Lauren Shaffer | Owner Black Sheep Baking Co

Lauren Shaffer embodies another classic blue collar restaurant industry professional coming off the heels of a full time cooking position, trying to make a go of it with her own business. Once again, the global pandemic has seemingly diminished longer term goals.

“In three years,” she says, “I’d love to be brick and mortar. That’s the dream.”

Nothing seems to be stopping her though, as today she baked an order of cookies to be delivered via USPS to North Dakota, and another drop-off order to be safely delivered to her cousin whom lives in the area. No order is too large or small, thanks in part to an extensive list of fine dining restaurants in the area for whom she has worked; but, more importantly, it’s the classic restaurant mentality of being highly organized and having ‘mise en place’ constantly in mind.

“I want everything done correctly,” she said, when describing reorganization of the living room and dining room yesterday.

Taking sheltering in place seriously also means being accommodating towards her family, and at the same time respectful of everyone’s needed space. “I don’t want to have to be constantly running upstairs, or downstairs for things I need,” she said. “It just needs to make sense.” And speaking of running around: when it comes to the needs of her two small boys, Lauren likes to keep them physically engaged indoors. “We like to have competitions to see who can run up and down the stairs the most.” That kind of forward-thinking approach to family is exactly representational of a good multi-tasking cook, or baker successfully spinning multiple plates.