This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.
“I always eat a cookie for breakfast,” says Amy Stack.
She sets a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie on a plate then adds a raspberry-blueberry-almond scone for good measure.
To compensate for all this sweetness, she takes her coffee black, sans sugar.
Advertisement
“I never eat the whole cookie,” she says. “All the calories are in the last bite, right?”
It’s such a sweet joke that she takes a big bite of the scone.
Homemade baked goods remind Amy of her childhood. She was born outside of San Francisco and lived in the Los Angeles area. When she was 8, the family moved to Seattle, Washington.
“Baking has always been part of my life,” she says. “My dad and my grandma were always baking bread and cookies. One of my first memories is of my grandma making crescent rolls.”
Advertisement
Amy, a tall woman who pulls her hair back in a perky ponytail, is sorry to say that she and her three younger siblings took their treats for granted.
“We always had homemade cookies in our school lunches,” she says. “We felt deprived because we didn’t have Oreos and Ding Dongs like the other kids.”
Amy, a creative soul, carried on the family tradition.
“In every professional job I had,” she says, “I was the one who brought homemade baked goods to the office for my co-workers.”
Given her love of baking, it’s somewhat surprising that Amy didn’t find herself standing in front a professional oven immediately.
Advertisement
At Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, she earned a bachelor’s degree in fine art, and at Springfield College in Massachusetts, she graduated with a master’s of science degree in art therapy.
“Baking was a hobby,” she says. “So were the other creative things I did --painting, knitting and crocheting.”
After working in the mental health field for several years and moving to the East Coast (“I came for a job and a boy,” she says. “I married him.”), Amy felt stymied.
Advertisement
“As an artist, I had gotten a little too far away from creating,” she says.
So when her sister entered TLC’s Ultimate Cake Off in 2010 and asked Amy to join the team, she couldn’t resist the challenge.
“I didn’t have professional baking experience like my sister,” she says. “And I said to her, ‘Are you sure you want me? You want to win, right?’”
The team’s 6-foot-6-inch-high Sweet Sixteen birthday cake, which was topped by a spinning globe crowned by a castle, took the cake and the $10,000 first prize.
“I did a lot of the sculpting and painting on it,” Amy says, adding that the team had only nine hours to make the cake.
Advertisement
The sweet victory made Amy rethink her career, and a couple years later, she quit her job to do a one-month internship in baking.
“My friends started asking me to make cakes and cookies,” she says. “I was really busy for a person without a job.”
For a short time, she worked for Sarah’s Cookies.
“I was decorating more than 1,000 cupcakes a day,” she says. “And I felt like a machine.”
She was contemplating a change when she walked by Pink Canary Desserts, which opened on Jackson Avenue in 2014 near MoMA PS 1, and saw a help wanted poster in the window. Eight months later, she was a partner.
Advertisement
Pink Canary, which originally only sold cupcakes, specializes in custom fondant cakes. In addition to these scrumptious sculptures, the shop also sells ice cream, cookies, cupcakes, cake slices, sweet breads and coffee.
The house favorites include Beer Me!, a chocolate cake with a vanilla core and beer ganache, and Dulce de Leche, a vanilla cupcake with a Dulce de Leche buttercream core and frosting and mini alfajores.
“The recipes come from me, my dad, my mom and my grandma,” Amy says. “We bake everything from scratch in small batches.”
Advertisement
Pink Canary is designed to be a small operation.
“I have some help,” Amy says. “But I don’t have elves. I’m my own elf.”
The shop, which is pretty in pink candy-cane stripes, has the ambience of an old-fashioned ice cream parlor. Soothing tunes from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s play in the background.
“I want to become part of the community,” Amy says. “I want the people who come here to feel it’s their place as much as it is mine.”
A customer comes in to pick up a cake that’s a replica of a two-story Shingle Style house in the Hamptons.
Advertisement
“I spent the weekend being an architect,” Amy says as she carefully boxes the complex confection.
Then she clears her breakfast sweets from the table. She has to go back to the kitchen. There are cookies in the oven.
Astoria Characters Day: The Second Family Reunion, is Sept. 23, 2018. It is a free, public event.
Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at Nruhling@gmail.com; @nancyruhling on Twitter; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com, astoriacharacters.com.
Copyright 2018 by Nancy A. Ruhling
Our 2024 Coverage Needs You
It's Another Trump-Biden Showdown — And We Need Your Help
The Future Of Democracy Is At Stake
Our 2024 Coverage Needs You
Your Loyalty Means The World To Us
As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.
Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.
The 2024 election is heating up, and women's rights, health care, voting rights, and the very future of democracy are all at stake. Donald Trump will face Joe Biden in the most consequential vote of our time. And HuffPost will be there, covering every twist and turn. America's future hangs in the balance. Would you consider contributing to support our journalism and keep it free for all during this critical season?
HuffPost believes news should be accessible to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay for it. We rely on readers like you to help fund our work. Any contribution you can make — even as little as $2 — goes directly toward supporting the impactful journalism that we will continue to produce this year. Thank you for being part of our story.
It's official: Donald Trump will face Joe Biden this fall in the presidential election. As we face the most consequential presidential election of our time, HuffPost is committed to bringing you up-to-date, accurate news about the 2024 race. While other outlets have retreated behind paywalls, you can trust our news will stay free.
But we can't do it without your help. Reader funding is one of the key ways we support our newsroom. Would you consider making a donation to help fund our news during this critical time? Your contributions are vital to supporting a free press.
As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.
Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.
Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone.
The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. Would you consider becoming a regular HuffPost contributor?
Dear HuffPost Reader
Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone.
The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. If circumstances have changed since you last contributed, we hope you'll consider contributing to HuffPost once more.