Bakery

The Baltimore City Health Department shut down Berger Cookies after receiving an anonymous complaint about the iconic Baltimore-based bakery and subsequently learning it was operating without a license. And now the city is not sure if the bakery ever had a license at all. “I can't speculate on how long they've been without a license,” said health department spokeswoman Tiffany Thomas Smith, “but would say that we're checking with state and FDA inspectors to confirm their last inspection dates.” However, state officials told The Baltimore Sun that they do not have jurisdiction over city facilities.

I laughed at a news report quoting an official who lamented that Lexington Market lacked a French bakery. The Lexington Market I know is a place that has a thriving bakery, but it sells red velvet cake by the slice and at a price to fit its customers' pocketbooks. As beat-up and poorly maintained as the market is, it possesses a thriving urban vitality. It's good to go there for a Baltimore reality check. The people-watching is incredible and a lot of money seems to change hands.

The Westminster City Council agreed to take another look at sidewalk sandwich boards last night after hearing an impassioned plea from the owner of a West Main Street bakery."

H&S Bakery is moving its Harbor East distribution center to an East Baltimore business park, freeing up prime real estate that the breadmaker-turned-developer has eyed for development for more than a decade. The facility, bounded by South Central Avenue and South Eden, Fleet and Aliceanna streets, lies on the edge of the fast-growing shopping, hotel and business district. Its future home, meanwhile, is a development that was once in bankruptcy and has struggled to attract tenants.

The makers of Baltimore's famous Berger Cookies were closer Monday to reopening their Cherry Hill bakery, a spokesman said. The Baltimore City Health Department closed the bakery Jan. 31 for operating without a city-issued food service license. The Health Department has no concerns about food safety after inspecting the facility earlier this month, said spokeswoman Tiffany Thomas Smith. Meanwhile, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has an ongoing, “routine” investigation into the bakery after a scheduled inspection in January, said George A. Strait, an agency spokesman, on Monday.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Little in this bombed-out, besieged city functions, little, that is, but the Klas bakery.This is not a time for cakes and pastry. A starving city needs bread, and the Klas bakery, the only industrial one still operating, yesterday turned out 70,000 loaves to feed 300,000 people cut off from the outside world for 10 weeks.Sarajevo is without fresh meat, fruit or vegetables, so people are dependent on the Klas bread factory to survive."We will do whatever it takes to get bread to these people.

Frances Woodward Sturgeon, retired treasurer of a bakery firm, died April 22 of cancer at the Calusa Harbor retirement community in Fort Myers, Fla. The former Hillen Road resident was 81.Known as Fran, she began her career in 1937 as a secretary of Rice's Bakery on North Gay Street. She retired as treasurer in 1966.Founded in 1868 near the Fallsway and operated by the City Baking Co., the bakery introduced Vienna bread, Louisiana Ring cake and sliced bread to Baltimoreans. It went bankrupt in 1974 after a gas explosion destroyed most of its turn-of-the-century plant.

Anybody who thinks Americans are eating only rice cakes and celery has never visited a Baltimore area bakery in December.Bakers go bonkers during the holidays. All those cakes, all those cookies, all those items that somebody's Grandma, used to make and that her modern day descendants gotta, just gotta, have for the holidays.At Otterbein's Bakery in Northeast Baltimore the Otterbein brothers predict they will bake 30,000 pounds of sugar cookies this holiday season. To keep up with demand, the brothers have moved to a larger store and rented two nearby apartments that serve as cookie warehouses.

Fans of Geof Manthorne - you lovelorn legions who thrill at the sight of the slim, slightly bedraggled hipster/cake decorator who's risen to unlikely cable fame on Ace of Cakes - you swooning masses must know something crucial. You swooning masses include the woman who jumped on Manthorne outside the Baltimore bakery where the show is set, snuggling up to him cougarishly for a photo. Also the three middle-aged women spotted giggling outside the bakery, bumping into each other as they tried to peek inside the mail slot.

Services for John K. Ruppert, a former bakery executive, will be held at 10 a.m. tomorrow at the Evans Funeral Chapel, 8800 Harford Road.Mr. Ruppert, who was 76 and lived on Clydebank Road in Towson, died of heart failure Monday at Mercy Medical Center.He had worked many years for Rice's Bakery, where his father and two brothers also worked, and was its sales manager when the company was sold in 1973 to the Capital Bakery of Harrisburg, Pa.He was district sales manager for Capital until his retirement in 1979.

