In the movie, "Ratatouille", Remy the culinary rat, was searching for the perfect dish to serve the picky food critic. In the end, he chose a delectable dish of ratatouille, the soup which he had grown up eating and which evoked so many great childhood memories. It was this dish that wowed the food critic and won his admiration. 
 
What, you might ask, does this have to do with a blog for the Coffee Pot Bakery Cafe? I believe that there are certain things that we serve in the bakery that do the same thing in creating good feelings and memories. One of these is our Chocolate Chip Cookie. It is one of the simplest of recipes, but many people bake chocolate chip cookies and don't do them well. Back in the day when I was competing in the bakery division at the Montana Winter Fair, I would always make chocolate chip cookies for one of my entries. I usually would win a second or third place ribbon, but never a first until I tried a new recipe. 
 
On the sad occasion of my father in law's funeral, many people brought cookies and other treats. I had a chocolate chip cookie that was the best that I had ever had. I left a note on the plate, because I didn't know who had brought the cookies, and asked that they call me with the recipe if they were willing to share it. A few days later,one of my friends called to give me the recipe with an apologetic caveat that,"it's just a chocolate chip cookie. It's nothing special." I pressed her and she said, "well, I do always add a tablespoon of honey to the dough." Bingo! When I began to make that particular recipe with the honey, I began to win first place ribbons. I'm not sure of the food chemistry, but the honey seems to keep the dough softer and adds just that extra touch of sweetness.

Try our Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe.

- Jennie Lockie

David grew up on a busy ranch in eastern Montana and was the son of generous, industrious parents. Their motto was, " We'll play when the work is done." On a ranch and, indeed, in most businesses, the work is never done. While I am cut from that same cloth, I am striving to have a more balanced approach to work.
 
Sometimes when one owns a business, you can get wrapped up in the redundancy that comprises the bulk of the daily routine. Most things that need to be done bring a certain joy and a feeling of accomplishment. The tasks are fulfilling, even when they become mundane, but it's great when the day-to-day regimen is broken up with different activities. The past two weeks were filled with such serendipitous happenings.
 
One of our Team Members, Whitney, is engaged. Elleen Van Dyke, who worked with us for many years, offered to host a formal tea & bridal shower for Whitney. The crew really got into it. Many of the attendees wore hats, and everyone dressed up. We enjoyed wonderful tea sandwiches, scones, and delicious treats, beautifully displayed on the most elegant of table settings.  Dressing “models” in toilet paper wedding dresses evoked a great deal of mirth and we had a wonderful time together.
 
A few days later we had a going away dinner for one of our bakers who had been with us for 10 years and needed to give her notice to fulfill other obligations. The farewell gathering was a bitter sweet time to say thank you, reminisce, and laud her amazing contributions that helped us along the path where God has lead us in getting to where we are today. You can't have an event like this that doesn’t involve stories, laughter, and tears.
 
The next event was my arriving at the Bakery at 4:30 in the morning to work with the bakers making cinnamon rolls.  We have been having some of our rolls fail during the baking, and we're not sure what the cause is. Of all of the baking I do (which is not much, since we have such an amazing cadre of great bakers), rolls and breads are my favorite things to make. Originally I made all of the items that came out of the Coffee Pot Bakery, but it's been a long since I've done any commercial baking, and my early morning efforts weren't pretty. Certainly not prize winning cinnamon rolls! My dough was pretty much a disaster, and my breakfast was Humble Pie. It was, however, good to get here early and work with Gracie. It makes me more appreciative of the gals who get up every morning to be at work at 4:30. My plan is to do this once a month, just so that I can better understand the work they're doing. We'll see if this actually happens! I think we figured out what was causing our dough to over proof, and hopefully we won't continue to struggle with this problem.
 
