Ganache with panache

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/11/2019 (2181 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We weren’t at Bell MTS Place earlier this week, so we can’t offer an opinion, but if you attended Thursday evening’s Fleetwood Mac concert and went home thinking the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers were in finer voice than usual, it might have had something to do with a West End bakery celebrating its 35th anniversary this year.

Linda Peters is part of a trio that purchased Goodies Bake Shop, established in 1984, from long-time owner Ignazio Scaletta in August 2015. Three weeks ago, Peters, the bakery’s day-to-day operations manager, received an email from True North Sports and Entertainment Ltd., a regular client of hers, asking for help with the dessert portion of Fleetwood Mac’s performance contract.

It is far from the first time Goodies’ goodies have been backstage. This year alone, True North has ordered chocolate-dipped strawberries for Carrie Underwood and a chocolate sin cake bearing the number 14 in honour of Winnipeg Jets legend Ulf Nilsson, who was in town in February for a ceremony toasting former Jets captains.

The Fleetwood Mac order kept them busy.

“Some of the things they requested were cupcakes — we made them chocolate ganache, vanilla Italian buttercream and carrot cream cheese – as well as petit fours, which are tiny, individual cakes. Oh, and a good number of vegan items, too,” says Peters, seated in her shop at 1124 Ellice Ave.

While it’s true Stevie Nicks and company didn’t have time to poke their heads inside Goodies while they were in town, other famous sweet tooths have. Those include Don Mancini, creator of the Child’s Play horror movie franchise, who requested a birthday cake crowned with — what else? — blood red icing when he was here two years ago directing Cult of Chucky (currently at 78% on Rotten Tomatoes) and Chrissy Metz, one of the stars of the popular, NBC drama series This is Us.

“One of our employees, Erica, is a big fan of This is Us and recognized her right away,” Peters says of the Emmy-nominated actor, who spent five weeks in Winnipeg in 2018 filming Breakthrough, released on DVD and Blu-ray in July.

“Later, Erica direct-messaged her on Twitter and Chrissy was nice enough to get back to her, saying she really enjoyed what she picked up in the store.”

Peters, who began working at Goodies in January 2014 when Scaletta was still at the helm, admits there were definitely some nerves involved when she and her business partners Dario Traverso and Maksym Plienokosov took over just over four years ago. After all, with great flour comes great responsibility, right? (On a monthly basis, Goodies goes through 2,000 kilograms of flour, as well as 2,500 litres of whipping cream and 20,000 eggs, every last one of which is hand-cracked.)

“It is a bit of an institution, for sure, with a well-established clientele, many of whom started coming here when they were kids, and now show up with children of their own,” she says, pausing to wink at a toddler eyeing one of her eight glass display cases, trying to decide between a French cream puff and a maple pecan tart. (Heck, kid, get ‘em both!)

“It’s incredible the number of times I’ve been in a social setting and, after mentioning where I work, people immediately have a story about the first time they came to Goodies, or what their favourite goodie here is.”

***

Plastered in bright, green and red lettering on a signboard hanging above Goodies’ front door are the words “Italian pastry and gelati.” That wasn’t the case when Goodies got started, not even close, says Scaletta, whom Peters is quick to credit for “creating this absolutely incredible business.”

In 1989, Scaletta, at the time a highly regarded hair stylist who competed for Canada at a series of international hair styling competitions in the 1960s, paid a visit to Goodies, back when it was a kosher bakery located on Corydon Avenue near Bernstein’s Deli. Before he moved to Canada from Italy in the late 1950s, Scaletta’s father operated a patisserie in Palermo, on the island of Sicily. Citing that bit of information, Scaletta struck up a conversation with Goodies’ owner, a Ukrainian chap named Alan, asking him questions about his biz, which, back then, sold primarily muffins and cinnamon buns.

One thing led to another. Within six months, Scaletta had become part-owner of Goodies, fulfilling a dream he’d had since the first morning he worked behind his father’s counter as a 10-year-old boy. (Scaletta laughs when he recalls the day he arrived in Winnipeg in 1960 at the age of 20, to join his parents who had moved here two years earlier. After picking him up at the CN train station on Main Street, his dad turned left down Portage Avenue where the younger Scaletta spotted sign after sign in store windows reading “sale.” In Italian, sale means salt, he explains, and he remembers asking his father why in the world everybody was selling salt.)

In 1991, by which time Goodies had relocated from River Heights to Osborne Village, Scaletta bought his partner out, a set of circumstances that turned the River Avenue operation into a full-fledged Italian bakery offering, among other delicacies, biscotti, cannoli and, Scaletta’s personal specialty, gelato.

Scaletta, in his late 70s, laughs when asked what a person who previously cut hair for a living knew about preparing frozen desserts.

“When I was a teenager, my best friend’s father owned a gelateria in Palermo,” he says. “We belonged to the same (soccer) team but because he wasn’t allowed to play if there was still work to be done, I started helping him out, making gelato, so he could get to our games on time. Over time, I became pretty good at it.”

Business in the Village was OK, not great, says Scaletta, largely because of limited parking. So when the opportunity arose in 2001 to relocate to a 5,500-square-foot, vacant building at the corner of Ellice Avenue and Erin Street, a former Scotiabank outlet that came with its own parking lot, he said, “Where do I sign?”

“There isn’t one square inch of space in here we don’t use, there’s even an old vault that has baking supplies in it,” says Peters, whose corporate clients include Safeway, Sobeys and the RBC Convention Centre, for which they prepare custom desserts on an almost weekly basis, for as many as 2,000 guests at a time.

***

Since taking over, Peters and her associates have worked hard to turn what was essentially an old-school bakery into one that’s more in keeping with the times, by establishing a strong presence on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Additionally, Peters, who started at Goodies as a cake decorator, has become a familiar face on the Marc and Mandy Show, a lifestyle program filmed in Blumenort that airs across North America. On a near-monthly basis, she shows off her store’s most popular confections, one of which is an ever-evolving behemoth dubbed the Overwhelming Cupcake.

“It changes with the seasons,” says Peters, the mother of two daughters, 9 and 11, both of whom are convinced their mom has the best job in the world.

“For Mother’s Day it was topped with edible diamonds and gold, at Halloween it featured a chocolate tombstone and for Christmas, it will be covered in mini marshmallows, crushed candy cane, an edible chocolate spoon and red and green sprinkles.”

“The thing is,” Scaletta pipes in, “you can make the nicest looking treats in the world, but if they don’t taste good, your place of business isn’t going to be around for 35 years.”

“You’ve got that right,” Peters agrees.

This is nice; as Scaletta, a grandfather of two, bows his head, remarking how much he misses showing up for work every day and that it was simply because he was “getting up there in age” that he chose to sell the bakery, Peters leans over and, touching him on the elbow, remarks, “Hey, it’s going to be crazy in here from now until New Year’s; if you want to pop by and lend a hand, be my guest.”

“You shouldn’t joke,” he says, breaking into a smile.

“I might just take you up on your offer.”

David Sanderson writes about Winnipeg-centric restaurants and businesses.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca