 there's seven o'clock. Hello, everyone. Alright, hello. Hello. Alright, so I'll get started with like the library news and info before we get started. And I'm, of course, you were all here tonight for her story, which is also a small business spotlight her story. And we are here to see Michelle Polzine cookbook author, cafe owner, ex cafe owner, small business entrepreneur. So let's we're going to have a chat with Michelle in just a moment after the library announcements. And this is part of our her story campaign, which we do of course we do campaigns all the year long. And we just did more than a month, which is our black history going into her story, which has allowed me to meet so many amazing women of on both campaigns and it just has not ended. And I'm so happy to add Michelle tonight. And San Francisco Public Library would like to acknowledge that we occupy the unceded ancestral homeland of the Romuto Sholoni peoples. They are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. And we want to recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. As uninvited guests, we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples in which to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders and relatives of the Romuto community. And I will also throw in the chat box some links to a reading list about first persons, as well as some great aloney websites in the Bay Area, including Segurated Land Trust, which is a great women led organization in East Bay, fighting for land rights. They have a really great thing called the Shumi tax, in which you can they calculate how much tax you pay a year, and sort of a land back, pay your tax on where you live. And it's really quite reasonable if we all did it, it would be amazing. And I actually am joining you tonight from Portland, which is Monoma County, Monoma, Monoma, Monoma, Monoma County, but also Kaflamette, Clacamas, Clacamas, and Chinook, as well as Clacamas, Clacamas, I got that one, Clacamas, Kaflamette, and Monoma. So acknowledge where you're at, learn about it, and learn about some land rights going on in our area. We have at the library a campaign called On the Same Page, where we encourage you all to read the same book at the same time, it's bi-monthly, and we are celebrating as part of Women's History and National Poetry Month, the amazing Natalie Diaz, who will be in conversation with Michelle Cruz Gonzalez. You can pick this book up at any library location right now, you'll walk in, you'll find it, and then we'll have a book club, but we'll also have an author event. So stick around for that. And then just a few other amazing events, including April is, of course, Climate Action, and Earth Day, we have none other than the most amazing San Francisco icons, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stevens talking about ecosex and ecosensuality, and of course, climate crisis, and how do we get through that? And one way is pleasure. And the amazing Emily St. John Mandel, author of Stations 11 and the amazing HBO option for it will be in conversation with San Francisco, Anna Lee Newitz, and this is happening in partnership with San Mateo County Library System. And she has a new book coming out, Sea of Tranquility. I'm going to throw all of this in the chat in one handy link. All right, that was a lot. So yay, we're here with Michelle Polzin, chef and owner of the now closed 20th Century Cafe, and one in San Francisco's best pastry chef. Polzin began cooking in North Carolina in 1992 and got her big break in 1995 at Chapel Hills. Pie Wackett. Yep. Pie Wackett restaurant. Polzin made the restaurant's famous dinner rolls and a pastry career was born. She has since worked at some of San Francisco's best restaurants from Delphina to Chez Panisse to the range. She has been covered in bon appetit, food and wine, the New York Times among others, publications and has been nominated as outstanding pastry chef by the James Beard Foundation. And she lives in San Francisco with her husband and her cats, which we've already seen one cat who eats cakes. And she recently has been in the news again for raising $17,000 for Ukraine. All right, so one last thing we're going to do is enjoy this amazing cooked on a book by Michelle. Here we go. So good. So good. Trust me. Fruit. Fruit. Did anybody say fruit? Has been in my head for the last week. So good. So good. All right, so welcome, Michelle, and welcome library community. I'm so happy you are here with us tonight. And the first thing I want to do is just welcome you. And you want any opening words, Michelle? Go. Throwing you right in. Oh, my God. Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming. I'm so excited that I was asked to be part of this library talk. Yay. And then I'm going to throw in the link for tonight's chat, since I didn't do any of those chats. Oh, there's a bunch of chat already. Hi, everyone. Welcome. All right. Hello. Hello, Chef Ava. Welcome. All right. So I figured we would, since there's so many friends here tonight, I'll ask a few questions and we'll do a little chatting. But then we'll turn it over to questions from our audience who I'm sure has many. And you're just beloved in San Francisco. I consider of you one of the San Francisco, you know, famous San Francisco people, along with like Annie Crinkle, for instance, you know, those kind of people. You're well known. Okay. In certain circles, like in only in the San Francisco circles, right? No sound. Oh, can you still hear us? No. Can everyone hear us out there? Am I muted? Just one of us. So, okay, we're good. Hopefully you can turn us up, the person who can't hear us. Okay, good. Good. Continue. So that being said, did you get any like famous San Francisco people in the cafe? Who are they? Well, I did. And some people, it was funny because people would come and I didn't, I don't know a lot about like modern pop culture very much. But there are some people that just kind of had that kind of like vibe, like you just knew that they were special. And the kind of the person that comes to mind is like, Wayne Wang and his wife came in like a lot. They lived, they kind of split their time between here in New York. And they were like, his wife was like, you're just like our little Savarsky. And I was like, oh, who are these people? I don't know, but they're awesome. And then I saw him, like a picture of him on someone's post and I was like, oh. And then one time, who is my other, my most famous person. So I am nervous. Like, I'm like, my brain is, you know, from blood simple. Oh, yeah. Was the lady or the from Fargo, you know, the famous one, my brain, Francis McDormand. Yeah, Francis McDormand. Wow, cool. He came in, but I was like, when she came to the counter, because I really, I like, I knew who she was and I hardly know who anyone is. And she came to the counter and like, I was so scared. I looked at her and I like turned and ran away. And then she was so bad. And she never came back again, because I was so weird. But you love, we love weird. What can you do? Well, so it's like, lucky that I don't know who anyone really is, because then they don't get like the like, because that's pretty much what I did. I was like, she looked at me and I looked at her and I went, I ran in. Oh man. So in the basement, and then my friend Claire was like, Francis McDormand is upstairs. Oh my God. Oh my God. And so I was like, Oh God, what am I going to do? What did she order? She was actually, it was super cool. I guess she'd been in a couple of times and maybe I didn't know about it because I was in the dungeon. Okay. And people were like, I came in and you weren't there. Honey, I was there. I was just underneath you. But she was, she was in the corner and that like, there's like the front table in the corner, in the window. And she like, had her New York times. And she was like, it was so cool, like all these, like people would come in and hang out with her for a while and leave. She was like holding court. She could definitely order things and then she'd order more things. And like she ordered some bagels to go and you know, normally like put them in a bag. But so I like put them in a cake box and she walked by and she looked at them and she went like that. And I was like, but then I did the dumb thing. So you know, whatever, what can you do? I used to meet some of my favorite humans there that are semi San Francisco famous, which is Carol Queen, who is and Robert Lawrence, amazing humans in San Francisco, beloved as well. They used to own their founders of the Center for Sex and Culture, sex educators and just amazing, lovely humans and weirdos. And they too would hold court and run their business straight out of your business. Yeah, I got I think I got thanked in Queen Carol's last book. I was like, yes, that's like my dream. Oh, I forgot I have one more famous person story. So a lot of people would come from SF jazz. And one time Robbie Coltrane came in. And I know, and I got introduced to him and he had like, he had my hand in his and he looked in my eyes and he said, you have a beautiful place here. That's pretty stunning. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that was pretty good. That's pretty good. Yeah. So tell us, I mean, this is kind of a kind of a segue, but you know, tell us about the cafe and what it was like running that. And you know, how did you decide to become an entrepreneur? Did you always want to be your own cafe owner? And what were the pitfalls? And tell us all. Um, this cat is biting me right now. What a jerk about it. Um, well, I, I worked as a, I've been a pastry chef for a long time. And I kind of started like, well, I started as a dishwasher and then I became a line cook. And then I started baking. And that was like what I really loved. And as a, as a bakery, you're like always, it's basically like someone else's show. And you're like that the last note kind of. And so, you know, I always figured that that was where I would be. And I imagine maybe someday I would like open a restaurant with someone, but mostly people are like, don't want to, or probably that now they would, but like at that point, like didn't want to like share the cut, you know what even like this, the chef cut basically. So like a lot of people I know that are pastry chefs, they open places like with their spouses. So, but mine's a librarian. So what? Yeah, I know. Now you have