This week, David and I went to the Sysco Food Show in Billings with our Director of Operations and our two Kitchen Managers. It was fun to see our two younger managers observe Colette work with the vendors looking for items that we use in the Cafe and finding the most economical, quality products. It was like a mother teaching her young ones how to buy. A great outing was had by all while still legitimately working, and the opportunity to be together outside of a work environment is always a bonus. Ours is a hardworking crew, and we appreciate their work.  We also enjoy the times where we can just be together and enjoy their friendships.

When you start a business from scratch, there might be one or two people who are involved at the onset. Then if God is willing, and it thrives, it might begin to involve more people. That is what happened with Mountain Arts Pottery.  When we began, the business was so tenuous and we were so uncertain about whether or not it would be a success that we actually did not include the word "Pottery" when we were trying to think of a name for our business. Our thinking was that if we didn’t make it with a pottery studio, we would at least be able to preserve the name for some other venture if the need arose.
 
With God’s help and a lot of hard work, we did begin to grow. As we included more people to work with us, it was our goal that they treat the business as their own and take ownership.
 
When I was going to be a junior in high school, my shop teacher found me a summer job on a ranch south of Miles City, Montana. I was working for an older gentleman. His son owned a ranch that bordered his. His grandson was one class up from me, and we were fairly good friends. We were in a group at some function talking about what everyone had done in the last week or two. I said that we had branded about 178 of our calves (meaning, of course, the owner's calves). The grandson corrected me and said that were not my calves, and asked what I thought I was talking about.
 
That was a formative interaction and I have thought a lot about that conversation over the years. Jennie's and my hope is that anyone who works for us feels like such an integral part of our business that they consider it "theirs".  It makes us happy when, in conversation, they say "we have this or that" to our customers. Our team members are such a valuable part of our business that their ownership only enhances what we all do to ensure great customer satisfaction.
 
-Dave Lockie

When we bought the building that has become our store for Mountain Arts Pottery and The Coffee Pot Bakery, we had our annual retreat and during that retreat, decided, with much prayer, that we would not be open on Sunday.  We are closed only on three other holidays during the year.  We are closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is pretty normal, but then Good Friday rolls around and people start asking why we're closed. 

There is a story that goes along with that decision, as with so many things we do.  I was serving on the School Board for Bozeman when all of our kids were in elementary school or preschool.  In the spring, back in the day, we had a standard Easter vacation in the schools.  As society has changed there has been an attempt to remove every form of Christian symbolism from the public schools, and the Easter Break has now changed to Spring Break.   Being young and wanting to have some kind of impact in our community, I talked to Jennie and we decided not to send our kids to school on Good Friday.  Our kids were ecstatic; it was a great day not to have to go to school.  On Good Friday of that year they all slept in, so Jennie and I had a nice breakfast together and then I went out to the studio, which was in the back yard of our home, and went to work.  Some time later in the morning the kids all showed up in my studio and poised this question, "Dad, if Good Friday is so important that we don’t go to school, why are you going to work?"  I only had to think about that for a short time when it became obvious that this was a double standard, so I washed my hands, shut the wheel off, turned out the lights and that was the last time I worked on Good Friday. I feel that Good Friday is probably the most important Christian holiday for us, and  want to put my money where my ideals are, so that it why it's a paid holiday for all of our employees, and why we choose not to be open. 

I remember someone telling me, decades ago - before I'd lived much life, that I should make friends with change because it is one of life's inevitabilities. I'm sure I thought to myself, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever." It wasn’t too many years before I realized the truth in this reality. 
 
Not only does this hold true in our day-to-day lives, but it is equally a certainty in the life of any business, for without change, businesses stagnate. This can especially be seen in the restaurant world, as there is a need to constantly transition. A pastor I know adopted the following theme for his church: "Ever changing methods, never changing message."
 
Some changes are more difficult than others, and it is this type that the Coffee Pot has recently undergone. After more than a decade of working hand in hand to achieve quality reputation that The Coffee Pot currently enjoys, our Head Baker and Kitchen Manager, Marci Gehring, has transitioned from this position to that of beloved guest and friend. With the coming event of the arrival of her first grandbaby, the marriage of her son, and responsibilities with her aging father, this change will allow her to devote more time to her family.
  
