Adventures in Alphabet City Baking : Preheat

In a lot of ways I owe this first blog posting to Abbas Manjee.He's been the one gunning for me to set this bad boy up since I made him a birthday cake last year. “Dude,” he suggested in a euphoric sugar high, “You should sell this shit. You could have a blog where you take pictures of all the stuff you bake, and how much it costs, and then sell it to hungry people in New York.” He may also have been a little drunk.

As well as providing technical and moral support, Abbas was first person who made me realize that baking truly was going to be an adventure in New York City.

Almost a year ago, I moved into my own 1-bedroom apartment. This is a pretty pivotal moment in any twenty-something’s life. Your first place -- you can take your pants off as soon as you walk in the door, put your stuff wherever you want it – it’s the best. And my very first place was the most quintessential New York apartment I could imagine. Anxious to show it off, I immediately invited over Naqiya and Abbas to congratulate my transition into adulthood.

As we walked down the hallway to apt #4, I bragged about all the amazing qualities of my new place: cute little block in Alphabet City, no more 6 floor walk up, a garden right outside my window, exposed brick, washer and dryer in the apartment, pocket doors, all remolded. I opened the door and let both of them step inside. Naqiya immediately said how great my new place was (yes! She’s making me feel 100X better about my $4000 security deposit). After absorbing her praise, I turned to Abbas looking for further validation. He looked around a little more and said, “This is really nice, man… but did you know you don’t have an oven?”

WHAT?!  I had a momentary freak out where I imagined all the delicious things I used the oven for, gone forever --pies, cakes, Midwestern casserole dishes, reheated Thanksgiving rotisserie chicken dinner for 1, the occasional banana bread (sent to Robbie through the always-efficient USPS across several states and a mountain range), cookies, that time I needed to heat up the apartment when it was a little cold….

I’ll spare you the details, but eventually I had to come to terms that if I wanted to continue my baking hobby, I was going to need a convection oven. I took a gander on Criagslist and found a one for sale in Williamsburg. Anthony (the previous owner of the oven) assured me that he only cooked French fries and pizza bites in there. After an exchange of $70, I just had to get it home. All that entailed was walking with a 30lb oven 5 blocks, down some subway stairs, onto the train, off the train, onto another train, up the subway stairs, a few blocks to a bus, on the bus, off the bus, a few more blocks, and then…. then… into my soon-to-be-bakery-scented home. 

 

The purpose of this blog? To chronicle my adventures baking in Alphabet City with a glorified toaster oven and a handmixer I bought from Big Lots in college. It’s kind of like Survivorman for baking (with fewer rattlesnakes). If I can do it – then you can too.

At the end of every post I’ll give a break down of materials and costs, so if you want to do this too you’ll know how much dough you’ll knead (sorry for the pun, Robbie made me do it). Or, if you want me to do it, you can just place an order—you know, for all those times you want to trick people into thinking you invested time into making something from scratch just for the occasion. I promise I’ll make it look extra homemade…

Just kidding – It will be delicious and beautiful!

So enjoy! First post about Valentine’s Day Baking coming soon!

In all of its glory