to be honorary in the family, the library family. No wonder you were worried that I was emailing you for your overdue books. I know I was like, Oh, did they do that crap? But so I went to I went to a trip my my brother-in-law was had kind of a fancy job at Apple. And for my 40th birthday, which was a long time ago, he said, I'll take you wherever you want, anywhere. And I actually had that, you know, the Rick Rogers book, the coffee house book, because I learned how to bake a lot from books. I didn't go to pastry school or anything I learned from books. And so I had that book. And it was a really cool book. And I was like, Oh, I want to go to those cities. He did the books about Vienna Budapest and frog. So I was like, I want to go there. And he's like, Okay, fine done. So in 2011, we went. And it was like, you know, like you hear like the, you know, the song when Charlie and the chocolate factory is opening and they like go through all the tunnel all the crazy stuff. And they open the door and Gene Wilder starts saying there is no life I know. And like, and that was like, that was like me. And in Prague, I was like, like spinning around. And it was like all the cakes and like, it was so amazing. And I was like, Oh, this is a cake restaurant. I need a cake restaurant. Because it's like, you know, it's like people are like, Oh, your little bakery or whatever. It's like, no, it was a restaurant. It was a cake restaurant. And we also had savory food. But that was mostly just so if people wouldn't like totally get cracked out on sugar. But yeah, so I was like, Oh, I'm going to do this cake restaurant when I came back. And I was like, how am I going to do this? And then I like, found I started looking for a space and thinking about it. And then I found a space and then I went back and like took like a million pictures and figure out I want to design it and on not a million dollars tried to make, you know, a place that was super beautiful and evoked that period and that time and place. And I was sort of like, well, this is like a super cheap place. This is like a cheap trip to Budapest. You just like walk on the door and you get like, you're here. It's lovely. It was lovely. And friends, you can place questions in the Q&A or the chat or monitoring both. And we'll kind of play it as it goes along or wait to the end. But if you have questions now, we can throw them in. Okay. So now for the questions that I haven't asked, how many times did you have to make the honey cake before it was a perfect honey cake? I mean, I don't even know. When by the time I figured out, I mean, I had made many, many, many tries. And once I had like figured out what I was supposed to do, like I understood, then it took me like 23 tries to get to like, basically, almost where we are now. But before that, it took me, I was just like, just I couldn't even conceptualize it. Like tried all these different things with like sour cream and tried like, I just like, you know, tried to like put like, tried to balance the sweetness with some things. I did some recipes where you like roll out the dough. I tried all these different things. And it wasn't until like, I realized like that, like, I needed more butter, I needed to caramelize the honey. And then the dulce de leche was just like lucky, because I saw that in, I was like trying to because I couldn't find any recipes anywhere. Like so, I mean, even though there's like a million recipes of honey cake online now, the only there was one recipe out there. And that was a smitten kitchen one. And if you've looked at that, it's like totally different from mine. There's like, it has very little in common. But so I had to kind of make it up from nothing. But I did see in this video for this like, Armenian miracle cake, which was a cake that they were making in Czechoslovakia Czech Republic. I saw them opening this can of brown goo. And I knew what the brown goo was. And that was the dulce de leche. So that was like how I got that answer. It was just from like observing some videos. Anyway, but yeah, so it but then it took like 23 tries once I like figured out like the path. But they weren't like the 23 they weren't like total like garbage cake punching failures. I was telling Michelle that my son likes to cook, but he's definitely just learning. And there was a cake punching incident. There was no cake punching at that point. Like I knew I was it was all like, with each time it was like I understood something more, you know what I mean? It wasn't like it was like, it was like not like a fuck. It was I mean a bad word. It was like a like a like each one was enlightening in some way. How about so you talked about your aesthetic of the cafe? Oh wait, I'm going to ask a question that somebody's already asking in the chat, which was, are you going to be teaching any more classes on the honey cake? Yes. One of these days. Yeah, I mean, I think probably soon I'm going to hopefully do some like ones here in my kitchen at my house and movies of them. I love that idea. You got got to pivot to the revolution of zoom classes. I know it's such a funny thing for such a low tech person like me that is so silly, but it is so easy at the same