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jlb
Joined: 18 Sep 2003
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 Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 5:08 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for bumping my post up to the top everyone. I appreciate your help. Lots more responses keep coming in  |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 6:14 pm Post subject: |
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| jlb wrote: |
| Thanks for bumping my post up to the top everyone. I appreciate your help. Lots more responses keep coming in |
As you've just demonstrated you're quite capable of bumping it up to the top yourself.  |
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silkhighway
Joined: 24 Oct 2010
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2015 7:37 am Post subject: |
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This was a teacher who taught in Japan, but a nice little success story nonetheless:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/food-trends/behind-the-scenes-of-edmontons-duchess-bake-shop/article25499694/
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You never got extensive baking training. So how did you learn to create beauties like the Duchess cake, an elaborate marzipan and chiffon cake that takes 24 steps to complete?
After I dropped out of school, Garner and I thought, why don’t we go to Japan and teach English and try to save money for this dream. I decided not to get professional training and I spent those four years in Japan teaching myself from cookbooks. All of the famous French pastry chefs have a location in Tokyo. I spent weekends buying [pastries] and would come back to our tiny apartment. We had a toaster oven. I’d cut every pastry in half and try to recreate it. I did eventually make a perfect macaron in that toaster oven. I probably tried 200 times. I have many pictures of epic fails but I’m pretty persistent. And with baking, it’s about practice.
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How did you go from baking in your toaster oven in Tokyo to opening Duchess Bake Shop in Edmonton?
After four years, we came back to Edmonton and we saw a hole in the market. We wanted to do something French-inspired but still [sell] things like tarts and brownies. Everything had to be made entirely from scratch. We didn’t have any experience and lots of people turned us away. But our current landlord met us and liked us. We wanted to open a bakery with a counter. But our landlord said you need a café with tables because people in the neighbourhood want a place to [sit].
We had no money. Garner built everything, my dad painted the ceiling, I put up wallpaper in the bathroom. I didn’t know how much to make or who would come. But people came. They came from Day 1.
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isitts
Joined: 25 Dec 2008
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2015 4:51 pm Post subject: Re: Foreign Teachers Returning Home...a Short Survey |
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| jlb wrote: |
| I'm looking for people who've been teaching English abroad but then returned to their home countries. |
If they went home, they generally won't be on this board. |
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jlb
Joined: 18 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2015 5:27 pm Post subject: |
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Edmonton is my home town and my parents still live there. I'll have to check out that bakery next time I go back. That was a seriously risky thing to do, but it obviously paid off.
There might be a few people hanging around on ESL Cafe after going home, you never know  |
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