Pastry Poetry by Sharon Butler

One of the perks of owning a bakery has been honoring many people and places that have inspired me over the years. My maiden Aunt Marie, who cooked for Saint Lawrence School in Price Hill, never wasted a thing. Once, as a girl, I peeked in her ancient gas oven. Inside were puffs of the most glorious-looking things I had ever seen. "Aunt Rea," I asked, "What are these things?" Her raspy voice, always full of mischief, answered, "Kid, those are wind cookies." At her house for dessert that night, I was transported by that wind of sugar and crispy egg white cookies forever. When we opened the BonBonerie, I immediately made wind cookies and put a sign on the jar that identified them in her honor: Aunt Rea’s Wind Cookies. So many customers asked about their name and origin. I could only answer that it was pastry poetry.

-Sharon Butler is owner of the BonBonerie bakery in O'Bryonville, Ohio