Hi, I'm Mom.

A few years back, a client came in for a haircut and saw a loaf I’d baked the night before sitting on the counter. She asked if I’d sell it to her. I told her she could just have it. The next week she came back with cash.

That was the first time it occurred to me that I should be charging people.

I’ve been cutting hair in Venice for years. Most of my regulars I’ve known since their kids were in elementary school. Some of those kids are bringing their own kids in now.

A salon is a strange place to start a bakery. It’s also exactly the right kind of place. People talk in salons. Word travels. By the time I’d been baking for a few months, I had a list of people who wanted loaves on Saturday — written on the back of an appointment book.

What I love about sourdough is that you can’t rush it. The dough tells you when it’s ready. Florida tells you when it’s ready, too — it’s humid here, the kitchen is warm, the timing is different from any cookbook written in a normal climate. I had to figure out my own rhythm.

Venice is on the coast. The crust is the best part of the bread. The name showed up one Saturday morning while loading the car. We knew it the second we said it.

Florida has a law for what we do — cottage food, it’s called. It means I can bake from my own kitchen, sell directly to my neighbors, and not have to convert my house into a commercial space. The catch is I have to hand off every order myself. No middlemen, no third-party apps, no shipping out of state.

The salon works for the handoff because it’s where I already am. The Venice Farmers Market works because I’m already going. The bread comes from my home kitchen, every loaf, every Saturday.

I’m not a trained baker. I read books. I follow people online. I make a lot of bad bread that I eat anyway. Every Saturday is a small experiment, and every Saturday teaches me something I didn’t know the week before.

If a loaf I hand you isn’t right, please tell me. I’d rather know.