You guys are funny...
I actually don't have this website on my phone or facebook or whatever. I only have my work related emails for sports or the medical field.All that being said, Yes, I'll probably bring a small mixer. Here's a story. Back in 1986 we (the family and I )bought out an old bakery in Dunedin Florida and opened Camerieri's Italian Bakery ( you can look it up). We had it for 9 years. I had 12 employees, 2 delivery trucks and a station wagon.
We made, from scratch, Italian breads, Kaiser rolls, onion rolls, poppy seed rolls, Hero's,( all sizes), French bread, whole wheat, Rye, Pumpernickel, Marble Rye, Challah bread, Sweet dough rolls and even 6 foot hero's. After 9 years and 7 days a week (including Christmas Eve), we sold the place....
Like I sad, 7 days a week for 9 years. We baked 6 days then actually got it down to 5 days a week. I also started making crumb cakes, Cannolis, Italian cookies and Lard bread. I even made bread for Frank Sinatra and handed it to him while on stage in concert....True story. I also made Lard bread for Cher when she came in concert in the 90's true story.
If you've even seen the movie Moonstruck with Nicholas Cage and Cher that bakery in Brooklyn was real I was there. My Godmother said it was probably one of our cousins. I was there last July and worked the oven for a few minutes.
As for equipment I had a 20 pan Fish 75 gas oven. I did all hearth baking (which means baking a the shelf of the oven using a Peel to take the bread out). Yes, it's an art that's slowly going away.
The oven had steam which gives the bread a nice crust. I hade 3 mixers. A 20 quart Hobart, a 140 quart Champion mixer and the big mixer I used everyday was a 1942 Peerless Barrel mixer that had a huge posi rear end connected by a big ass chain to spin the barrel which mixed the dough. This mixer was very dangerous and had No safety shut offs. There have been stories of guys who had they're arms pulled out of their sockets by the 3 mixing blades. I'll post a picture...it was a great mixer but ...
A 50lb bag of flour make approx. 82 lbs of dough. The barrel mixer could mix 200 lbs of flour which mixed about 328 lbs of Italian dough which I scaled (weighed) all by hand on a 10ft long wooden Boos bench. I also had a dough sheeter and a rounder-divider which rounded the dough into 30 pieces. I used a 10x10 steam box to help the dough rise. From mixing to baking it would take about 3 hours.
All by hand. Some people use to say I had Asbestos hands. That place was always Hot, especially in the summer...go figure. The building was about 2000 square feet and we had a small retail up front. I did mostly commercial account close to 50 restaurants and deli's.
I even open up another small bakery in 2012 but only for 3 years. That's another story...
I'll see about bringing Cannoli cream but we will have Zeppole's on Pizza night.
You guys are the best and I always have the best time even if Mark doesn't like us New Yorkers...
I'll put something special in his pizza...
Safe travels you alll..or should I say...Y'all
Charlie