We recently connected with Deb Bernardini and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Deb thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright – so having the idea is one thing, but going from idea to execution is where countless people drop the ball. Can you talk to us about your journey from idea to execution?

My idea to launch a bagel business was born out of an essay-writing assignment about comfort food I had while in culinary school. At the time of the assignment, I was much older than most of my classmates. Many of them shared stories about foods made for them by their grandmothers and other beloved family members. I had plenty of those, but for me, the comfort food memory I chose to write about, the one that lit up the happy-side of my brain, was of the experience of eating a New York bagel, specifically one that I would eat by myself in my dingy walk-up apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in the late 1980s.

This was the period of my life that marked the first time I was living on my own. I developed a Saturday evening ritual that involved treating myself to a big, fat bagel from the 2nd Avenue Deli (sesame, with vegetable cream cheese, sliced tomatoes and red onions). After procuring my bagel I would head home, but first, I’d make a stop at the newsstand on the corner of 77th Street and 2nd Avenue to buy an early edition of the Sunday New York Times. This was something only Manhattanites could do, as the papers would be delivered early only to city newsstands, and I felt cool and sophisticated for knowing this. I’d make my way back to my apartment and spend a leisurely few hours reading my favorite sections of the paper before most of the rest of the world could, nibbling, savoring, and devouring every delicious bite of that bagel.

At the time of that writing assignment I was no longer living in New York City, and did not have access to anything that came close to the bagels I remembered from those earlier days. I was already baking good sourdough bread and decided to try to recreate a NY-style sourdough bagel. Early efforts were good, and soon I began sharing them with friends and neighbors. Demand grew, and from that, my cottage bakery Forno 413 was born.

Deb, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a professional baker, based in Southfield, MA, a rural town located in The Berkshires in Western MA. Until recently I was the owner of the licensed cottage bakery Forno 413 which I operated from my home kitchen, but in May I was hired as the Executive Baker of the Mill River General Store, a historic general store that has been in operation since 1840. In my new position I am creating a baking program of grab-and-go and packaged items, including sourdough bagels, breads, sweet and savory tarts, pastries, muffins, cookies, cakes and more.

There are two things that set me apart from others. To create my line of products, the only machinery I use beyond my two hands are a mixer, an oven, and a refrigerator. It’s a very old-school, labor-intensive operation. I hand-roll my bagels, roll out my from-scratch puff pastry, scoop cookies and pipe cakes by hand, and the time and care I put into making my products shows. I also work almost exclusively with local stone-milled flour. It’s a “secret” ingredient that adds a depth of flavor to everything I make.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

Baking is a second vocation for me. From 1989 to 2018 I enjoyed a successful career in the music business, working with big name talent like U2, Green Day, Linkin Park, and more. I worked as a publicist for more than a decade at Warner Bros. Records in New York City and then as the worldwide pr and marketing rep for the Grammy Award-winning band Wilco. I also had a key role in creating and establishing the band’s Solid Sound Festival at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA.

In 2011 I relocated from NYC to Northampton, MA, and, soon after my arrival in the area, I joined a local farm CSA. Food and cooking had always played a big role in my life, but that CSA membership was the beginning of a new era for me, where things like sustainability and local-sourcing came into focus.

In 2017 I started a weekly underground take-home supper club out of my home kitchen, turning out elaborate three-course vegetarian meals with ingredients sourced from my farm share for friends and neighbors. It was completely illegal, and utter madness on almost every level, but it was fun and exciting in ways that my music business job, after almost 30 years, no longer was. And my customers loved it.

With that side hustle humming, in 2018 I decided to leave the music business behind and attempt some kind of food-related gig, though truthfully I had no vision of what that might be. The reality was that I was 52 years old – too old (and too wise) to pursue most traditional routes in food service. I loved making food for others, but had no professional food-related experience or training, and no desire to take on the heavy, expensive, and often unsuccessful lift of opening my own restaurant. I took a job in the kitchen of a small local cafe. It was a chaotic place, not particularly well-run, but I did work with talented people and in the year that I was there, learned enough to know that I was on the right path.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

After a year of working at the aforementioned cafe, I left to attend a culinary school. It was a small certificate program at a local community college, but for the first time in more than 30 years I was a full-time student again. It was hard, but I loved it. But two months prior to completing the program, the pandemic hit, and school, like everything else, stopped completely. It took a few months to realize that my program, which was completely hands-on and in-person, would not be resuming any time soon. More specifically for me, it meant that it would never resume, and I was on my own to figure out what came next.

What came next was Forno 413. The idea that was born out of an assignment about comfort food, and if there ever was a time when people needed comfort, it was during the pandemic. I got my kitchen certified, obtained a license, and began baking and regularly selling my bagels to neighborhood customers. It gave me direction, and was a great way to stay connected to my neighbors during a time that was so difficult for so many, and when people felt a greater need to know where their food was coming from. During this time, I connected with a local flour mill through a Bakers Against Racism fundraiser and things really took off from there. My bagel business grew, my relationship with the flour mill expanded, and when the flour mill got a grant to build a commercial baking kitchen, they tapped me to run their baking program. I got to train under some of the best bread bakers in the country, and gained invaluable experience towards creating and operating a large-scale professional baking program.

Ultimately the mill decided the time wasn’t right for them to expand from flour milling to baking, and so after a year of collaboration I was again at a crossroads. Fortunately I had continued my cottage baking business throughout, and business with my only retail client, the Mill River General Store, was flourishing. For now and in my new position, I still bake for the store from my licensed home kitchen, but a commercial bakery within the store is under construction and is expected to be completed by early 2025. Forno 413 is no longer, but my professional baking life is booming in ways I never imagined possible. I’m still feeding my friends and neighbors, just many more of them, and with the backing and support of an already thriving small business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.themillrivergeneralstore.com
• Instagram: @debsbakes413