time. We love having chefs on because you know, people love chefs, people love to be fed and love to to hear about how you got there. So tell us about so now I'm going to go back to the aesthetics of your place, but of you as well. I mean, you are like vintage classic. Where did that come from and and how did you how did you learn to meld those two things your aesthetic of your cafe, along with your vintage aesthetics? Well, it's I think it all starts with like, well, a couple things. I mean, like watching old movies when I was young, but also x-scenes or vanka. Oh yeah. Right. Because she always wore like the rayon dresses and the bakelite and everything. And she was and I was like really into punk rock. And she was just like, you know, you don't have you shopped the thrift store. And so yeah, I mean, I think it was like her fault. And I love vintage clothing. It's so beautiful. And so I've been kind of, I guess, I wouldn't say I don't have stuff. Well, I have one thing from when I was like 16. But like so I've been buying vintage clothing since I was 14. And you know, that's except for sometimes I like where Dickie's in the t-shirt or something vintage. That's it. That's like I don't have any other clothes. It's either like Dickie's in t-shirts or like my sleeves. Wonderful. I'd love to be in your closet for just a few seconds there. How many closets do you have? I well, there's a there's actually a room in my house that's a closet. I know. Is it a hat room too? There's hats in there. Yeah. I actually just replaced all my hat boxes because they were totally disintegrating. And I got like, I found some online that is like like millinery quality hat boxes. So I like finally the ones that have been like duct taped together for all these years went away. And I got new ones, but I took pictures of them because some of them still had cool like logos and stuff that were decipherable. And then Oh, and then the question is how how would the aesthetic go to the cafe? Well, that was sort of like that was easy. That was just sort of like consistent. That was the cool thing about like this. I mean, I guess it was like I couldn't really do like, you know, Art Nouveau because that's too expensive. But I kind of did like Art Deco. I cheated a little bit. And so I just like wore my own clothes in the cafe because I sort of realized I was like, Oh, I mean, now I do stuff more than just work. But there was like when I was like, Oh, I'm only ever going to work. So I might as well start wearing my clothes here. Because otherwise, they're just going to get eaten by mods. By the time I get a chance to wear them, I'll be like 300 years old before I can like put on a real dress again. So I just started wearing them at work. And then the aesthetic of the cafe was, you know, it was pretty, it was pretty easy, just like, you know, marble, mohair, like I did. There's a cafe I love in in Vienna that had like the Marmalium floor. I mean, they called it linoleum then, but it's like, you know, it's been an architectural, it's like appropriate for early 1900s building. And it's also like eco-friendly. So that was really cool. I did that and I found the tile in like the scrap yard, fire clay tile, and just all the stuff like it just got really lucky with kind of putting it all together. And then the music, my librarian husband did music because he's a big music nerd. We have like over 4,000 songs on the playlist. Awesome. Is that on Spotify? No. That would be wonderful. That'd be so fun to do. I don't know what, like a 20th century cafe night somewhere. Be cool. I had like all these crazy fantasies with the book was like, we'll do like a playlist with it and Paper Dolls. I want to do all this stuff. That'd be so fun too. I know. Nobody wanted to spend that kind of money. It's a lot of money, I think. Maybe you need to do your own Paper Doll book separate from the cafe book. Well, because I wanted to have, and I thought I was going to get to have Dame Darcy. I don't know to do the illustrations. Yeah. Let's find her in the chat. I'll put that in the chat. So that would be so good. I know. And so I'm just going to read some stuff in the chat. Isabel has already said I think twice now it was a magical place. Isabel loved it. I'm sorry. It was the best, she says too. And then some agreeing it's the best, truly missed, magical. Okay, but now let's go back to people love your Wedgewood stove and then your China that they're sitting there. You want to tell us about that and tell us what you're drinking. Let's give some shout out to your dishes and your drink. Okay. So this is not China. This is like something I made. And it's my hobby. I have a hobby now because I don't have a restaurant. So I have time for hobbies. But I took a little ceramic glass. I'm looking for a new studio right now because the one I've been going to is closing. Anyway, I make little bowls. And then this is I got this from a flea market in Raleigh this glass. I don't know if you can see it, but it's got like pretty nice pattern. And inside it is thanks to Dolly Krasinski brought this from Eureka, California. This is it's got Dick Taylor chocolate in it. And it's it's really good. It's like cherry and