It would take all of the 2016 blogs to communicate the many areas where Marci's contributions are daily fare at the Coffee Pot, but a few of these should be highlighted:
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• Our pie dough, scone and biscuit techniques were painstakingly perfected by Marci. 
• Every restaurant has "shrink", or wasted products, but Marci's creativity and pragmatism reduced our shrink to next to nothing. 
• The impeccable standards of cleanliness and food safety originated from Marci. 
• Many of the recipes came from Marci's giftedness in combining the right ingredients and the right spices to create something delicious. 

But above all of this, Marci’s greatest accomplishment, I think, is her ability to teach her craft to others, and those who have learned under her tutelage have, themselves, become invaluable contributors in the Coffee Pot kitchen.

We are so very grateful to Marci for the years of service and wisdom as well as the friendship we have developed through the trials and laughter of the past ten years. We are grateful, as well, to God for sending us what we need when we need it. 

Ecclesiastes 3:1
"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens"

We're beyond honored to have our Cinnamon Rolls featured in the January/February 2016 Issue of Cooking with Paula Deen Magazine!

You can find the feature, entitled 'Sweet Spots for Sweet Rolls' on pages 71 & 72. The Coffee Pot Bakery Cafe is one of ten bakeries, restaurants, and cafes featured in the magazine which boasts of owner Jennie Lockie's " Lip-smacking, finger-licking sweet rolls." Now we can truly say our Cinnamon Rolls are world famous!
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Read the article and share with friends http://www.pauladeenmagazine.com/10-to-try-sweet-rolls

For those who love coffee, it seems that everyone has definite opinions of how it should be roasted, stored, brewed, served, etc.  Years ago, when we were looking for the right coffee roaster, our son Tim researched many local coffee roasters and talked to them about coffee for the Coffee Pot. He brought the name of Redbird Coffee, owned by Jeff Pentel, to David and suggested we use him for our coffee needs, because, as he said, "Dad, he's a coffee fanatic... and you aren't."  David and I grew up on Folgers back in the day. Fortunately, we have developed a palate for good coffee in the past few years, but when we opened the Coffee Pot, we had a lot to learn. Tim was right about Redbird Coffee, and we have served it at our restaurant for the past several years. At one point, we ran out of coffee and Jeff wasn't roasting again until the next week, so David told him that we would just go to Costco and buy some Kirkland coffee to use over the weekend. Jeff was horrified. The next morning when we got up to come to work, there was a box of roasted coffee beans on our front porch! We consistently get compliments on our coffee and our specialty coffee drinks, and we refer many customers to Redbird, as they sell on line as well as commercially.  In the last month, Jeff sold his business to Ron and Helen Naffziger, long time Bozeman residents and business owners. He is presently teaching them to roast and how to manage a coffee business, and we expect the same great care and quality that we have enjoyed from Jeff.
 
Excellent coffee should translate into excellent coffee drinks, and my drink of choice is our Mocha. I am consistently disappointed when I order a Mocha at other coffee shops, and have stopped ordering them as a result. We make our Mochas from our own mix, and when I asked our barista specialist why our Mochas are so much better than other coffee shops', she told me that it's because of our great recipe and because they are made with love!  If you're looking for a delicious hot coffee drink made with love, come to the Coffee Pot.
 
Thank you for all of your support and interest.  May you have a blessed New Year.

Several years ago I felt as if the Lord was working specifically on some areas of my life that needed tweaking. I called it the 3-Gs year. The areas I was convicted about were to be Grateful, to be Generous and to be Grumbleless. Before you start thinking that should have been a decade long process, I agree!  I know that these areas will undoubtedly be a lifelong struggle and goal to work toward.
 
