Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Hale.
Hi Jessica, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
There are a few roads that led to my love of baking. When I was young I would bake with my mom, but it was mostly cookies and pastries during the holidays. Those recipes were a staple in what I baked until I started working in the restaurant industry. The restaurant that I first worked at, and for the 5 following years, was very eclectic and taught me a wide range of food and beverage skills. It was also a small, woman-owned restaurant, so you had to be a bit of a Swiss Army knife when you worked there. One day I stumbled in for work and came across the opportunity to bake some desserts for the weekend. That was the moment that baking turned into something even bigger. I continued to help in making our 6-grain sourdough bread, scones, various desserts, and brioche buns.
I grew up in the tri-state area and a bagel sandwich for breakfast was on the agenda more days than not. However, when I moved to the west coast the comfort of a NY-style bagel for breakfast was lost. Instead of buying bagels to be shipped directly from the east coast or giving up my favorite breakfast, I decided to try and make my own. My excitement when that first batch of bagels came out of the oven, looking decent at best, required a FaceTime call to my entire family to show them what I did. Their excitement matched mine almost immediately and they all wanted to try some! After moving to Greenville and having some extra time on my hands, it was time to perfect the recipe. After tons of modifications to the recipe, and countless late nights baking another batch, I ended up with a recipe I was proud of.
In the blink of an eye, whether it was for a present or a “just because” surprise, the people around me had an almost constant supply of bagels. Then my brother who lived in Seattle at the time asked me to ship him some bagels from Greenville and shared them with his friends. Their feedback and enjoyment of something I created made my heart burst. My family saw my determination and love for baking and pushed me to branch out and start selling them, something I was incredibly unfamiliar with. I had never expected or accepted money in return for something I made, it was simply about the love and enjoyment I received from making someone else happy. They finally convinced me, and a whole new world opened up in front of me.
My family continued to push me further and unconditionally support me in the crazy whirlwind of joining farmers’ markets, taking private orders, and overcoming every hurdle I faced. Even though there have been sleepless nights and many tears in the process, the smiles on people’s faces after eating something I made are still the greatest part of it all, and I still haven’t gotten tired of branching out and trying different styles of bread and pastries!
At the end of the day, if it weren’t for my support system, One Hangry Baker most likely wouldn’t be here, and that mediocre batch of bagels made in a small California apartment might have been my last.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Even though there are always bumps in the road, I think compared to most situations it has been a relatively smooth road for me so far. The biggest struggles have come with the specific ways that a bagel differentiates from typical bread.
For example, bagels are boiled before baking, and figuring out a way to boil a few dozen bagels at a time was quite a challenge. Fortunately, my Dad’s engineering brain came in handy and he custom-made me a boiling pan to fit what I needed perfectly, and allows me to boil two dozen bagels at a time without having a commercial boiling kettle!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Although I bake a variety of items, my favorite ones to make will always be bagels and bread.
Both bagels and bread give me such freedom to experiment and change my recipes in the slightest way to achieve something very different. However, the time and effort that I have put into making my bagels something that I love are what I am most proud of. Bagels are very labor intensive, from kneading the dough to shaping, boiling, topping, and baking, they need your eyes on them every single step of the process.
Because of this, every time a bagel comes out of the oven there’s still a huge feeling of accomplishment, and hearing people call me “the bagel lady” will always be the greatest compliment. On top of all the baking I do, I still work full time in restaurants, splitting those hours between waitressing and kitchen work.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
This question is probably the hardest to answer. There are a handful of things that make me happy. I think it boils down to simplicity in life. Whether that’s a Sunday dinner with my family, my dogs running free in an open field, or watching someone enjoy food that I created.
Bread has always been a simple but necessary part of many cultures and communities. It has fed people all over the world during the darkest of times and during the greatest times of celebration. Its simple combination of flour, water, yeast, and salt never fails to make people happy, and knowing that I help to create that moment of joy for so many people truly makes me happy.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @onehangrybaker
