They say good things come in
small packages. A diamond ring
in a Tiffany’s box, everlasting love
and cuddles from a young puppy,
unconditional
friendship
from
the 5’1” fireball you call your best
friend. We find so much wonder
in grandeur and greatness that we
often ignore the small things in life
making every day a little better.
This sentiment remains when
it comes to the places we choose
to spend our time. Call me crazy,
but I’d prefer a studio apartment
in New York City to a mansion
in Texas any day. We are told
to “think big” and “go big or go
home,” but why? Why get lost in
a labyrinth of open space when
a cozy, personalized place is
waiting for you, opening its arms
to welcome you in.
In
Ann
Arbor,
there
are
plenty of snug spots peppered
throughout campus and around
Main St., all with their own
flair and unique elements. One
common thread between many
of these homey hubs is their size:
small — minuscule, even. There’s
something about a comfortably
tight space that heightens a sense
of intimacy, a sense that this place
is yours and no one else’s.
Tucked around the corner of
a strip mall-like building on East
Huron, covered in fall decor,
stands Tasty Bakery: a gluten-free
bakery owned by husband and
wife duo Julie and Ran Rabinovitz.
When I walked in, the first thing I
noticed wasn’t the size; it was the
feeling the place gave me. Every
detail was added for a reason, from
the hand-drawn tags marking
the baked goods in the case, to
the trinkets placed on a vintage
white vanity. Everything worked
off of everything else: The red and
white twine connecting the labels
complimented the red clock and
chairs by the window. Even the
freshly baked treats in the display
seemed like they were all a part of
the design.
When I sat down to talk to
Julie Rabinovitz — who started
the business at the Ann Arbor
Farmer’s Market in May 2009 —
it was like sitting down with an
old friend. She is pleasant, joyous
and friendly, everything you’d
expect from someone that makes
delicious sweets and snacks for a
living.
Rabinovitz
initially
worked
in graphic design and lived in
Brooklyn, but when the couple had
their first son and decided to move
to Ann Arbor, she decided to finally
listen to her grandmother’s advice
and become a full-time baker.
“I started at the farmers market
but as I went on I started picking
up stores,” Rabinovitz said in an
interview with The Daily. “I was
by myself at the time and Lab Cafe
was the first place I got. At the
time, my husband was changing
jobs and decided he wanted to
help, so we became a family-
owned business and now our
products are sold in about 18 cafes
and stores around Ann Arbor.”
Although
they
loved
the
farmer’s
market,
the
couple
thought it was time they set up a
permanent location. And a little
over three years ago, they got
lucky and found the perfect spot.
“It was something we wanted
to do for a while,” she said. “I had
a vision for what I wanted and I
knew exactly the font I wanted
for my logo and I knew the colors
I wanted to use and what I wanted
the place to look like.”
Now that they have their
location, the couple makes it as
personalized as possible.
“For a long time, we had
people at the market asking us:
‘Where’s your place?’ We are able
to offer more here and give an
environment for people to come
and see what we do,” she said.
“We welcome people back into our
kitchen and we are able to really
talk to them.”
Another thing that sets the
bakery apart is their baking
methods. Tasty Bakery is a
completely gluten-free kitchen
and accommodates other allergies
as well. They offer a variety of
vegan options and use the best
ingredients they can find.
“We
use
really
high-end
ingredients
and
use
organic
wherever
we
can
find
it,”
Rabinovitz said. “We use healthier
ingredients like organic coconut
oil, olive oil, things that are just
better for you.”
An important pillar of the
bakery is to make food that
absolutely everyone can enjoy, no
matter disease or allergy.
“Our
vegan
things
are
sweetened with organic coconut
sugar or nectar, which is low
glycemic so most diabetics can
enjoy it too,” Rabinovitz said. “We
really try to accommodate most
allergies so we really personalize
in that respect.”
When they can, the Rabinovitz
couple
uses
locally
made
products, such as peanut butter
from Traverse City, fruits and
vegetables
from
the
farmers
market and chocolate from Mindo
chocolate makers in Dexter.
Rabinovitz said their baking
methods are often what makes
them so close with customers.
“I’ll talk to someone for hours
when they come in,” she said.
“Because of what we do, because
we work with people that do have
health issues we talk a lot to people
about health and what they can eat
and what they can’t, and how that
affects them.”
Even if you don’t have an
allergy or dietary restriction, you
shouldn’t be discouraged from
eating at this delightful bakery.
Just a short conversation with Ran
or Julie or a bite of their delicious
sweets will brighten up your entire
day. They may not be big but they
sure are mighty, and this little Ann
Arbor gem is here to make that
known.
Tasty Bakery deliciously
impacts Ann Arborites
SAMANTHA DELLA FERA
Daily Arts Writer
Mike Zlonkevicz / DAILY
ARTIST
PROFILE
IN
Mike Zlonkevicz / DAILY
Mike Zlonkevicz / DAILY
TV NOTEBOOK
Are anthology shows the new future of television?
Last Dec., CBS announced it
was working on a new Jordan
Peele-produced sci-fi anthology
series to be released on CBS All-
Access, the network’s streaming
site, in 2019. Pretty quickly,
more names were attached to
the project — Sanaa Lathan
(“Nappily Ever After”) is set to
star in one episode, Adam Scott
(“The Good Place”) in another.
Peele, who won an Oscar last
year for directing “Get Out,” says
he hopes the show will “hold a
mirror up to our society.”