George Herbert, a 1600’s theologian and Anglican priest, wrote,"Thou that hast given so much to me, give one thing more, a grateful heart."I love that sentiment, and I desire to live a life of gratitude with the vision to see the things around me that I so often take for granted. Everyone has trials with which they struggle, but I feel as if I have been blessed with so much more than most, and I don't want to have to have poor health, or financial difficulties or broken relationships before I can appreciate just how blessed I have been and am.
 
In the same way, David and I have a strong desire to be generous. In Luke 12:48, Jesus says, "To whom much is given, much will be required ". That makes sense. If we have the means to help others who may be without, we should do so, as we aren't just islands with no obligation to the rest of mankind. As I looked for Bible verses on this subject, I found other sources in addition to the Good Book, that encourage us in the same manner. In the movie, "Spider-man", Uncle Ben says to Peter Parker, "With great power comes great responsibility."  Bill Gates, who is a wonderful example of generosity said in his address to Harvard graduates, " My mother, who was filled with pride the day I was admitted (to Harvard), never stopped pressing me to do more for others...” and "From those to whom much is given, much is expected."  Whether it is a Boy Scout selling popcorn, someone who has run onto hard times, our team members, or refugees from across the globe, I want to be able to give back some of the abundance with which I have been blessed.
 
Grumbleless. (My spellcheck is complaining that this isn't even a real word.) This might be the most difficult of the 3-Gs, because complaining is such a respectable vice. Webster's Dictionary defines "complaining" as "saying something expressing annoyance or dissatisfaction". Hey, we live in Montana!  The weather is worth complaining about nearly six months out of twelve!  If that were the only thing I grumbled about, I doubt that I would have been convicted. I think I could have a general air of dissatisfaction about much of life if I were to leave it unchecked. If there is something I can make better, why not try to help instead of grumbling?  It is my observation that those people who always have a complaint are not nearly as much fun to be around as those who see life from a positive aspect. That's the kind of person I want to be.
 
Gratitude. Generosity. Grumblelessness. My own personal convictions and my areas of weakness. This Christmas season, my goal is to see and to appreciate more than ever, those things that I have been given. To turn that gratitude into generosity toward others and to get through an hour without grumbling. Great weather we're having, isn't it?
 

​-Jennie Lockie

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday for a variety of reasons.  I love the lack of material expectations and the opportunity to express gratitude for the amazing life we’ve been given.  I love, too, the food aspect that is such a part of Thanksgiving traditions. 

Our daughter married into a delightful, very Sicilian family. She was shocked at their first Thanksgiving as a married couple to discover that Italians consider lasagna, antipasto, and all things Italian the go-to Thanksgiving meal.  In the family she grew up in, however, Thanksgiving dinner always included turkey, dressing, and all of the side dishes that go with a traditional Thanksgiving meal. There are always days’ worth of leftovers to consume.

A few years ago Marci, our kitchen manager, who is the main reason the Coffee Pot Bakery Café is even on the map, developed a new recipe that we weren’t so sure about. She made a vegetable based soup with a rich turkey broth. So far, so good.  Next, she made “Stuffing Balls” out of the left over stuffing from one of our Comfort Food Fridays.  She crisped them up so that they would stay firm in the soup, and served up our first Thanksgiving Soup.  I’m still not fond of stuffing in any form, but I’m in the vast minority.  Thanksgiving Soup is one of our customer favorites any time of the year.

It is one of those soups that you can make at home with your Thanksgiving leftovers. You start with a turkey vegetable soup recipe and add “Stuffing Balls.”  It’s a great meal to put together for Black Friday, because you can put it in a crockpot and leave it until the afternoon and return home to the wonderful fragrance of soup cooking.  It’s also perfect because you can use the leftovers but it’s a totally different meal, so you won’t get the “Leftovers AGAIN?” complaint.  If making soup isn’t your thing, come on out to the Coffee Pot and pick up a quart to go.  Add some rolls, and put together a quick, delicious meal.  Done!  Now you have time to play some games with your family or watch a holiday movie together.

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours! 
-Jennie Lockie

Enjoy making this soup with your holiday leftovers. Thanksgiving Soup Recipe