Add the Internal Revenue Service to the list of Berger cookies' woes. The IRS filed a notice of a nearly $109,000 tax lien against DeBaufre Bakeries - which makes the Baltimore treat - with the Baltimore City Circuit Court in February. Most of that amount was due in 2010, with smaller amounts due in 2009 and 2011, according to the court document. The IRS also filed notices of an approximately $14,000 lien in September and a lien of about $26,000 in October, for tax periods in 2006, 2011 and 2012.

We knew these were coming, but they managed to open without our noticing. We need some new scouts. Stone Mill Bakery opened a second cafe a few months ago in the Stevenson Village Shopping Center. It operates much like the one in Green Spring Station , except there's no dinner service and none planned for now. Ordering is done at a counter, but the food is delivered to the table. The cafe is open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. And last month, Greg Nalley opened his second Nalley Fresh location on Schilling Circle in Hunt Valley.

Store shelves could soon be filled with boxes of Baltimore's iconic Berger Cookies: The City Health Department approved the company's license on Wednesday and gave it a green light for production. The bakery expects to begin limited deliveries over the weekend and intends to resume its full schedule by Monday, said Anthony T. Bartlett, a spokesman for the family-owned, privately held company. That's welcome news to retailers and shoppers, who have been without the cookies for nearly three weeks.

The makers of Baltimore's famous Berger Cookies were closer Monday to reopening their Cherry Hill bakery, a spokesman said. The Baltimore City Health Department closed the bakery Jan. 31 for operating without a city-issued food service license. The Health Department has no concerns about food safety after inspecting the facility earlier this month, said spokeswoman Tiffany Thomas Smith. Meanwhile, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has an ongoing, “routine” investigation into the bakery after a scheduled inspection in January, said George A. Strait, an agency spokesman, on Monday.

The Baltimore City Health Department shut down Berger Cookies after receiving an anonymous complaint about the iconic Baltimore-based bakery and subsequently learning it was operating without a license. And now the city is not sure if the bakery ever had a license at all. “I can't speculate on how long they've been without a license,” said health department spokeswoman Tiffany Thomas Smith, “but would say that we're checking with state and FDA inspectors to confirm their last inspection dates.” However, state officials told The Baltimore Sun that they do not have jurisdiction over city facilities.

Where are the Berger Cookies? They're not at Eddie's of Roland Park, where the fudge-topped icons have been missing for at least a week and a half. And they're not even at the Berger bakery stall at Lexington Market. A message on Berger's website and outgoing voicemail says the company is temporarily closed because of an illness in the family. The last shipment received at Eddie's Market of Charles Village, according to owner Jerry Gordon, was on Jan. 31, the Thursday before the Super Bowl.

William Eugene Vespermann, a Baltimore native who operated the Carney Bakery for 28 years, died of pneumonia Friday at his home in Forest, Va.A Mass of Christian burial will be offered for Mr. Vespermann, who was 61, at 10 a.m. tomorrow at St. Ursula's Roman Catholic Church on Harford Road in Parkville.Mr. Vespermann, a graduate of St. Joseph High School, worked as a newspaper carrier for The Baltimore Sun from 1945 to 1948.In 1949, Mr. Vespermann opened the Carney Bakery on Harford Road in Parkville and operated the business until his retirement in 1977.

Services for Marie L. Spilman, who with her husband operated a bakery in the North Avenue Market more than 20 years ago, will be held at 11 a.m. today at the Hiss United Methodist Church, 8700 Harford Road, Parkville.Mrs. Spilman, who was 90, died Tuesday after a long illness at a retirement community in Cornwall, Pa. She moved there three years ago from Elmora Avenue in East Baltimore.The former Marie L. Wheeler was born in Baltimore. Her husband, Wayland Spilman, died in 1970.She is survived by a son, Kenneth E. Spilman of Auburn, Pa.; five grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

A wall with one long window separates the Timonium office of Michele's Granola from its bakery space, but neither glass nor drywall can keep out the intoxicating smell: a mix of vanilla, coconut and sunflower seeds, among other ingredients. When complimented on the aroma, the business' founder and owner, Michele Thornett, smiled knowingly. "We get that a lot," she said. Wearing earth-toned clogs and a peasant skirt (which match her green eyes and red hair), Thornett looks like someone who should be into healthy snack food.

Stone Mill Bakery will open a cafe space in Stevenson Village. Both the existing cafe at Green Spring Station in Lutherville and the wholesale bakery in Clipper Mill will remain in operation. There is no announced date for the opening. The Lutherville cafe opened in 1998 (with the name Appetite). It emerged out of Ecole, a bakery that Stone Mill founder Billy Himmelrich used on weekend nights as a cafe serving a fixed-price menu. There were formerly Stone Mill cafes in Mount Washington and Roland Park.