling to me,
you know when I actually did that, to where there's no one around
me on the plane with me,or when I get to Indonesia and there's
(31:52):
franchise. I don't understand the culture, but while it began, it began
to change me. Like there werelike in my community, everybody knew who
I was. Everybody knew me evenbefore I was Auntie. And it's just
the community. You're just you're alwaystogether, the same church, the same
school, the same you know,your family. We're always together and there's
(32:15):
a lot of protection in that.But I believe that when we go outside
and follow our careers and we openourselves, that we become I say,
more vulnerable. And I can youknow, I experienced some of that when
I became antie Ann and began totravel around the country and around the world,
it was scary for me because Iwasn't I wasn't familiar with that.
(32:37):
So I think kids today are encouraged, of course to go to college and
follow the career. And again nota right or wrong, but it's very
different. Yeah, we find thatyou have to work very hard to keep
(32:57):
the family intact, make it apriority even though you live in other states.
Absolutely, And it's too easy toget consumed with your own stuff and
say I don't have time. Absolutely. My wife always says this is the
reason she loves the holidays more thanthe religious reasons, is it forces everyone
(33:22):
to get together under the same roofand at the same table. Absolutely.
And you know, and I thinkthat when you go out and you move
away to another community, and wehave done this twice down in our lifetime
and recently or not recently. Aboutten years ago, we moved to Texas,
and I had a brother here andhe had a daughter, and so
(33:43):
there was a little bit of familyand my one daughter was here. But
you know, in Leicester County,Pennsylvania, where they amish in that culture,
if I lived in Pennsylvania right now. My grandkids, who are anywhere
from sixteen to twenty six, couldhave gotten a job anywhere at any time,
either the farmer's market because everybody kneweverybody and there was always something for
(34:07):
them to do. You could alwaysfind them a job. So we moved
to text us and how our kidsare those ages now and they don't know
anybody. You know, it's avery very different culture here. And to
break into the into the to thelabor market right now, and just to
find a job, it's very difficult. So I think that's part of the
(34:31):
negative of everybody, the transitioning thatwe do within our families. We're always
moving around, We're always going tocommunities. We don't know anyone, so
therefore we don't have the connections,and then I think they're along with that.
I think there's some accountability that welose. Like, you know,
when I was in my community,I always kind of wanted to be good
(34:52):
because then everybody was watching. Imean, everybody knew me, right,
But when we go out and noone knows us, it's a very different
way to live. Interesting, Yeah, and to have your family come together
even once a week around the tablelike really is that even possible anymore?
Right? Uh? Not for me? And probably right, and you're probably
(35:19):
the norm. And you know whenthat change for me is when we started
Auntie Ann's and we went from twostores to two stores in one year,
and then the next year twelve,and the next year thirty five, the
next year fifty and suddenly my littlefamily, my husband, have three daughters,
one daughter that was killed when shewas very young. We have two
living daughters at that time they wereeleven and sixteen, And almost overnight we
(35:45):
were not able to come to thetable anymore. As the name of my
cook book is come to the table, and it really broke my heart because
that's all I ever knew. Soto come to the table will take an
effort. Although the title of myCup of that is kind of a call.
(36:08):
And again, is it possible?I think that, you know,
whatever is really most important to us, I don't know. Yeah, I
got That's why I say it couldcome in different forms, but you have
to figure out a version of it. It doesn't necessarily have to be five
(36:30):
o'clock. It could be Sunday ateleven in the morning once a week,
and that's a great, great wayto stake that. Yes, true,
So let's let's dive into the cookbook. These are inspired by I guess it's
the types of things you guys madeas a family. And in all seriousness,
(36:51):
like the breads are all enriched.It's not like the breads I bake,
although I would bake these, andI would I look forward to trying
them. Uh, everything's got butter, milk, and sugar. Can you
make anything without those three ingredients?I don't know, you don't know.
(37:12):
Okay, that's pretty cool, man, tell me about it honestly, Like
you guys were out in the fields, and I guess you weren't grazing on
food in the cabinet all day,so you were able to stay pretty fit.
Yes, absolutely, there there werego ahead. This is this is
(37:35):
comfort food, absolutely, you know. I guess. Also every culture has
got their own way of making food, which is of course, and I
mean this is all I knew.And interesting that you would point that out
because it is comfort food. Andeven the Antians pretzel it's a comfort food
(38:00):
and h you know the butter onthe pretzel, Like wow, I would
never have thought about that except thatI love butter, and uh, you
know, it's not so bad forus because you dip a hot pretzel into
hot butter. If people are like, oh, I can't take all that
butter, it's very very minimal.It's not very much. But you're right.
