Labors of Love

Bubbie’s Bakery may only be open for four and a half hours one day a year, but it’s a labor of love six months in the making by some of Marco Island’s best bakers and cooks, with some help from local businesses.

The annual bake sale featuring an array of homemade Jewish baked goods and soups will be held at the Jewish Congregation of Marco Island (JCMI) on Winterberry Dr. on Sunday, February 1 from 9:30 AM to 2:00 PM and its organizers Barb Holtz and Beth Weinberg say customers can expect a number of enhancements based on learnings from the last two years, starting with the date the sale is held.

“We did it the weekend before Thanksgiving and a lot of people were gone and concentrating on Thanksgiving,” Holtz said. “In February, we have a lot more people here.”

Holtz and Weinberg also said they’ve improved the product signage at the event to better describe each of the items, some of which might not be familiar to many customers, such as the hamantaschen, which is a jam-filled cookie.

They also said that based on customer feedback, they’re featuring only traditional Jewish foods this year.

“Basically, people felt they could get chocolate chip cookies anywhere,” Weinberg said. “People want what a bubbie would make, so we cut out everything that isn’t Jewish.”

“Bubbie” is a Yiddish term of endearment for grandmother, and virtually all the bubbies who do the cooking for the bake sale are members of JCMI. They’ve been busy preparing and freezing their wares since September, both in groups at JCMI’s full-service kitchen, and in their homes.

Because JCMI’s kitchen has limited freezer space, Winn-Dixie on the island lends them ample freezer space to store their goods until the sale.

“They must have 80 to 100 banana boxes filled with our items over there,” Holtz said. “Beth’s husband and my husband have been schlepping them over there for months.”

In addition to lending its freezer space, Winn-Dixie also loans its baskets for customers to use while shopping, as does Publix.

The amount of cooking the bubbies do, and the array of items they make, is impressive, including macaroons, babka bread, matzoh ball soup, potato knishes, kugels, strudel, and simcha cakes, among others.

“People love the challah bread,” Weinberg said. “We have about fifty big challahs, but we have a lot of single people, so we also used the same dough to make challah rolls and sell those by the box too.”

That level of on-the-fly improvisation dovetails well with the bubbies’ approach to cooking and is a key reason they don’t share their recipes with the public.

“They aren’t exact recipes, and they change over the generations,” Weinberg said. “These bubbies can feel it when it’s right when they’re cooking. It’s the way our grandmothers used to bake.”

Holtz said she learned to cook from her grandmother, who also baked by “feel.”

“I remember telling my grandmother I wanted to learn how to bake a cake because she was a phenomenal cook,” Holtz said. “I asked how much flour to use and in her thick accent said, ‘a glass of flour.’”

JCMI member Judy Sacher organizes Bubbie’s Café for the day, selling coffee and bagels with a schmear in the morning and JCMI’s famous kosher hot dog for lunch, the bagels courtesy of a gift card donation from Marco Island’s Empire Bagels.

Holtz and Weinberg cite the multidenominational local crowd that attends JCMI’s Monday night bingo event (with free hot dog) as a key to the sale’s success.

“The bingo people support everything we do here,” Weinberg said. “They come to our shows, they come to the bake sale. They’re just really kind to us and are the most supportive people.”

Holtz is in charge of the logistics and paperwork for the event, and Weinberg supervises all of the bakers, but both lend a hand on the baking as well, but with different approaches.

“I’m laid back and she’s not,” Holtz said of Weinberg.

Proving the point, Weinberg said of Holtz, “She’s supposed to have 20 simcha cakes and she still has to do it. Mine were done three months ago. Drives me crazy.”

“They’ll be done,” Holtz said with a smile.

That aside, the two are close friends, having met on a trip to Israel in 2017.

“She’s probably my best friend,” Holtz said.

This is the last year that Holtz and Weinberg will be organizing the event and are turning over the reins to JCMI members Linda Reitzes and Lynn Wilk to plan and execute next year’s Bubbie’s Bakery and beyond.

“This is our sayonara,” Holtz said.