Another friend of the DUCW has been featured recently in the Winnipeg Free Press – Sunday May 17 edition, pages A10-11.

Many of you have enjoyed the treats and eats at High Tea Bakery on Portage, which is part Australian owned and has hosted many of us for afternoon tea.

You can see more at this link – you will have to locate the issue in Editions on the right margin – but here are a few snippets to tempt your taste buds. BTW, the Bakery is open for take out, if you’ve got a hankering for lamingtons.

When life gives you lemons, make lemon tarts. Or lemon squares. Or lemon cranberry scones.

Belinda Bigold is the owner of High Tea Bakery, a St. James institution well known for its British-style goodies. On March 17, Bigold, who founded the business in 2003 along with her mother Carol Bigold, sat down with her management team to crunch numbers.

Forced to immediately lay off three-quarters of her staff, Bigold told the remaining employees the bakery would honour any orders still on the books for that week. Then she posted a message on Instagram and Facebook reading, “Closed for now, not forever.” Practically overnight, longtime regulars of the bakery began reaching out to Bigold on social media, wondering how they were going to “survive” the days and weeks ahead without their usual fix of imperial cookies, gingersnaps or snickerdoodles.

Reading some of the comments was really humbling. It was so sweet people took the time to write and let us know how much our shop means to them,” says Bigold who, based on demand, began offering curbside pickup two days a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, near the end of March for people who placed orders online ahead of time. “At first I was thinking the last thing people would need during a pandemic is a cookie. As it turned out, lots of people were looking for a bit of normalcy in their lives, and wanted that special treat that makes Saturday still feel like Saturday.

Article by David Sanderson, photos by Mike Deal, Winnipeg Free Press