Hello!

If you’ve been keeping up with my monthly updates, my personal news probably isn’t news: Erlend and I bought a house! I’ll be sharing a walk through of the new place on Instagram and Instagram Stores, including a close-up of my new Scandinavian-style kitchen (see above). Be sure to follow along!

But let’s rewind. We didn’t start the year with the goal of buying a new house. In fact, we’d planned for the opposite: to remodel my current old house this summer. Truthfully, I thought my old house was my forever home. I’d bought it—all by myself, without Erlend!—all the way back in 2013. It was old (first built in 1912!), but full of charming period details like crown molding and built-ins. It was small and modest, but within a five minute walk to some of my favorite restaurants in the city. I remodeled the kitchen back in 2014—and again in 2018—to fit it to my needs perfectly. And I was happy to do the same with the rest of the house. This past summer, I planned to expand the house’s original footprint of 2 bedroom/1bathroom to 3 bedroom/2 bathroom.

Then, of course, COVID hit. I called off the remodel. And as our neighborhood shut down and the house became the office, gym, and everything else, we started to feel its walls close in. I called up my architect. “Forget our original plans,” I told him. “What can we do to add more space?” He scratched his head. “How much money do you want to spend?” He explained that, because the house was so old, many things needed to be brought code first. The quote he gave me was astonishing. It was more than a downpayment on a new house.

Then, the wildfires hit.

For two weeks, Portland’s air was hazardous to breathe. The house’s old windows and doors offered no protection from the elements. We resorted to wearing N-95 masks indoors. Erlend found respite at work—his clinic’s HVAC system could filter out the smoke. His coworkers were bemused by our situation. Many of them lived in newer homes with similar HVAC systems. I called up my contractor to give me a quote to install one in the house. Again, I choked at the price.

Reluctantly, we started browsing listings. I told my realtor that in order to move, the house needed to be PERFECT. I didn’t want to leave my neighborhood. But I also didn’t want to deal with the drama of an old house. I wanted a newer build with insulated windows and HEPA filters more suited to dealing with the consequences of climate change. He raised an eyebrow. My neighborhood was known for its old houses. I was looking for something few and far between.

Then, on the last smokey day, the listing for our new house popped up. I nearly wrote it off. It was well above our budget. But it was two blocks away. And it was a new build with energy-efficient features like insulated windows and a HEPA-filtered HVAC system! I jogged by and, of course, fell in love. I dragged Erlend over, and he fell in love, too. We called our family, and with their help, made an offer. For the rest of the weekend, we all sat with bated breath. Our realtor told us to manage our expectations—Portland’s real estate market was too hot. Our offer might not have been enough.

But a month and a half later, here we are!

The Curious Incident of the Rude Comment From the Milk Bar Store Employee

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen the “scandal” I posted about in my Instagram Stories. A few weeks ago, I received a surprising comment on an old blog post on Hummingbird High. The blog post, first published in 2012, was about a bread recipe from Milk Bar, celebrity chef Christina Tosi’s famed bakery known for cereal milk flavored goodies, naked cakes, and sugar pie. “Your {version of the recipe} looks terrible,” the comment read. Worse, the commenter had signed it saying that she was a former lead pastry chef at Milk Bar and appeared to use a legitimate work email address from their domain @milkbarstore.com.

My first reaction to the comment was to roll my eyes. As a public facing figure on the internet who puts her work out there for the world to judge, you need a thick skin against all kinds of feedback. But I clicked over to my old post to see what she was talking about. And I actually laughed. The Milk Bar pastry chef was right! My version of their bread buns did look terrible.

I wasn’t too surprised. The blog post was over eight years old! Back then, Hummingbird High was less than six months old. I hadn’t yet honed in my baking OR food photography skills. Furthermore, their recipe was only the second time I’d made bread…EVER. And if you know me at all, even today, I’ll admit that I’m not much of a bread baker. I’m much more comfortable baking recipes for cakes, cookies, and other sweets.

So, I decided to let it go and carry on. But as the day went on, I found myself thinking more and more about that comment. What was a professional pastry chef doing, leaving nasty comments on old blog posts from fans promoting their bakery’s cookbook? Soon, I spiraled into more anxiety. It was easy for me to laugh it off now, with my own cookbook and Hummingbird High twice highlighted by Saveur Magazine as one of the best baking blogs on the internet. 

But what if I had gotten that comment back in 2012?

In 2012, I wrote Hummingbird High for fun while working a full-time, 9-to-5 job in tech. Hummingbird High solely existed as a way for me to escape the stresses of my day job and share my love for baking with friends and family who lived around the world. One of the reasons why I started the blog because I wanted to learn how to bake better. And to do so, I baked recipes from cookbooks of bakeries and pastry chefs I admired—like Christina Tosi and her first cookbook, Momofuku Milk Bar. 