chocolate. Like I love it's like black forest. It's delicious. It's so good. That's my favorite chocolate. I love their chocolate. So good. Do you have any so what's on the plans for next? Do you have another cafe in mind? You're going to go that route with the restaurant again? No. Oh, that one that one tried to kill me. I love the restaurant, but it did try to kill me. So this is I'm going to remind folks, this is a small business spotlight. And our library has a small business center where you can go get all kinds of advice and help and resources from our small business center and the small business librarian who is amazing. And I'm going to go throw this in the chat really quick too. It will meets the needs of entrepreneurs by providing materials on how to plan finance organize operate and market a small business. And I'm sorry that your business tried to kill you. Well, it's not my fault because I mean it's a lot of most of my fault. I had an idea that was it was more like it wasn't really like a business. It was more like a play or like a musical. And like I wanted everything to be like just so which is which is really kind of hard or impossible. Yeah, do and but I did it for a long time. And I don't like it's so I'm just like a bad capitalist. Like it made me so happy to just be able to make these cakes for no money. I can't even tell you like this like fundraiser. I would get like I was so excited like it didn't really I didn't care. I was funny I told my mom about it was like someone bid $1,000 on the honey cake and my mom was like well too bad you couldn't get that money. I was like I couldn't take $1,000 for a cake. Oh, mom's mom's. There's nothing wrong with what like get it to do. Kind of there's nothing wrong with being a bad capitalist. All right. You know we love you for that. Let me see I would just want to check the chat. One person went there before getting their marriage license and said it was just amazing so special. More cookbooks you could write another cookbook but what was your favorite part about being a small business owner? I mean I think the best part was being able to create something like completely like a thing that you could come inside and I mean I believe all of the senses were engaged like all of them because there was the music and the feeling of the you know the tactile thing like having real China like anti-China and silver the taste of the food. I thought it was really pretty. Is that all of them? That's like all the senses and then your sixth sense. Yeah. That's you in the dungeon, right? So the kitchen was in the underground? Well it was up and down. Oh. Like how do you stay so skinny? Oh my god. Yeah. Let me see. Friends if you have questions you can flow those two words crunch dough life changing. I know it's the same for me. If you make it it's you know everyone tells you pie dough like oh it has to be cold cold frozen blah blah blah like I've like spent my whole pastry life like like taking cold blocks of butter out of the freezer and grating them or like doing the food processor like the least way to touch them is then this one you do soft butter. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah I know it's crazy and it makes my favorite dough. We have we have chef Ava who is one of my favorite chefs from South San Francisco. She ran her own blog. She is known as the autistic chef. She's amazing human and she just wants to say bravo on your video. Loved it. Loved your book and she wants to know if you're doing any recipe development. Got anything new? I mean yeah but I just like kind of like screw around. Yeah. Yeah because okay I have to admit this terrible thing about myself like I can't eat gluten anymore. Uh-oh. And I thought I was like experimenting with this gluten-free chocolate cake and this is like and in fact Roscoe the cat that you have seen earlier did this to the cake. My back was turned for nary a minute. He did this and I don't even think cats are supposed to eat chocolate. I think that's like a bravo on the gluten-free chocolate cake. Yes I think it has like a little too much um like I need to get the a little too much oat flour. I think I need to do the corn flour up a little more. Drop the oat flour down. But yeah. That could be a new a new cookbook. Yeah I mean I definitely have a cookbook in me but I don't know if anyone um will have someone has to want me to do another cookbook. Yeah what was it? What was it like writing a cookbook? You know I talked to many authors but not like the process of writing a cookbook. Never heard this story. So I really actually I enjoyed the process of writing a cookbook. I know most restaurant cookbooks just hire someone to write it for them. I hired an overqualified recipe tester Jessica Badalana who has written many cookbooks. I think she wrote like Charles Van's first cookbook. Like she's written a lot of unaccredited things. She did Charles Van's first cookbook. She um I know she wrote books with Chad Robertson um and she tested the recipes in my book which I thought was like very generous because that's like kind of beneath her skill set. But that's also because the recipes were pretty challenging. I think she she like had fun