Nicole's Divine Crackers - Our Story.

Sitting, dressed in a long slim silken gown and wearing no shoes, waiting for the first of the churros to wind around a thin green stick, waiting for the Gypsy Dancer, El Güito to bring them over to me. We sat next to each other, gazed into each others eyes with longing and sipped on the glass of green Créme de Menthe and milk to calm our passion, and being able to resist no longer, we ate all of our churros at once. With wonderful memories like that, is it any wonder that I could not resist becoming a bread baker?

As I sit writing this, the aroma coming from my ovens is so heavenly that in a few moments I will have to go to the cooling racks with some sweet butter and have a little slice for myself. There are so many stories I could tell you about why I am so fascinated with bread and other wonderful foods. Walking the cobblestone street of a Druze village, going into the cavernous confines, almost hollowed out to accommodate the machine that makes the flat little breads that are baked with oil and intoxicating spices, then hung over a line to be purchased by the passerby. Or strolling with my doggie down the pre-dawn darkened narrow street of my village by the sea on the Costa del Sol, and the only light coming from the "Panaderia", and the aroma too enticing to pass without begging a small "Boquedillo" for my pre-dawn breakfast.

It seems that each wonderful adventure is somehow attached to bread. The train, an interminable trip from Malaga to Barcelona, sitting in a compartment, the only woman with six Moroccan male workers. The nuns that passed by in the corridor looked askance at a single woman with all those weather darkened men.

When we reached our halfway point, the man next to me opened his valise, and on top of the dirty laundry rested a wonderful loaf of French Bread. Next to it a tin of Sardines. He took out a big hunting knife, stabbed the Sardine tin and opened it like it was an envelope. Then holding the bread against his chest, he cut off a wonderful thick slice, stabbed it with his knife to offer it to me. Would I refuse?

Little did I dream when I leaned over my "Balcon", greeting my friend Olga down below, what a wonderful present she had for me.

He was a beautiful boy named Aziz from Morocco. He stood looking up at me, with a lovely braid of Garlic over his shoulder and a basket of "Boquedillos" in his other arm. He taught me to cook wonderful Moroccan foods and how to eat without utencils, using a torn off morsel of bread between two fingers and his thumb, amazing how neat you could be, and how delicious everything could taste.

How do you go from being a designer of high fashion and for the theatre, to being a baker? A great love of food and finding it to be the most fascinating business?

Having had a restaurant on the Cost del Sol and at the same time designing clothes and fabrics for some of the famous boutiques on the coast at the time, it truly was an artistic endeavor for both food and fashion.

Creating something glorious under difficult circumstances has been a challenge. They were the most marvelous days, because basically there was so little to work with, but so much to gain from the simplicity of all that was around me working with foods of the season, practically no refrigeration and certainly no ovens to work with and two burner cooking plates run off of bottled gas, it was an adventure. One well met.

Returning to the United States the lure of food and fashion still prevailed, and with a rented sewing machine and half a studio for fifty dollars a month, a cot to sleep on behind a screen so people could not see in through the store windows, I started my Chicago salon, always creating an environment that was both welcoming and very, very interesting. Once again, making something out of nothing.

All of the lovely clothes designed for the top mod shops of the period, and a bevy of clients for the salon. Teaching for a brief time at the Art Institute, and designing the original stage show at the Forum Theatre, "Boss." Mike Royko's book about Mayor Daley and directed by Frank Galati. After that there were many shows for the Candlelight Dinner Theatre and industrial shows for the industry.

The lure of food became stronger and so a move was made to Wisconsin, where a small hotel was leased and I became the chef and the proprietress. Another great adventure was to start and the beginning of a passion for bread baking. It was probably good fortune that there really was no edible bread to be found in the neighboring environs. And so with a small stone mill and a basic knowledge of bread making, it all began.

The bread became so popular that guests who came to dinner, wanted to leave with bread and other goodies that I had created and prepared. Wonderful Chocolate Sauce, Old Fashioned Butterscotch Sauce, Plum Chutney, Mango Cutney and other mouth watering things. Groups of actors came for the weekend just to be fed and enjoy the ambiance of the hotel. The "La Confrerie De La Chaine," International Organization of Wine Tasters, engaged me to create a sumptuous dinner for them.

I also studied with nationally known Alma Lach and graduated from the Postillion School of Culinary Art owned by internationally known Madame Kuony. The lure of Chicago became stronger and the thought that perhaps more could be accomplished there with expansion and more creative ideas to put into reality.

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Nicole's Divine Crackers 1505 Kingsbury, Chicago, Illinois 60622 Phone 312-640-8883 Fax: 312-640-0988