Our final Featured Vendor of 2019...

The Farmhouse Bakery!!

Luscious cakes, Brioche donuts, gourmet muffins, German chocolate cake, decadent specialty breads, pies aplenty… To end our Market year with Jonathan and Carmen White’s The Farmhouse Bakery as Featured Vendor is deliciously perfect – just like the crusts in their fabulous fruit and custard pies. They may have traveled thousands of miles together before making Troy their permanent home, but oh are we grateful to now have them just around the corner!

When I initially spoke with Jonathan about the possibility of them joining the Virtual Market, I was pleased as punch – he sounded enthusiastic about filling an important niche for our established customer base, determined to be vested in our community venture by shopping from fellow vendors, and wanting to show their belief in the importance of shopping local, not simply their own bottom line.

Sounded fantastic – what I hadn’t expected was to find such a wonderful whirlwind when I visited his wife Carmen in the Bakery of their cozy Troy home. With a ready smile and work ethic beyond compare, she is simply fascinating. Born in Mexico, Carmen attended culinary school in Mexico City, and needing to fulfill an 18 month internship requirement, she had two choices… wait for an opening to intern in Spain, or immediately head to The Four Seasons in Tuscon, Arizona. She laughed when declaring it was all meant to be, since it was at The Four Seasons she then met her future husband Jonathan White, a Troy native.

When asked had she always intended to bake for a living, she gave a cheeky smile. “No, I thought I wanted to be a doctor, but only for one semester!” She hadn’t started out intending to specialize in pastries, either, but beginning in Arizona, “everything pushed me to pastries”, she shrugged – and certainly everything really does happen for a reason, as she has such a seemingly natural knack for perfect pastries and presentation.

After graduation and marriage, the White’s made a successful move to the Ritz Carlton in Naples, Florida, where 600 dessert plates a night were the norm. “I like to be busy,” Carmen explained, “and they said I was a hard worker. I always wanted to learn everything, and people were very good to me.” Seven years of “very fancy stuff”, a lot of variety, and learning quite a few tricks gave her the challenge she had always desired. But the births of their daughter Emma and son James, coupled with the far distance from any relatives and a high cost of living, turned Jonathan back to thoughts of his hometown. “One day Jon said, “How about we…” and we researched Ohio laws”, finding it much more welcoming and reasonable compared to Florida. August of 2016 found them permanently in Ohio designing, building, and readying their new home and bakery.

Starting with a simple Home Bakery License the following season, Carmen began selling at the Downtown Troy Farmer’s Market in 2017, where one of her regular customers soon suggested his sister Megan NEEDED The Farmhouse Bakery, as she was just starting up a new local venture, Purebred Coffee Shop in downtown Troy. Now Carmen’s weekly deliveries of pastries, muffins, and donuts are beloved and famous staples of the shop, just as her Pumpkin Rolls are a specialty favorite at Fulton Farms in the fall.

After laughing she had always grown up in “nice” tropical places, the cold was a major adjustment for Carmen. But now being literally right around the corner from Jonathan’s family helps a great deal, as Jonathan works full time in Lima, and Carmen wakes at 2:30am to bake before making deliveries at 6:15am. There are so many roles to juggle… mother of three (Emma now 7, James 4, and little Luna 3), chauffeur, homemaker, chef, businesswoman… she said it’s routine to wake so early every morning, although on Sundays she may sleep til 7! “Carmen can make anything,” her proud husband told me matter of factly, when a customer came with a specific request. “Sugar free, gluten free, soy free, vegan – she can make anything you need or want!”

They both are in love with local food. “You don’t ever want to go out and eat elsewhere after you’ve cooked a locally sourced meal,” Carmen explained simply. “After you taste it, you can’t change from wanting it. That’s why we want to have our own eggs, apples, fruit… things we need in the bakery. And Troy is really nice – people want to know where their food comes from.”

Jonathan and Carmen are not only popular vendors but also some of our most frequent Market shoppers, both for their own household and also for their business, buying local and supporting fellow producers. They can appreciate the passion and effort which goes into their favorite Market products because it’s the same care which goes into their own.

That’s been a goal of the Market from it’s inception – to encourage vendor collaboration – as it only makes good sense for us to support each other! The White’s certainly take that to heart, by incorporating Sugar Grove Maple Products in many of their baked goods, utilizing J & S Buehler’s farm fresh eggs each week, or joining the Troy herdshare at Bair Trax Dairy for their fresh milk. They’re as serious about the importance of local as we’ve hoped our vendors would be. You can shop at any grocery store for tasty food – you cannot support local growers or real freshness at those same locations, and we hope to continue to enjoy our small niche in this wonderful community.

Carmen’s pies, muffins, cakes, breads, pastries (don’t forget the Brioche donuts!)… you pick them up on Tuesday and they’ve only been out of the oven for a couple hours! You’re not getting a day-old pie that’s been sitting waiting for a customer to purchase it when she bakes your custom order THE DAY you pick it up! THAT’S the kind of fresh and local goods we want to provide customers who are looking for the real deal.

There’s a reason why each and every participating vendor is currently selling on this Market, whether farming is their sole occupation, producing food is supplemental income, or perhaps simply a beloved hobby… we’re committed to the common good! We can each continue to sell from and promote our individual farms and businesses separately, or we can work together to build a model market that offers convenience and quality all within our local community. That’s the kind of grassroots, sustainable network of which we are glad Jonathan and Carmen White want to be a part. What we all have in common is a dedication to quality, a commitment to local, and a passion for the delicious!