I thought about how exciting it would have been for 2012 me to receive a comment from a pastry chef from one of my favorite bakeries at the time…only to be completely devastated to find that it was to tell me that my efforts were terrible. Without the accomplishments I have under my belt now, that comment would have CRUSHED me. I probably would have shut down this blog out of embarrassment and shame. And literally, the next eight years of Hummingbird High wouldn’t have happened.

And that was not okay.

Furious, I decided to grab screenshots and take to Instagram, my social media platform with the largest following. I explained the situation and tagged both Milk Bar and Christina Tosi, expressing my disappointment that she was allowing this kind of behavior amongst her employees. Things blew up. Many of you expressed your support and were equally upset by the Milk Bar employee’s comment. A few of you found the employee’s social media handles and forwarded them over to me. I tagged her in a few of the posts to hold her accountable to her words. Some of you thought I was being unnecessarily rude and negative. Some unfollowed my account, declaring their undying support for Milk Bar. 

In any case, before long, things resolved themselves: the pastry chef who’d left the comment reached out to me. She explained that she had been impersonated and hacked. She’d never heard of me or my blog before today. I decided to take her word for it and pull down my posts. Other Milk Bar employees reached out too, with some hinting that there was another disgruntled employee actively trying to damage the pastry chef’s and bakery’s reputation with stunts like this one.

Then, a few days later, Christina Tosi herself gave me a call. Christina was nothing but wonderful. She apologized profusely and explained that her team was still looking into the situation. We then spent the rest of the phone call talking about how wild and scary the internet can be. 

When I posted follow-up stories explaining that the employee had been hacked, some of you—the ones who thought I was being unecessarily negative by posting the stories in the first place—asked me if I felt bad for calling out this pastry chef. Of course I felt bad, especially given the information I know now! But I still stand by my actions of holding her accountable for what I thought were her real words at the time. It looked like somebody in a position of power was being actively cruel to supporters in their community. I don’t think it was wrong to use my platform to call out that behavior, just like I don’t think it’s wrong for me to use it to encourage people to wear a mask, or show my support for my city and the Black Lives Matter movement.

I don’t really have too much to say about everything other than, well, what an awful situation. It was upsetting for everybody—for me, for the employee who had been impersonated, for Christina and her bakery, and for you guys, too. So many people were affected by this troll!

In Case You Missed It: New Recipes

And in case you missed it, I published and updated the following recipes in the past month. Here’s a round-up of everything new:

Below are pictures of the two most popular recipes from the month—Small Batch Brookie Bars and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread—to inspire you:

small batch brookie bars
pumpkin chocolate chip bread

New Cookbooks

So many of my friends, acquaintances, and peers wrote amazing cookbooks that came out last month (or are about to)! Here are a few of my faves:

cookbooks
snacking cakes by yossy arefi

Food for Thought

This past month, I also spent a LOT of time thinking and reading about food beyond the baking recipes you see on this blog. Here are the ideas and issues that resonated with me:

  • “Why Biodegradable Isn’t What You Think.” I am always so appreciative when brands and products I love use recyclable or compostable packaging. But it turns out most of it isn’t as recyclable or compostable as they would have you believe. Everything is terrible. {New York Times}

  • “The Growing Appeal of Desserts That Are ‘Not Too Sweet’.” I often get questions asking if my recipes are “too sweet.” I’m not gonna lie—these questions annoy me! I would never actively try and make a recipe that is “too sweet”, “too salty”, “too fatty”, and whatever else. But a lot of it comes down to personal preferences that change over time. {Vice Magazine}

  • “The Dinners That Didn’t Make Instagram” I appreciated this very honest take on what various food writers, editors, stylists, and photographers eat at home when no one is looking. Because despite the decadent desserts you see on this blog, I tend to cook very simple and boring savory meals for myself! {TASTE Magazine}

  • “Barefoot in Quarantine” The Cut examines Ina Garten’s long-lasting appeal and reign over the culinary world, and checks in with her new life in quarantine. I soaked up every word of this article—Ina forever! {The Cut}

  • “Kill Your Gas Stove” In line with the terrible vibe that is the year 2020, it turns out gas stoves are bad for us all. According to this article, it’s bad for our health (it can cause asthma and cancer!) and the environment! Ugh. {The Atlantic}

  • “10,000 Home Cooks Told Us How Their Money & Budgets Have Changed During the Pandemic” The Kitchn surveyed over 10,000 of their readers to see how their food budgets have changed since March. Although this is an unpopular opinion, I love talking transparently about money. More information out there helps everybody! {The Kitchn}

Recipes and Resources To Save

And here are the recipes and cooking-related resources I saved these last few weeks:

Finally, On a Lighthearted Note

Now, I hope you all are staying safe and healthy! Please let me know how you’re doing in the comments below, and feel free to share the ideas and issues that are floating around in your heads, too.

XO,
Michelle