December 3, 2009
Holidays keep local baker on her toes
By Melea Burke
Valley Journal
RAVALLI — It’s mid-morning on Thanksgiving eve, and Nancy Martin is nearing the finish line, with only 11 more pies to bake before the holiday. Since Monday, she’s turned out nearly 100 made-from-scratch pies, baking them three at a time in her single oven. This time of year, she has a friend that helps out with some of the baking, but Nancy’s still hard at work by 4 a.m. every day during the pre-Thanksgiving rush.
“It’s been non-stop baking,” says her husband, Dave. “Yesterday there was a mountain (of pies).”
The Martins are in only their fourth winter in Ravalli, but their Windmill Village bakery and sandwich shop is already a local icon. Known for Nancy’s giant delectable homemade doughnuts, all things huckleberry and pie crusts that near perfection, the store is a popular coffee-sipping spot for the locals, while travelers from all over make a point to stop in for a treat during their drive up or down U.S. Highway 93. And this Thanksgiving, people as far away as Kalispell called in orders for baked goods.
It’s far more than the Martins expected when they started their little business. Dave, an architecture buff who formerly worked for Disney, started building the store without knowing exactly what its purpose would be. The Martins ran a farmers market, and customers would always ask to buy homemade baked goods, Nancy explained. So when Dave finished the building, which he designed to resemble an old train station, Nancy decided to try her hand at baking on a larger scale.
Nancy’s family was the source for many of her recipes, although she’s done quite a bit of culinary research on her own.
“I am a cookbook addict,” she admits.
Now she finds herself giving advice to customers on how to achieve just the right amount of flakiness in a pie crust or what spices bring out the best flavors.
“She doesn’t mind giving away secrets because (the baking) is a lot of work — If you’re up to the task, go for it,” Dave advised.
Except, of course, for the doughnut recipe. That’s a family recipe and will stay secret until the Windmill Village closes its doors.
“When I retire, I’m going to take out a big ad in the paper and publish it,” Nancy says. “That’ll be my parting gift.”
Even during the Thanksgiving chaos, people are popping their heads in the door several times an hour to ask if there are any leftover doughnuts. Even yesterday’s will do, one man declares.
No, Nancy says, to the great disappointment of many a sweet tooth.
There was simply too much to do this morning, and the doughnuts are temporarily on backorder until after the holiday.
In addition to the baking, the Martins filled 85 orders for turkeys through the Birch Creek Hutterite Colony in Valier. The farm-raised, never-frozen turkeys are slaughtered and processed just days before they’ll grace dining tables around Northwest Montana. Although the three-day baking marathon is strenuous — “There’s some very short sleeping nights,” Nancy says — the tricky part is keeping all the various pie and turkey orders organized.
“That becomes this big juggling act,” she said.
The more than 10 types of pies on the menu include huckleberry, pumpkin, pecan, apple, apple-huckleberry, banana cream, coconut cream, lemon, strawberry, cherry, strawberry-rhubarb and mincemeat. With so many options, it’s hard not to sample them all, and Nancy says taste testing is a problem for her, too.
“That’s the part that makes it tough — I have to taste it, so by the end of the season I’m eating four pies,” she says, gesturing to show how round she thinks she’ll be after the holidays.
Plenty of people would gladly jump at the chance to do that tasting for her, including Dave, who says being Nancy’s guinea pig for new recipes is one of the perks of the job.
“I’m spoiled,” he admitted.
The customers agree.
“You do make the best pies,” one woman from Missoula tells Nancy as she leaves, freshly-baked pumpkin pie in hand. |
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