It seems like this is TV’s new
modus operandi: experimental
shows that transform themselves
season-to-season
or
—
even
more ambitiously — episode-
to-episode, replete with star-
studded
casts
and
weighty
themes. With a few exceptions,
they’re gripping and subversive,
crafting miniature worlds and
rules for viewers to familiarize
themselves
with
before
scrapping them and dreaming
up something new. There are a
handful of anthologies on the
air now, and another bunch in
the works, spanning genres from
true-crime to romantic comedy
to horror. It’s worth wondering:
Are anthology shows the next big
thing in TV?
Not so fast. That Jordan
Peele sci-fi series? It’s actually a
revival of “The Twilight Zone,”
the famed paranormal anthology
that ran on CBS some 50-years-
ago. The anthology show isn’t so
much a new phenomenon as it is
a very old one. But the conditions
that have made the anthology
popular again are new. The rise
of Netflix has hurtled us all
into the streaming age, where
creators are unencumbered by
ratings pressure and free to test
out niche offerings. And some
combination of shorter episode
orders and the small screen’s
increased prestige has big-name
artists flocking to a medium
that’s no longer the onerous
obligation it once was.
Anthology television seems
to make everything easier. It’s
low-commitment for actors and
directors, and it’s great for the
poor victims of TV’s golden age:
us viewers, forced to sift through
heaps of content without the time
to watch any of it. The anthology
lets us cherry pick what we want
and skip what we don’t, with
absolutely no consequences.
I don’t care much for the
faux insight of “Black Mirror,”
Netflix’s
dystopic
anthology
about the consequences of new
technology, which the writer
Daniel
Ortberg
summed
up
nicely as: “What if phones, but too
much?” I did, however, love the
third season’s “San Junipero,”
a stylish, tender episode with a
rare (for “Black Mirror”) happy
ending. It was better for the fact
that I didn’t need to slog through
the rest of the show to get to it
— like getting dessert without
having to eat my vegetables.
That satisfaction of a well-
crafted anthology chapter is the
same satisfaction we get from
reading a good short story. Some
have punchy, shocking endings
to rival “A Rose for Emily,”
while others favor the creeping
tension of “The Lottery.” A few
anthologies do draw directly
from short story collections —
Amazon’s
“Electric
Dreams”
adapts the works of Philip K.
Dick; Indian channel Epic aired
a series based on the writings of
Rabindranath Tagore. Networks,
if you’re reading, Kate Chopin’s
tragic vignettes of domestic life
are practically screaming to
be made into a TV miniseries.
NBC? Hulu? Crackle? Frito-Lay?
Someone, please do this.
Some anthology series, like
those based on short fiction
collections, are bound together
only by a common author.
Netflix, for instance, recently
announced
a
forthcoming
Dolly Parton anthology series,
each chapter based on a song
of hers — “Jolene” will be first,
of course. Others have more
inventive connective tissue — on
HBO’s “High Maintenance,” a
shared pot dealer is the degree
of
separation
one
episode’s
characters have from another’s.
TBS’s
“The
Guest
Book”
follows
different
vacationers
at a mountain cottage, while
the BBC’s “Inside No. 9” tells
the stories of all sorts of people
living at addresses beginning
with “nine.”
Season-long
anthologies,
a
somewhat newer model, tend to
operate around much broader
themes,
each
season
telling
MAITREYI
ANANTHARAMAN
Daily Arts Writer
its own self-contained story,
sometimes with the same cast
as the previous season’s. The
pioneer and biggest purveyor of
these is none other than Ryan
Murphy, who has three on air
now: “American Horror Story,”
“American Crime Story” and
“Feud.” It’s an almost too-good-
to-be-true format for Murphy,
who grows bored with his own
premises
quickly
and
does
his best work when given the
freedom to reinvent.
It’s an almost too-bad-to-
be-true format for Matthew
Weiner, whose dreadful post-
“Mad Men” anthology project
“The
Romanoffs,”
new
on
Amazon, is a reminder of how
difficult anthology storytelling
can be. In the interest of telling
complete stories in one chapter,
anthology episodes are prone
to clunky exposition dumps,
doing more telling than showing.
And in trying to say everything
they intend to, they also run the
risk of being overly long — each
episode of “The Romanoffs”
clocks in at a soul-crushing 90
minutes, a crime for a style of TV
that should be as pleasant and
effortless as candy dissolving on
the tongue.
There is also the sense that
with anthology TV we lose the
emotional connection serialized
television
fosters.
We
can’t
experience
the
pleasure
of
rewarding
character
growth,
or slow-burning chemistry or
winking
self-reference.
That
isn’t always the case (see again,
“San Junipero”), but there’s
some truth to it.
Some of the best TV episodes
of the last few years have been
compromises
between
these
two poles: the flexibility of
the
anthology
episode
and
the
poignancy
of
serialized
television.
They’re
what
is
known as bottle episodes —
experimental,
dialogue-heavy
standalone episodes removed
from a show’s regular continuity.
“Girls” did them to great success;
“BoJack Horseman” has had
several, one entirely underwater,
another a 25-minute eulogy. The
third season of “Breaking Bad”
features a famous bottle episode
all about trying to catch a fly.
That’s what should be the next
big thing: television that enters
— as the original “The Twilight
Zone” put it — “the wondrous
dimension of imagination.”
HBO
Even the freshly
baked treats in the
display seemed
like they were
all a part of the
design
6B — Thursday, November 8, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com