Macaroons in the Montpelier Meadows

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

By Patrick Timothy Mulligan Correspondent

04.08.08

Montpelier – Might as well get this out the way since everyone asks. Yes, Gesine (pronounced Guh-ZEEN-ah) Prado, who owns Gesine Confectionary & Gourmet Market in the Meadow area of Montpelier with her husband, Ray, is indeed the sister of actress Sandra Bullock. And, yes, on opening day – Aug. 2, 2005 – Bullock worked the counter. The media gobbled this up, and while this publicity was good for the start-up business, the proof of Gesine’s success has been in the pudding – well, pastries, sandwiches and coffee actually.

Two and half years later, the business is booming, says Prado.

“It’s gotten busier. We have the regulars we’ve had from the very beginning, and it keeps getting bigger, but in a very natural, cohesive way. Not overwhelming,” Prado says, taking a break from baking. She’s been up since 3 a.m. and busy in the kitchen of the Elm Street bakery since 4, preparing the day’s fare: pastries, pies, cakes and macaroons. Her assistant is out with a broken collarbone, so she’s on her own today, a day that will end around 6 p.m., as it does most days.

Gesine’s is located a few blocks outside downtown Montpelier, and though a walkable distance, it’s a bit off the beaten path. This suits Prado just fine.

“I’m a German, so I don’t like the idea of being smack in the center of everything,” she says. “There is something to me far more charming about stumbling onto something.”

Customers who do stumble upon Gesine’s – and these customers come from all over central Vermont and as far away as Quebec – will find a variety of baked goods, sandwiches (a recent addition to the menu) and coffee but no tables.

“We don’t have seating. We do have tall tables. People will mill about and stand up and talk. It’s not totally inhospitable to hanging out, but it’s not like you can sit. We don’t have Internet or anything like that.”In a town bubbling over with options for coffee, some people consider Gesine’s coffee to be among the better if not the best.

“We’re very particular about our coffee. We don’t like what’s now become the palate of a burnt roast, a kind of a Starbucks burnt roast, that most people do.” Instead, Gesine’s has opted for special blends created for them by Artisan Coffee Roasters.

Prado says how coffee is served is equally important as the taste. Her baristas have a three-month training period before they are allowed to serve a customer.

And then there are her macaroons (maple, mocha and lemon) – the backbone of the business.

“I had always planned on opening a bakery. (Macaroons) was just the thing that got noticed before we even opened. It wasn’t our intention that that would be the be-all, end-all. But they’re damn good. So what are you going to do?” She sells her macaroons online as well.

While baking is Prado’s passion, she confesses to having no formal training as a baker.

“I’m trained as an attorney, and I was a film executive, but I’ve been baking since I was a kid. I trained myself. Anything that I wanted to eat, I made it.”

She says she is reminded of her film background regularly by customers who, thinking she is still in that business, bring in scripts hoping she’ll read them or pass them onto some studio big shot. “I’m usually baking in the back so they handle it in the front as diplomatically as they can.”

Though she shuns would-be screenwriters, she says the shop does attract a fair number of local writers who are welcomed. In fact, she has just finished her own book, which she plans to submit to publishers later this spring. She’s mum on the topic.

“There are so many writers in Vermont. I have met some of the most lovely people and some great friends who are also writers.” She says a group of writers meets for coffee at the bakery on occasion.

“Sometimes we have to go to meet for a hard drink,” she says with laugh.