In my recent Blog describing Christmas dinner at Casablanca (my house here in Loreto Bay) I made reference to the pumpkin pie that we had for desert as coming from Ette’s Pies, which at the time gave me the idea that this establishment would be a good future Blog subject . . . well, the future is now!
I first got to know Paulette, the proprietress of said pie
shop, when she was partners in a winning paella team at the inaugural
competition held here several years ago.
Then just over a year ago she opened her Ette’s Pie Shop in the town of
Loreto and I have been a fairly frequent customer ever since. But I was curious about the story of how she
came to be in the pie business here in our small town in the southern Baja, and
so I arranged to meet her at the shop and find out more.
Paulette and her Husband first came to Loreto on a
post-retirement RV trip through the Baja 17 years ago, and, like so many others
ex-pats who have made their home here over the years, they fell in love with
Loreto as one of the prettiest towns in the whole peninsula. They soon had purchased an oceanfront lot on
the north side of town and proceeded to build their dream home, an impressive 3
story structure. In those days there
were far fewer lodging options here than there are now, and not long after they
were comfortably settled into their new home they started to receive unexpected
visitors, knocking at their door inquiring if this was a Hotel?
After this had happened several more times Paulette decided
that perhaps they were being sent a message and so she went about turning their
home into a Bed & Breakfast, which quickly became very popular and for
number of years operated on a more or less sold out basis most of the winter
season. Between her thriving business
and her many social and charitable activities in the town, not to mention her
passion for fishing in her custom designed Panga (that she employs a skipper
for, so she can concentrate on the fishing) life was good - and busy.
However, like so many other businesses here in Loreto,
things took a change for the worse after the winter of ‘08/’09 and the “perfect
storm” of the economic crisis in the US, Swine Flu and too much negative press
about Mexico, with the result that the B&B business dropped off
dramatically. However, Paulette kept
busy, returning to the US to help run a friend’s restaurant business and wait
for better times to return.
Back in Loreto during the summer of ’11, a planned weekend
fishing expedition had to be postponed and so Paulette decided to take the
opportunity to indulge one of her other passions and spent that whole Saturday
in her kitchen baking pies – lots of pies!
The next morning early she set off to the Tianguis, or Sunday Market,
and set up a booth selling her pies, whole and by the slice, to the largely
Mexican clientele, since there are few “gringos” here during the heat of the
summer.
It will come as no surprise now, to her many satisfied
customers, that selling the pies at the Market were a great success and she
sold out that first Sunday morning, and that initial success continued
throughout the summer, building a delicious reputation among many of the local
people. (I digress for a moment, but for
many of you reading this in northern climates, you will not appreciate the
particular challenge of keeping cream pies and cheese cakes suitable for sale
at an open air market on a simple folding table without refrigeration when the
temperature is hitting 100 degrees with 80% humidity! Paulette’s solution – she froze a 4” thick
slab of ice in her biggest chafing dish and fixed a cover over it so the pies stayed
nicely chilled, displayed on ice, until the happy customers took them home to
enjoy.)
Seeing the success of her summer market experiment, Paulette
headed north to the US that Fall with a limited budget and a long shopping list
of all the furniture, fixtures and kitchen equipment she needed to complete her
meticulously planned new enterprise.
With extensive research, hours perusing Craig’s List and other sources
and a generous helping of determination and creativity she bargained and even
bartered for everything she needed to turn a previously somewhat shabby
storefront on a main street in Loreto into the sparkling clean and warmly
welcoming epitome of a Pie Shop. (She proudly
pointed out the custom cut lettering of her window sign with the matching
professionally fabricated overhead sign outside and confided to me that she met
a sign maker, who it turned out was an avid fisherman, and soon the deal was
struck – he would supply her with her signage in exchange for an all expense
paid week-long fishing vacation at her B&B in Loreto!)
Opening in time for US Thanksgiving (Pumpkin Pies!) a little
over a year ago, the business took off quickly and with Sonya handling the front
counter sales, Paulette soon added Norma as an assistant in the kitchen in
back. Homemade pies and deserts, cakes,
muffins and even quiche and chicken pot pies were an almost instant success
with the ex-pat community, hungry for familiar comfort foods and deserts for
special occasions. But, talking with
Paulette, I understood that she takes particular pride in the growing
acceptance and popularity of her baking with the local Mexican population –
whose support, particularly through the long hot summer months when there are
few other here, is vital to running a viable year-round business. 
I was allowed back into her small and spotless bakery
kitchen that efficiently uses every square foot, and is stocked with every
imaginable utensil and device necessary in a commercial operation, two
Kitchenaid mixers, two Cuisineart processors, a domestic stove and a
professional convection oven, two freezers and a fridge, and even a small
storage trailer parked outside the back door for extra supplies. “A place for everything, and everything in
it’s place” could well be the motto over the door, and in the time I spent
watching Paulette and Norma whip up a few more of their popular cheesecakes, it
was clear that the whole set-up of the kitchen, and the shop itself, was geared
to the efficient and professional production of a quality product – with a lot
of love!
Getting to know a local character that has brought a rich
and tasty new dimension to the enjoyment of food here in our town, while
re-inventing herself and finding a business opportunity in a lifelong passion
this is one of the most delicious parts of “Living Loreto”!
