| | |  Entertainment | Restaurants & Dining | July 2008 
PV's Irreverent Chef Makes Some Moves
 Liana Turner - PVNN
| | The BanderasNews team welcomes Liana Turner, who is not only the chef and owner of Paradise Bakery & Catering, but will soon be sharing her culinary expertise with our readers through her weekly column, The Irreverent Chef. | | | 
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I'm back and I am so pleased to be beginning this new version of my old column here at BanderasNews. I will continue to bring fresh facts and information about things you've always wondered about. Feel free to send your most pressing questions concerning food, drink and living in Vallarta. Keep them coming!
I am also happy to announce the opening of our new location, Sierra Aconcagua 299, Esq. Prol. Brasil in Colonia Lazaro Cardenas. We are really excited to finally have a storefront again. We are stocking up with sandwiches, salads, main dishes, yummy sweet treats, and of course our famous cinnamon rolls every day.
Please come by and say hello, try a free sample of just about anything you like, and take home food for later or sit at our café table and enjoy a cup of Seattle style coffee.
The Move
We had been preparing for weeks. When I say we, I mean my two bakery employees and myself. We packed up everything that we wouldn't be needing in the last days before the move. This move was even more complicated than most, in that we were moving from a fourth floor home and a business.
In the "old place" we had both integrated, but in the "new place" we were to have a brand new separation of state, so to speak. The new house has a ground floor storefront, and two floors above where my daughter and I will live. This is a good thing. I have enjoyed the last four years of, basically, living in and among my business, but this move is going to allow us to keep some separation.
Moving Day
I believe in avoiding unnecessary work later by doing some extra work now, so we devised a system of box marking. We had labels for each box. For the bakery, the labels were marked with a "P", for Panaderia. Other boxes were marked with a "1" for the first floor (here in Mexico the bottom floor is not the first, it's just the bottom), and then "2" for the next floor, and "T" for the roof (Techo.) This system worked quite well, with a few variations, but I'm so glad that we tried anyway. To move all that stuff and have it end up in random places would have been a hell that I would not want to visit.
I have a super friend who had recently moved here with his family from the Seattle area. He has a large trailer, and in a weak moment, he very kindly offered to help me out. He was the driver and trailer organizer.
A few people had told me that they would be there to help for the move, but when the big day came, and my moving team consisted of my friend Pegge and her two young daughters, it was clear that we would need some more help. I phoned a moving company at 8 am and asked if they could send me four men. I was given another number to call, and they assured me that they would send some strong, energetic, reliable and honest men. They arrived right on schedule at 9:30, and the day began.
Those guys were amazing! They were expecting a fourth man to arrive, but he never did. The three that did show up were worth ten average men. They weren't particularly large or muscular looking, but they worked... man, did they work.
They moved an oversized commercial oven with enough sharp edges to make hamburger out of the average person's hands. They moved two refrigerators, a freezer, a stove, three beds, a very heavy desk, an entertainment center, glass topped tables, artwork, mirrors, a bookcase, a few file cabinets, and boxes and boxes of miscellaneous treasure and crap.
After about ten hours I was feeling quite exhausted, and I wasn't even doing the work. My work was mental, giving directions and making decisions. Directing what went where and how, etc... I know those guys were more than tired, but they kept on going... and going, still laughing and joking... until the job was done.
At about 10:30 pm I was in the new bakery trying to arrange a few things while the last load was being brought in. I had begun to notice that a few of my "1" and "2" boxes had ended up in "P" and vice versa.
I felt myself beginning to go into a mini fit, due to the late hour and the mental strain that I was going through while my life was in boxes and being carried around by strangers. I stopped myself then, and resisted the urge to point out to the guys that they had ruined my life by putting a few boxes in the wrong place. At about that point I could hear my daughter, in a very alarmed voice, shouting, "Mom, it won't fit! The couch won't fit!"
At that moment, I was not in the mood for a big problem and not feeling very accepting of the possibility of a huge obstacle. I calmly continued with what I was doing, not even looking up, knowing that these guys would find a solution. I was not going to freak out about it. I refused.
I was right. They took this very heavy sofa/queen size hideabed and showed it what's what. With a combination of a yellow nylon rope, some blue climbing rope, two chairs, some cargo strapping that was in the trailer and a lot of ingenuity, they devised a way to get the thing up over the balcony and into the apartment. There was applause, and "bravos" all around. After that the king size mattress was a breeze, even though it was going one floor higher than the sofa. It wasn't a problem.
A few years ago, I think I would not have been so calm. I would have felt somehow responsible for getting them to do the job, but this time I realized that they didn't need my input, and unless something was going in the wrong place, it was better for me and for them if I just stood back and let it happen. I know, this is a concept foreign to most foreigners (you know who they are,) but I highly recommend taking this new attitude. These guys know what they are doing.
If you ever need some high quality moving men, just ask, and I will give you the numbers I called to find these "Supermen."
Now the bakery and catering business is open and running. Please come see us in our new location. It is on the road that runs behind SEAPAL, two blocks from the Libramiento and two blocks in from Francisco Villa.
I look forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to send your comments and questions to me at lianasea(at)msn.com.
 The Irreverent Chef, a.k.a. Liana Turner, is the chef and owner of Paradise Bakery and Catering. Serving the "Best Cinnamon Rolls in Vallarta," along with delicious sandwiches, salads, main dishes and yummy sweet treats every day but Sunday, and providing all styles of catering services, from pre-prepared meals to-go for informal gatherings to full service elegance for dinners, cocktail parties, wedding receptions and special events, Paradise Bakery & Catering is located at Sierra Aconcagua 299, Prolongacion Brasil, Colonia Lazaro Cardenas, Puerto Vallarta. For more information, call (322) 222-5133 or visit VallartaCatering.com.
Click HERE for more articles by The Irreverent Chef |
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