Authors Notes
On my drive up to Sonoma I smell bread baking. I’m in an industrial area of Richmond. The smell is coming from a warehouse just off the freeway that looks like it is a mile long. There are 45 semi trailers pulled up to numbered loading docks in front. The smell is warm and sweet. It’s a familiar comforting smell. I imagine biting into a piece of the bread still warm, with lots of butter on it. It would be a thin machine sliced piece, or a uniform little round squishy roll. I would bite into it and taste some sugar and butter and it would compact down into a little hard ball and I would swallow it with a gulp. The rest would stick to the roof of my mouth or the back of my teeth. Feeling slightly unsatisfied I would eat five or six more pieces.

I keep driving and watch the fog creep into the valleys of the vineyards and cow pastures. Crows sit on fence posts, hawks circle above. In Sonoma I drive past the fruit stand and the mission in the center of town, in front of the bakery I smell bread once again. This time I can pick out the smell of the yeast and the wheat and the toasty oven. I imagine the last of the night's loaves sitting on the racks crackling as they cool. Sometimes there is a chicken walking around in front of the bakery who doesn’t seem to mind me as I open the squeaky screen door. As the door slams behind me I take a big deep breath of the warm breakfast pastries waiting for me all neatly lined up inside the cases. But first I have to go get my morning tail-wagging, sniffling, licking greeting from the owners' dogs that roam the offices.

As I stand on my ladder painting the murals on the walls I look down and observe the activities around me. The ingredients for cookies are all laid out like colors on a palette on the counter, the butter cube is a foot square. Someone is mixing a big pot of caramel as I am mixing up my paints. If only my paints would smell that way everyday. Someone else is measuring a big block of scone dough in order to cut it into equal pieces as I am measuring for placement of the image on the wall. As I build up the layers of my painting: charcoal sketches, underpainting, outlining, shadows, highlights, I watch the croissant dough get folded and laminated with butter again and again.

This web site is made from the contents of my sketch book as I document the creative process of the Artisan Bakers, take inspiration from the delicious food in the Bay Area, and bridge the visual and culinary arts
all text and images © Cleo Papanikolas 2000
CONTACT ME