L ifestyle /C ulture
Erica Pais Creates Local Baking Community
F OO D
KERI WHITE | JE FOOD COLUMNIST
WITH PURIM ON the
horizon and in-person gather-
ings still iffy, many families
are coming up with creative
ways to get together virtually
— like a Zoom hamantaschen
baking class taught by local
pastry chef Erica Pais. But first,
some background.

Pais discovered that she
wanted to be a chef at the age
of 11 on a visit to her grand-
mother’s house in Florida.

“I wasn’t from a very foodie
family, but on this visit to my
grandmother’s I saw an episode
of ‘Top Chef’ for the first time,
and I thought, ‘Wow! That is
for me!’”
Growing up in Sharon,
Massachusetts, Pais discovered
the joys of baking in middle
school — around the time she
decided to be a chef — through
volunteer work. She joined the
Youth Crew for the Avon Walk
for Breast Cancer in honor of
her great-grandmother Mollie
and a schoolmate’s mother,
both of whom had the disease.

The Youth Crew was
required to raise $1,800, so Pais
turned to baking. Using boxed
mixes, she baked cupcakes and
muffins and bought them to
school to sell for $1 each.

“I remember the anticipa-
tion and joy of people when
they received my baked goods,
and that it was such a good
feeling to make people so
happy,” she said.

Eventually, she graduated
from boxed mixes and began
to experiment with baking
from scratch. She credits her
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A Chanukah baking class conducted by Erica Pais, top left
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great-grandmother with her
culinary bent.

“Bubbie Mollie was from
Hungary, so she made all sorts
of traditional dishes from
Eastern Europe: knishes, stuffed
cabbage, as well as loads of baked
goods. Her pumpkin chocolate
chip muffins were a specialty —
I always feel close to her when I
bake them,” Pais said. “She lived
to be 100 years old, so she was a
big part of my life.”
Pais turned to baking again
while a student at Colgate
University as a way to create
community. It started when a
senior citizen couple audited
one of Pais’ classes and she
befriended them.

“They became like surrogate
grandparents for me, and we
ended up creating this whole
community around baking,”
she said. “We invited students
and people from the town, we
met in a campus kitchen and
I taught everyone how to bake
different treats. We established
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this wonderful connection.”
Majoring in sociology and
educational studies may seem
like an odd route to the culinary
world, but Pais disagrees.

“My course of study in
sociology was all about relation-
ships and connections within
communities, and the educa-
tional studies portion was about
how we learn — so teaching
baking as a way to establish a
community is right on point.”
Following graduation, Pais
landed a job in New York as an
account manager for a corpo-
rate catering company, but she
missed the hands-on aspect of
baking. To fill that need, she
worked part time in various
kitchens and bakeries in New
York, including Do, where she
taught baking as well.

Early last year, she decided
to pursue food as a career and
came to visit a close friend
living in Philadelphia. She
ended up staying when she
discovered Zahav had job
Photo by Erica Pais
openings, applied and was
hired as a busser in February
2020. Then the pandemic hit
and restaurants closed.

Again, Pais sought solace
in baking. She took over her
friend’s kitchen and baked, sold,
delivered and shipped baked
goods informally to friends and
neighbors far and wide.

As the pandemic wore on,
she devised a way to create
a virtual baking community
like to the one she estab-
lished at Colgate. Her classes
have been a hit — she does
private lessons, corporate
events and classes for the
general public. She held a
particularly memorable lesson
in December when a set of
grandparents gave their entire
family a class as a Chanukah
gift, and they all virtually
gathered and baked together.

For more information about
Pais’ classes, visit paistries.com.

See Food, Page 22
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