(38:22):
We As far as snacks between breakfastand lunch, no, there were
no snacks because we're all we're allworking between lunch and dinner. No,
And I do remember at times becauseI'm in the kitchen, I would ask
my mom going to have a cookieor but I would never go into the
(38:44):
pantry and grab a cookie, right, So I guess we were able to
absorb the sugar in the butter andthe milk because we were active. And
you know, the other thing isthis is not processed, right, so
it's also very different Exactly. Ihave a little bit of an issue,
(39:05):
like my wife's always dropping the allthe butter, the butter, and it's
like, I believe this stuff isactually okay for you if you're eating it
in pure form and you're eating itin moderation, and you're if you're making
it from scratch. I mean,there's no preservatives in this stuff. And
(39:25):
I feel like Prossess Foods is reallywhat's killing us. Process it's killing without
question, as well as the andI guess included in that is the process
flowers, which I don't bake with. I'm very against it. I'm trying
to help spread that message that there'sa real bread campaign out there, the
(39:46):
bread in the United States. We'rethe only country that allows this bleached flower
to be used on a mascal.Absolutely no, yeah, I totally agree.
The process food in whatever form ittakes, uh is truly It's not
something that we as a kid,as we were going up, we never
(40:07):
ate process I say, never acandy bar or even ice cream. We
made that from scratch. So butyou know, I think that you can
live life and enjoy food that isnot processed, but you have to,
you know, change your way ofliving right now. Your your cookbook runs
(40:28):
the gamut from from breads that andbiscuits, right yep. Uh, And
I love the well before I getto that, and then it also has
like there's a lot of healthy stuffin here, grapes, grape salads,
uh, A lot of stuff withvegetables, yes, fruits, jams yes.
(40:52):
So it's all types of things anda lot of it. Uh.
I kind of liked and I'm interestedin trying something like the peach French French
toast perfect, it's a little differentthan slicing one piece of bread and making
a piece of French toast. It'salmost like a casserole. Yes, it
is. It is. Yes,So I think that no matter what what's
(41:14):
your style or what it is thatyou enjoy, I think that we have
a little bit of everything. Butbut I truly what you mentioned earlier,
I truly grew up with you know, butter, sugar, milk, and
we put it in everything almost youknow, a pinch of sugar or a
(41:35):
pinch of salt, or a teaspoonof butter in our vegetables or whatever.
We just said that in my growingup years. And so there is a
lot of that in the in thea lot of that. And I know
when as we were putting it together, the people that were helping with this,
they noticed the same thing as myhuh okay, all right, well
it's so what I've done. It'swhat I've done all my up. But
(41:55):
you know the other thing is Ithink that growing up as kids, we
were not of us forever obese orthat was my point, overweight, And
it's it's truly it's truly what youeat and how you work that out in
your body. I agree, Andalso I don't think it's a bad thing.
(42:15):
And I wasn't applying that, andI know you know I wasn't because
like, here's how I use I'mgoing to use this cookbook. I'm not
going to use this cookbook every dayand make every meal for the rest of
my life book, right, butbut I'm going to pick out things that
I'm going to try for all differentreasons and all different occasions because there are
things that I've never made or neverhad, and I think that's really interesting
(42:37):
to introduce my family and my friendsto these types of recipes. Yeah,
and the pake coulds. I mean, I mean, really, can anybody
make something really good? Pay createitem without sugar and butter and a little
bit of salt? No? Andyou know what, it cracks me up
speaking about that, because I'm standingat the former's markets. I still do
(42:59):
them, and I'm selling bread,and so many people will tell me,
ah, I'm off the bread.I'm off the bread. And then I
look two booths down and they're onlinefor these giant cookies, you know or
something. So if they're fooling themselves. That's right. No, no,
(43:21):
you know, if you want tohave a healthy body by the time you're
sixty or seventy, you gotta startwhen you're thirty and forty or even before.
I guess, I don't know.I don't know. It's habits.
It is habit. It's habits,you know, absolutely unless we break them.
You almost have to break them,like truly break a habit, and
then every now and again you cantreat yourself. And one of the ways
(43:44):
that we did this as a familymany years ago, it was after at
an started and we were eating pretzelsand I would come home and uh,
you know, and have makes somekind of a dessert over the weekend or
whatever. One day my husband saidto me, Hunts, if you don't
make the dessert at home, thenwe won't eat them when we're here.