with it. But um I liked the writing part was fun um but I was actually thinking today I was remembering about like you know you write it you feel really good. You spend all this time trying to make everything like awesome. And then the copy edited manuscript comes back. And you've already been through like a bunch of edits so you kind of think you're like all right things are in good shape. And then the copy edited manuscript comes back and and the copy editor is like I love everything about this. And there are three words that don't have red lines through them. And you're just like yeah so there's that part. It was like um I mean I'm glad I know about that now because I'd be ready for it. And that's fine. But it was like a little bit uh it was a little traumatizing at the time. My ego was like but I do I mean I did like the process of writing the book and like kind of bringing the recipes to life. I did not like the process of trying to like so normally you get like first pages back and they're physical. But what happened is is that all happened during like lockdown when everyone was like afraid to touch anything. Yeah so instead of getting like physical pages that we could like go through and edit and you actually see the mistakes it all happened on computer. And so it was really hard to see everything. So because normally you get like five passes or something of a book like it comes back to you like maybe just like you think you catch everything and they find other things and send it back to you. But that one was just really really challenging. And then things happened in design where like whole lines moved or like things were dropped off the page that were like important. And you're like do I have to like reread every recipe again? So it's next time I do a book I like want to make sure I'm not like doing a restaurant at the same time because there's like a lot of things that take time that you don't think about that you think you're done. You can't do the manuscript. It's just the awesome creative parts done. For now I mean even after the edit comes back you still gotta be creative on that. Oh yeah well there were some I learned something about myself too. It's like if like I kept trying to please the editor in a way. And then I learned at one point to be like what is it that like to ask myself like what is what is she wanting out of this? And then to just start from the beginning. Because once you start like like futzing with like little words here and little words there you kind of lose it loses all of its like power. It's better to like understand what they're really asking for and then start from that place and start over. And it's not like it's a novel right it's like a little like headnote. So it's not that hard to start from boo. Once you can kind of like eat a little eat a little crow and just go for it. Yeah it's it's hard to have an editor but it's also like the most amazing too because they really get you down to your essence. Yeah or they just cut you. Let's see Elizabeth says I remember reading about your flower allergy in an article. Is this different from a gluten sensitivity? Does that make sense to you? Well it's wheat. Wheat. Yes wheat is the gluten sensitivity right? Well wheat yeah wheat is my problem. Okay. Yeah. That sounds then for sure like a new cookbook absolutely. So we'll have to find someone to publish that. David asked have you read Robin Sloan's sourdough? It has kind of a fun take off take on uh Chespanese. No. No okay we'll put that in the chat and I'll put a link to it. Okay. How much was your budget for perfecting your recipes when you were starting out? As it just seems fantastically expensive to purchase so much butter, cream and sugar, ballpark estimates of your budget for that. Oh my god I don't know. I just like kept doing it. I mean the thing is like when you're doing stuff at home and your recipe testing you try to um I always think of it as like when you're really trying to like perfect something I like don't make the whole thing like you kind of like do parts of it um so like you know you like maybe have one part perfect and you're just working on another part you kind of basically want to distill it down to like one egg. So you make the size batch that's like one egg like because you can't really go any smaller and that kind of that's that's how you can save yourself like I made this like big chocolate cake and it was like three eggs so guess what size batch I'm going to make for my next tester when I change the flour? One egg because other ingredients if you like convert it especially to convert it to metric it's super easy to divide it. Oh and I actually have divided an egg before like I've like weighed it out I think an egg is like like an extra large egg so I think it's like 35 grams I want to say but um and then you split the yolk and the or you whip it? Beat it yeah if you're using a whole egg it doesn't really work if you're trying to separate an egg although you can do egg whites and then you could do half a yolk but that would be really silly. That would be really hard. That would like make it not worth the cost of the egg. Yes two hours to separate your egg whites. Let's see