let them eat cake

for the past 2 weekends at the arrow factory we've turned the space into a bake shop. a group of artisan home baking enthusiasts have been making pumpkin pies, cheesecakes, muffins, tarts, chocolate cakes cupcakes and bread. there is free organic hand pulled coffee flowing with much good eating and conversing taking place in the hutong. see the flickr photos.

this project was conceived as an experiment. an experiment to turn the non-commercial arrow factory into an open commercial platform; an experiment to give some very good bakers the opportunity to share their goods; an experiment to open the space and have visitors inside it instead of only looking at it from the outside; an experiment just to see what happens. So far the results have been very interesting. the baked goods are selling like, well... hotcakes with almost no stock left by the end of each day. the bakers are getting more creative and confident. a friend's 6-year old made cupcakes and sold them for enough money to cover 6 months of pocket money. some neighbors in the hutong came by first to buy cakes and then again to buy cookies and then came back a third time to ask if they could have the used coffee grinds to use as air freshener. a missionary woman came by wanting to befriend us (is there something with baked goods and christians?) someone shown up with an elaborate sugar cane juice extractor on the back of their bike and started squeezing cane juice with limes. we're meeting and talking to our neighbors.

Two more weekends to go. if you're in the area, i highly recommend stopping by. But, come early enough to get pumpkin pie and pumpkin cheesecake - those go fast.