Stop making desserts. Well, I'vedone that all my life. So speaking
(44:07):
of habits, but that's when Istarted to stop making desserts at home.
And if we had casts sober,I would always make a dessert. But
I really started and I was probablyat that time, I may have been
forty five years old. So wejust don't make desserts anymore at home,
so we treat ourselves when we goout. See, my father was not
a good eater. He was obeseand you know, from the Italian American
(44:31):
culture, and we grew up eatingnow sure, so it is probably I'm
fifty five now, it's probably somethingthat still sticks with me, unfortunately,
and I'm constantly fighting those habits andwhat I'm used to. Well, I
think that the Italian way of cookingis there's also a lot of carbs,
right, yeah, that's that's inmy cookbook. I mean, you can't
(44:55):
get you just can't get around it, you know. But yeah, so
let's talk about browning butter and howimportant that is to Amish cooking. It's
hard for me to explain that,but it's in the recipe. It will
show you a picture what it's supposedto look like and how to do.
It's very simple, because I've doneit all in my life. But you
take a I don't know, tablespoonor a stick of butter, depending on
(45:19):
how large your portion is, andyou mouth the butter very slowly, and
you keep your you don't leave,you keep the pan on the burner,
but you don't leave the pan.You stay there with it, because it
browns very very quickly. And asas it's browning, you'll see it begin
to bubble up in the middle oflike in the middle of the pool of
(45:39):
butter that you have in there,and you'll begin to see it kind of
bubbling up, and it gets alittle golden, a little more golden,
a little more brown, and afterbit you'll see the whole pan of butter
is brown. It takes a littlebit of time, but you don't want
to leave the pan or it willburn. And then it's so good.
But you can pour that over noodles, over mashed potatoes, or you can
(46:04):
even put on top of vegetables.It just adds a flavor. It's much
better than just butter. I stillcook that way whenever I get and is
it, is it better or isit? This is now a habit,
and I'm used to the way ittastes well both it's better. It's better,
and I'm used to the way ittastes. I brown butter on mashed
(46:28):
potatoes. The next time you makemashed potatoes, if you make will if
you make maybe five or six nicehished potatoes, you could actually do a
quarter a stick of butter and brownit and uh, and then just pour
it over the top of the mashedpotatoes and you'll taste the difference. Yeah.
(46:49):
And the breads that you do talkabout in the cookbook, are they
breads that you made daily? Didyou always have bread during the day,
like at some point we always hadbreakfast, lunch, and dinner. We
always had toast in the morning breadat lunch we either maybe sandwiches, but
(47:10):
always had bread on the table.My mom, when we would set the
table it was, she would say, I can said better in Dutch bruett,
vassa and steel. She would sayto me, Anne, do we
have the bread, the water andthe chairs at the table? So,
I mean, this sounds silly,right, but in order for ten people
(47:31):
to come together every day, wehad to make sure everything was in order
so that when everybody came to sitdown, we all had our certain place
to sit. And yes, sobread was we had at every meal.
Now, the i'mish sweet dough breadreminds me of what I think of a
sandwich bread. Sure, it canbe a sandwich bread or it can be
(47:54):
just a slice of bread. Andthe other thing was we always ate our
bread with butter, and jelly always, so you know, yeah, here
we go, we're really loading upon the carved and the sugar. And
I guess if you don't want processedfoods to make the things that are in
(48:15):
my cookbook, then you can alwaysget the vegetables and the fruits and you
could make your own jelly which orbuy it at a farmer's more. Absolutely,
absolutely there are places that you canget pretty wholesome and healthy foods.
Yeah. Speaking of wholesome and healthy, let's jump to the chicken and waffles.
(48:42):
I love that. How how oftenwas that a treat or was that
something that was in the rotation?I made chicken and waffles very often,
and it was kind of a somewhatof a specialty dish for me when I
was even when I would entertain withAntie and folks, I would make chicken
(49:06):
and waffles because it was a veryunique. Nobody had ever had chicken and
waffles. What do you mean chickenand waffles? So the way it's subscribed
in the coke hook and the wayI would make it. I would always
use legs and dice and some whitemeat if you prefer, but cut it
up me bake it. I wouldbake it just very it would fall off
of the bone. I would justcook it it falls off the bone,
(49:29):
and then I would take it andcut it up in very small chunks.
