Baking Is A Meditation👩🍳
Flour & Stone’s Nadine on surviving and thriving in the lockdown.
Hey Neighbour, Simon here. How are you feeling today? I’m cautiously optimistic about the easing of restrictions, grateful things haven’t been worse health-wise, and thankful for the extended time with family. Isolation has certainly been a big learning experience for everyone: scroll down to find how Flour & Stone’s Nadine Ingram has been coping. And to read about Woolloomooloo’s Good Weekend Style Issue cover star.
Quick reminder: this is a free newsletter serving Woolloomooloo. It’s designed to be helpful, so please email me if there’s something you want to know. Today’s edition is 1055 words, a 4-minute read.
Where We’re At With COVID-19 😷
NSW has 3047 cases and 46 deaths, with three new cases yesterday. Australia has 6914 cases and 97 deaths, with 6079 recoveries.
Our postcode NSW 2011 has recorded 28 cases, from 1311 tests: all recovered.
In comparison, the UK has 212,629 cases and 31,315 deaths. Horrific. If our epidemic was as bad, we’d have 11,685 deaths. The Lucky Country indeed.
Staff at Town Hall during the last global pandemic (1919). From NSW State Archives.
What’s Open? What’s Closed? 🚫
Yesterday the PM announced a 3-step framework for further easing of restrictions. Step one will allow cafes and restaurants to seat 10 socially distanced people at a time: but not yet. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says further changes will be gradual, and likely not announced until later this month.
Excitingly, this week the Old Fitzroy unveiled their take away menu, featuring hot-chip butty snack packs, pea & pigs head ham soup, and smoked king dory & scallop pies plus other delicacies. Yum! Saturday pick-ups only for the moment.
This weekend Antonio Sabia’s Crown Street institution Puntino is running a pop-up Mercato featuring handmade pastries and breads in collaboration with Butler & Bentley. Just across the road Contact Bar & Kitchen’s pop-up shop has excellent Mother’s Day options, including fine wines and crystal glassware: and is open until 9pm if you’ve left it to the the last-minute.
Down on the Wharf, Manta’s weekend Market Place is open until 2pm both days, featuring takeaway fish and chips, Mark the Florist, and Molo wines.
Sadly Sienna Marina’s pop-up grocery and lockdown egg & bacon rolls haven’t kept them going and they had to shutter this week: thanks for the tip Tom. Our local favourites will only survive with our help, so get out there and spend locally!
How’s Flour & Stone Going?
They’re the local heroes who make our little slice of Sydney so special. This week I chatted to Flour & Stone’s Nadine Ingram.
How are you?
I'm good. Juggling things as usual but that’s the way I like it. I get bored easily.
How is Flour & Stone going?
Thriving, the energy is very positive at the moment.
“My team are very versatile and determined so we are getting through this with gusto.”
2020 has turned out quite a bit different than you'd anticipated: are you glad the Annexe [F&S’s new takeaway premises] opened pre-corona?
It's as though the Annexe was designed for Corona. Really, it couldn’t have been any more perfect to have a space where the food can be dispatched via a window.
How have your customers responded?
The customers for the most part have been VERY grateful but the ever-present anxiety is still there in the community and sometimes that can cause people to flare up. Some people see the queue and have the opinion it’s irresponsible. Others know us better and trust that we have things under control.
How has turnover been affected?
Online sales have doubled. In the weeks either side of Easter they more than tripled.
“Coming into winter now, so the passionfruit is giving way to the quince, the peaches to the pears and the plums to the apples.”
How have cake orders been affected?
Large cake orders have dropped off but with the introduction of the new pantry we are making up for it with sales of flour, frozen pies, bags of cookies.
What has been moving the most?
Online: choc chip cookies, frozen pies and sausage rolls and Kristen Allan ricotta.
In store: slices of cake, coffee.
What new products have you launched in the last few weeks?
Rhubarb and apple pies.
Gateau basque.
Caramel passion gateaux.
Quince custard tarts.
“I believe people will work from home more as a norm and focus on individual wellbeing will be heightened.”
What are you hearing from other businesses in Woolloomooloo?
A lot are struggling to create diversified models because these things take time in order to be truly effective and make enough money to live on. Others have discovered better ways to run their businesses and some of these changes will stick.
Are you excited so many people have been home baking?
Yes very much so. It's actually a therapy and whereas before people were too scared to try something new they now think ‘well what have I got to lose?”.
“Baking is very satisfying and puts us in touch with our senses so it’s also a meditation of sorts. We all need that.”
How are you feeling about the future?
Optimistic. Excited.
What have you learned from the lockdown?
I've really been enjoying a simpler way of living and thinking and the renewed acceptance from customers that what we are giving is enough. In the past we used to chase our tails trying to give more, more cheaply and quicker. It's given people perspective, appreciation and empathy.
What I’m Reading This Week 🗞️
Three things I enjoyed this week…
‘It Can Happen To Anybody’ on the cover of the SMH’S Good Weekend magazine. How high-society mover and shaker Glen-Marie Frost ended up homeless, and her new life in Woolloomooloo public housing.
The Real Reason Our Shelves Were Empty in The Saturday Paper explained why Australian supermarkets are so vulnerable to panic buying.
The Art & Science of Looking Up, a fascinating report, discovered via a smart campaign on William Street’s outdoor advertising boards, which talks about the multitude of positive benefits we gain from daydreaming.
Last But Not Least 📚
Has anyone else noticed the Street Libraries on Brougham Street and Yurong Parkway? These little neighbourhood book exchanges are particularly useful for homeless people at the moment with other libraries closed. If you have a book or two others would enjoy, pop them in one of these beautiful boxes.
Until next time, stay safe. Email simon@j-project.org if you have stuff to share. Thanks!