let's see uh somebody loves your sense of humor how about did you grow up in San Francisco where did you grow up? I grew up in southern California. Oh I know that I lived I got to live in Santa Cruz one for fifth and sixth grade and then that yeah and and then and also eighth eighth and ninth grade and that's like I think when I got well I mean I think I was born weird but that's when I got to realize that there were other weird people in the world for sure yeah for sure and I think that's what you know I think that's what drives a lot of people to San Francisco. I know gotta love the San Francisco weirdos for sure. Yeah um let's see more questions and more comments let's see um oh this is a good one do you have any advice about the process of hiring and keeping employees? Oh my god I was so bad at that um oh okay so the advice that they tell you that you should listen to that I did not listen to so that what what they say and I believe that this is true is slow to hire quick to fire. Now I did exactly the opposite if somebody walked in the door it didn't matter like if they were like inexperienced crazy whatever I would be like hooray and I'd be like I'm gonna find a job for you and then I would like make up some crazy job for them and then um and then if like it started to not work out I would like not fire them because I would be like it's gonna work it's gonna work it's gonna work it's gonna work and then it was like sometimes it was like ended up terrible at the end but um yeah so slow to hire quick to fire. That's my advice and I guess like for retaining employees I don't know I mean my idea was like to try to keep things interesting and challenging um but I think like that can be hard too because sometimes like what I think is challenging is like too challenging for people uh yes yes but you wouldn't fire him so bless my heart I know for sure um okay one more one more I'm gonna one more small business and we'll let up on the small business okay travel to a day one uh if you could time travel to a day to no I'm sorry to one of your today one sorry this is really flubbery question if you could time travel to one of your startup to the day you started and you could tell your formal self about lessons you learned to spare yourself mistakes mental anguish and heartache what would you tell yourself I would say girl you gotta hire someone to do the marketing here oh marketing I like this answer you know what I did on my first day tell us I like we are ready to open so I like ran up turned the sign to open took a picture of it put it on twitter and ran behind the counter and hit yes marketing and creatives they just don't meld as well as they should yeah I think that's interesting that's really interesting so you hear that friends who are out there starting their business they're starting their you really just cannot deny it marketing and and you said it like what what if you did pay for someone for it you know I mean it is it is a yeah it's not easy yeah I mean we actually you know at the library we have people that do that there's people I mean I you know I do a little bit yeah and they love it yes and it's hard for us because it makes you feel like you know it's such a jerk like hey I'm so awesome coming to my awesome restaurant whoa look at me I'm a super chef yeah you know I just like you need someone to do that for you because you can't do that you could if you were a certain kind of person but you just not that kind of person it's hard it's a hard uh you know they don't teach you that in chef's school or wherever you art school or music I didn't go to chef's school I barely finished high school they didn't teach you that in high school they don't teach you that in the school of hard knocks that's where I went that's awesome all right friends do we have any more questions for our chef tonight and what what's on the horizon you have anything interesting going down who me yeah you oh um well I think I'm gonna frost this cake wait I you know I think I was just gonna like fill in that part that Roscoe ate with so it'll be like an extra thick part of frosting and um we'll all be over soon okay good and I I'm gonna try it and I guess I've been like sort of promising myself I was gonna do some online um cooking classes yes so I think this is like April's my month because it's I'm taking my ceramics to your clothes so now I can like stop being such a hobby girl and actually get to work I think people want it they want it so what frosting flavor will you put on that cake I think uh chicory oh what yeah yeah do you do special orders commissions I mean I'll do special cakes for special people uh-huh that's what you're doing I don't like it I don't like what's going about money yeah but I also kind of need I'm like to the point in my life where it's like I decided I'm gonna pay myself as much as my plumber's assistant exactly what how about as much as your plumber no that's too much I can't he's 72 he's had a good life he's had a good run deserves it but my plumber's assistant I deserve that much I like to also I am one of those people who like to put a value on myself I'm like I don't really make this much but I am worth $79 an hour yeah