Baking in the Bakery

Three years after my arrival in Tahiti, I married into a Chinese family
who owned the first grocery store on the island of Moorea. I started at
the store learning the trade of baking from my mother inlaw. One day, while on
the way to work, I had to laugh, there I was, an American, driving a Japanese
car, living in a French territory, looking at a Russian cruise ship in the bay
and working in a Chinese Store. thats pretty international!!

Me at work grinding coconuts

Jacquline and I would bake for our
store, Magasin Are in Pao Pao,
( now known as Super Marche
ARE)and for her brothers store
in Maharepa, I lived two houses
down, behind Magasin Remy. We
would also do special orders.
Needless to say using my car to
deliver cakes and such everyday
made it a haven for cockroaches.
Eweeeeeeeee!! They would only
come out at night...do you know
how many times I jumped in my
car at night only to grab hold of
a 747 cockroach on my steering
wheel. YUCK!!!!
Every year , 2 days before
Christmas and 2 days before New
Years we'd bake atleast 100 round
cakes. Since we didn't have alot of
modern convenience's we would mix
the batter in laundry baskets with
our hands. Actually the batter was
up to elbows, bake about 15 at a time then start the
process all over again. We also baked for the people on
the movie sets,"Mutiny on the Bounty" with gorgeous
Mel Gibson. and the remake of "Love Affair", also filmed in
Moorea. The hardest part for me to learn about mass baking is the fact
my mother in law never measured!!! I was having a hard time as it was
converting everything over to metric.So I had to learn this much in you
hand is 4 TBSP or what ever the recipe called for, and I used a liter
water bottle for measuring liquids. The first time she left on vacation and
left me alone in the bakery I was panic stricken. Jacquline was an
excellent teacher, a wonderful mother inlaw and eventually taught me how to cook many
wonderful chinese dishes.I think she was happy I wanted to learn, it gave her
more time to travel. If it wasn't for my x-husbands family I would have been
extremely home sick.I wish them all good forture and health for the future.

hehehehe ..... here is a Tahitian Cockroach!!

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Slaving Over a Hot Wok, frying donuts

Homesick for Moorea Or just the Tahitian islands cook up something special
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Mamma Mo's Tahitian Treasured Recipes