And then I would make a creamsauce which is subscribed in the cookbook,
and cream it all together with thechicken and the cream sauce. And again
the cream sauce is made out ofcanned milk, a little bit of flour,
butter and eggs. And you wouldmake this sauce and then pour it
(49:54):
over the cut up chicken, andthen you would make waffles. However you
make waffles, I mean today,if you want to go to the store
and buy frozen waffles, if youwant to cut it short, you can
always do that. But I alwaysmade my own waffle batter, and that's
also in the cookbook. And sothen you would take a waffle and it
(50:14):
just pour over some of the creamedchicken and wow, it's really good.
And then with that I would alwayshave a side tish of sweet peas green
peas, which was always a veryWe had lots of peas growing up because
we had our gardens, and greenpeas was always that's what we would eat
(50:37):
with the chicken and waffles. Soyeah, it's a special to dish.
It's not very fancy, but itis very it's unique. Yeah, and
some of the stuff, I mean, this really is a book for the
home baker. Yes, it is, the absolutely because some of it's pretty
simple, That's what I'm saying.I'm not a gourmet chef. So if
you open, if you buy thebook and you're looking for something really amazing
(51:00):
complicated, it's pretty It's down homecooking. And although some of the recipes
may seem a little complicated take moretime than others, most of the recipes
you can make be for dinner,Like you know what I mean. It's
it's like you can think through whatyou're gonna have for dinner that night,
(51:22):
and I would often just throw stufftogether maybe within an hour, hour and
a half of having dinners. Soit's not complicated, but like anything,
until you learn it, it canfeel it can't feel overwhelming at times.
Yes, well, I enjoyed itand I do plan to to try a
(51:42):
lot of it, so I'm lookingforward to that. Well, I hope
that you text me let me knowwhat's your favorite. I know you're gonna
you won't do everything but you know, for example, if you want homemade
jelly, if you love jelly jam, I have a recipe there pineapple and
strawberry jelly or jam, whatever youprefer. It takes ten fifteen minutes to
(52:07):
make it, and you put itin a little jar and you seal it
and it is the best jam.Of course there's sugar in there, but
it's very simple to do. Foragain, I'm okay with the man.
I really I'm I don't mean likeI don't care about health and I don't
really think that's a problem if youeat this stuff in moderation and you're not
(52:31):
eating this stuff all day long,which is I am a victim of that.
So well, everything in moderation.I really believe in that. Yes,
yeah, so uh, I reallyappreciate you coming on. I do
want to ask you one one lastquestion about Antie Ends. Is it still
going strong? Are you still involved? Anti Ends was sold. We sold
(52:54):
it in oh five okay, yes, and my second cousin bought the company
at that time, and he grewup in the Amish culture, so that
was a perfect fit for me tosell to him. And then he owned
it for about five and a halfyears and sold it to a company in
Atlanta, Georgia focused brands in theparent company to that is called Rourke and
(53:19):
Asians is still growing at the rateof speed that it always has. And
you know what, I still singthe praises of antiens, and I've said
this when I was at when Iowned the company. My biggest concern and
my passion was if you do thepretzel perfectly like we teach you how to
(53:44):
do it, it's a perfect product. The customers will not be able to
resist it, and the company willcontinue to grow. But if you take
shortcuts and you don't follow the followthis system. And you know, any
recipe, Jim, you know,you can take a recipe and give it
(54:04):
to ten different people and it maycome back and there's ten different ways to
actually, you know, make this, and it may not taste at the
end of the ten the person.It may not taste like your bread.
So it's very important to follow therules in my cookbook, and Auntie ns
knows it's really important for the frenchisethese to follow the rules as a system.
(54:27):
And as long as they do that, then they will continue to grow.
And I still love Auntie Ann's I'mnot involved in any way except that
when I in all of my travels, I will stop by the stores and
say hello to them, and youknow, just give them a little encouragement
and love on the people, becauseit's really all about the people. There
you go, and that's why wecall the show Bread for the People.
(54:50):
I love that. I love that. Yes, it's been a pleasure to
talk to you. And thank you. Thank you for the conversation, thank
you hire for your time. AndI really appreciate and I bless you and
I pray that you just sell lotsof bread the next five tin. I
don't know, as long as youwant to. I hope that it goes
well for you. I appreciate it, all right. This episode of Bread
(55:12):
for the People was brought to youby Side Hustle Bread, Long Island's handcrafted
artisanal bread company. Side Hustle Breadis a family run business that's bringing the
neighborhood field back to Long Island,one loaf at a time. If you
like what you're hearing, don't forgetto head on over tie iTunes and rate
and review this episode. Reviewing andrating is the most effective way to help
us grow our audience. This episodewas produced by Milestone TV and Film.
(55:36):
I'm your host, Jim Serpico.Less it be the bread everyone,
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