my plumber makes more than that what about a plumber assistant makes less than that but he makes a lot I was like shocked I was like whoa okay if my son does not stop punching cakes we'll aim for the plumber's assistant job so yes please teach online classes that's coming from the crowd and then there's a couple who want to know the exact name of the chocolate beverage so we can all go out and buy one it is Humboldt Cider Company Chocolate Cherry you know apple cider blended with tart cherries and Dick Taylor chocolate chocolate cherry I don't know where they sell the cider but they do sell Dick Taylor chocolate rainbow grocery whenever I go and get like supplies for a honey cake I always like a bar for myself awesome and we love rainbow um let me I want rainbow to carry my book I don't know if you carry your book you know if anyone asked them that rainbow I have asked them only heard crickets oh maybe I'll call them and be like hey do you have the 20th century look we can all call them all 100 of us do you have Michelle's okay last last question for our guest tonight say oh someone says say hi to Roscoe cake eater yeah um favorite restaurants and cake restaurants to visit in our bay area you can add some pie in there too okay favorite restaurants uh oh nari I love it I just had a meal there was so good um that's not a cake restaurant though um I went to Nari and I went to state for provisions the other night it was really good and I don't go out very much I mostly cook at home and then I have very little meals like at Zuni I gotta tell oh they they made my dinner at Zuni the other night too I bought my dinner I'm gonna I'm I'm writing these down as we go friends so I'll put these in the chat after we are done um and Zuni and state uh state of provision progress is where you just did all of the cake baking for the fundraiser for the Ukraine right yep that's awesome it's nice to have chef friends huh yeah especially when you get way too many cake orders and you're like what would you put it like I don't know the generosity on that was pretty amazing yeah they were so good Nicole's like you can come here she's like just get stuff from us because it's you know it's cost half of what it costs me to go buy it at rainbow yeah but I don't have to lug it around on my bike um somebody Elizabeth Elizabeth loves you Elizabeth I really like the chocolate mousse coconut passion fruit cake with the coconut haupia center at good good culture club you know good good culture club I don't know no good good culture club well that one either we'll add it okay and um final question is how are you gonna make that chick pee chick chickery flavored frosting um I think I'll probably well I was actually like I was actually looking at I had the double shorted out and I was looking at I like that chocolate buttercream a lot and I was gonna kind of um put less chocolate in it and then like melt some chicory just like with some water and melt the chicory down add that into it and then I was kind of thinking like once I get the cake exactly the way I wanted I was gonna do that and then I was gonna make toffee and then put the toffee in the buttercream so you have like a sort of like a chicory toffee crunch chocolate cake yum okay okay that sounds good I like I like a little crunch in the cake I like a little crunch in the cake all right um and thanks for supporting the crane there's that in the chat and I'm gonna breeze through the chat one quick time make sure I didn't miss anybody's love okay okay checking the quick all right I think we oh someone just said his message kind of like New Orleans coffee is what chicory is I was gonna ask what what exactly is chicory it's like oh yeah yeah it's it's so they and in like in the south they use chicory to extend coffee because coffee expensive and chicory is not gotcha gotcha and it tastes like super it's super delicious and like acidic and you actually have to be careful like when you're making chicory ice cream there's a chicory ice cream recipe in the book but you have to be careful because it's an acidic ingredient and it can curdle the milk if you cook it if you get it if you bring it to high temperature you make it like cheese yum I mean not that but yummy the frosting sounds yummy I'm I like about cake frosting thickness that's why the honey cake so good is equal yes all right friends Michelle thank you so much and you do have a spot at the San Francisco Public Library anytime I know friends would love to see you making some cake and teaching us how to do it but look for Michelle I'm going to put in the chat one more time here is tonight's document and this has all of the library news as well as links to Michelle and where you can get her book go buy the book and or you can check it out from the library or you can instantly check it out right now on hoopla digital with your library card and we're going to be like awaiting a new cookbook or classes or whatever you do next in our fine city because we miss you and we love what you've done and we will all get the book all right fruit fruit I'm ready say fruit thank you Michelle thank you bye everyone library community thank you for joining us bye bye I'm gonna end it