A baker and her community
Café Marie’s head baker, Yi Wang, featured in regional food publication
The kitchen at Café Marie and Catering begins to hum at dawn. This is when Yi Wang, the head baker, begins the daily baking for the busy restaurant. “I get up so early in the morning and prepare the items for the café like cinnamon rolls, scones and all of the bread,” she explains. Located on the second floor of Sydney’s Eltuek Arts Centre, the café serves breakfast and lunch, baked goods, coffee and more, while also hosting and catering events.
Yi moved from China to Cape Breton almost four years ago, with her daughter, to join her husband who had moved earlier to find work and a home for his family. She arrived with very little English and started to look for work.
As a newcomer, Yi enrolled in an English language training program provided by New Dawn Enterprises’ immigration settlement services. New Dawn is a non-profit organization and Canada’s oldest Community Development Corporation. New Dawn is also a founding member of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCEDNet), which works to connect people and ideas to build and strengthen local economies. As a social enterprise, New Dawn re-invests profits from its revenue generating initiatives such as Café Marie into programs including newcomer, after school and youth programs, and Meals on Wheels.
In this kitchen, Meals on Wheels volunteers prepare thousands of lunches and suppers a week, that then get delivered throughout the community. The Meals on Wheels cooks and the café team share the café kitchen, resources and a community.
Yi found her way to the café and baking through a culinary trades program at Sydney Mines Memorial High School — a composite school which brings together trades and academic curricula.
“Baking was not my first job,” Yi explains, her voice smiling as she speaks, “I tried it and I enjoyed it.”
The culinary program, led by Red Seal chef and instructor Franklin McKibbon, takes students through all aspects of the commercial kitchen including baking. The program is open to students within its catchment and when there is space it welcomes students from outside the catchment and those who have finished high school and are interested in the trades program. Yi was 29 when she started the program and came with a “great work ethic and drive,” Frank says. “She would go home with readings, translate, and work really hard,” he adds. “She is very creative and would put in the extra effort to try something new.”
“I came to the café as part of the school internship,” she adds, “and I really enjoyed it.” In fact, she started her internship and never left.
“Yi works in a very busy, fast-paced kitchen,” Brenna tells us. Brenna moved to the island ten years ago, managing the kitchen at Salty Rose’s and Periwinkle Café in Ingonish. She eventually moved to Sydney, where she helped in the initial opening of New Dawn’s café, training the barista staff, before turning full time to her growing fermented foods business.
Brenna returned to the café three years ago as manager and it wasn’t long before she met Yi through the international program hosted by the centre. Brenna manages a team of ten at Café Marie, which has become a hub of community activity. It caters Eltuek’s art openings as well as community events such as February’s “Warm Your Bones” square dance and Lunar New Year celebration. “Last year,” Brenna adds, “we ran a barbecue series called Legendary Skewers of China.”
The café also hosts ‘zine workshops, vintage pop-ups, and maintains a community cupboard, fridge, and freezer. “Both the café and Meals on Wheels stock the cupboard,” Brenna says, “as well as other people and organizations in the community that support it. We’re unique because we have a dietician on staff to accommodate people’s dietary needs.”
Brenna and her team source as much locally as possible, connecting with the Cape Breton Food Hub and local producers. Think crab from Victoria Co-operative, on the island’s northeast highlands, for its crab mousse and Margaree blueberries for its beloved blueberry scones.
“My favourite thing to bake is the blueberry scones,” Yi says, “and it’s so famous in our café, every customer likes them.” Yi is always considering new recipes for the café. “My wife and I stopped by to visit Yi and her family to wish them a happy new year,” Frank tells us, “and Yi was testing recipes on her day off — including a blueberry sourdough with cream cheese filling.”
Yi’s first introduction to life in Canada has been Cape Breton and she says she is very happy to be here. “I like Sydney because people are so friendly,” she says, “I can walk down the street and people say hello and smile.”
In addition to adjusting to a new life in a new place while learning a new language, getting her driver’s license, and taking culinary training, she is also raising her daughter Vivian and teaching her the joys of baking.
Her daughter is eight and when she finishes school sometimes she gets to join her mom at the café. “Vivian really likes the food we make here,” Yi says.
The café doors open at 8:00 am for a busy day of serving and feeding customers who rave about the breakfast sandwiches, the ambiance and, of course, the blueberry scones.
This story, written by Sara Snow, first appeared in No. 18 of edible Maritimes.
Photos by Lakyn Leudy.
