jews d
in
the
profile
[detroit]
Diaspora
Living globally,
rooted locally
Laya Barak: Bone broth and dance with Midwest flair.
Editor’s note: This is a new series about Detroiters
living elsewhere, but still rooted in the D.
KAREN SCHWARTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER
L
aya Barak, 34, took her Midwestern values with her when
she moved to New York City to pursue dancing.
“Having that genuine Midwestern attitude of helping
out thy neighbor and just being real with people — once I start-
ed getting work and building up my name, when other people
needed that same help there was just that genuine want to help
each other out,” she says.
A West Bloomfield High School graduate, she went to Indiana
University, then backpacked the South Pacific, Southeast Asia,
Israel and Europe before moving to NYC in 2005.
Laya danced at Annette & Company School of Dance in
Farmington Hills and also competitively. She became a chore-
ographer and taught dance as well. Then, ankle surgery in 2011
forced her to diversify her pursuits.
Today, she teaches Pilates at a pre-professional program at
The School of Steps on Broadway, a New York dance school.
Laya also works on various choreography projects, including
a night of performances that benefit Broadway Cares/Equity
Fights AIDS.
She’s also found a passion in helping others heal via bone
broth, which her mother, Dorothy, sent her after ankle sur-
gery. Dorothy started making broth and shipping it to her on
dry ice. “It was something that really helped heal me,” says
Laya, who had stomach inflammation issues after surgery.
The idea to make the bone broth commercially came one
Sunday in February 2015 as she read about bone broth catch-
ing on nationwide. She wrote a business plan, then they started
looking for commercial kitchen space and getting licensed.
In December 2015, the mother-daughter team opened an
online store for their Michigan-based business, BrothMasters,
and started shipping. Dorothy makes broth in a commercial
kitchen in Ferndale, while Laya handles the business side.
Her father helps sort out their cooling and packaging, and her
younger brother organizes shipping for Michigan clients.
“It’s been a learning process for all of us, but it’s been just a
great venture that is now really taking off,” Laya says. “We’re all
really passionate about it.”
Between her dance community and Pilates clients, she’s got
lots of potential customers. She runs broth tastings backstage
for actors at Broadway shows and, in recent months, also host-
ed a private event for CNN’s anchors and reporters. She’s in talks
with integrative doctors, acupuncturists and Eastern medicine
doctors who want to bring her broth to their patients.
The bone broth comes in 16-ounce packs that can stay frozen
six months or in the fridge for six days. They’ve been selling out
each new batch, with demand particularly high in the winter.
“It’s an age-old recipe people just don’t want to make anymore
because it takes so long and is so labor intensive,” Laya says.
When back in Michigan, she spends time at her childhood
home and with friends now back in Michigan. The Franklin
Cider Mill is a stop on her tour every fall, she adds.
In New York, she’s always glad to meet other Michiganders.
“There’s a sense of camaraderie,” she says. “Every time I meet
people from the Midwest in New York, there’s a different type of
connection. It’s almost like ‘I know you.’” •
Know an expat Detroiter with strong ties or influences from the D who could be
featured? Send an email to Karen Schwartz at myfavoritemitten@gmail.com.
12
April 20 • 2017
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