Sequim Farmers Market

Dates: Aug. 9, Aug. 16

Open: Saturdays 9 a.m.-3 p.m. through October

Location: Downtown Sequim, corner of Sequim Avenue and Washington Street

Contacts: www.sequimmarket.com;  manager@sequimmarket.com; 460-2668

As you likely noticed, Crumb Grabbers Bakery is thriving at the Sequim Farmers Market.

I had the opportunity to interview Linda Engeseth, the owner of this fabulous bakery. Her business has seen some changes and it keeps on giving.

Linda began baking at 9 years old, cookies were her specialty. I asked what inspired her to start baking. “My appetite,” she laughs and then added, “I did it well and it is hard to find things you are good at as a child; I gained confidence baking.”

While she worked for the City of Los Angeles over 27 years as an executive assistant, she was that wonderful person who brought exceptional baked goods to all the meetings. Everyone around her agreed she could go into business with this talent. After commuting an hour and a half to go 12 miles each day to and from work for all those years, she hit a wall and could do it no more. Linda packed up her car and her mother, took her abundance of accrued vacation time and headed north.

“We drove up I-5 and stopped in dozens of towns along the way and when we got to Sequim we just stopped,” she says, looking tickled. This led to her departure from L.A. and to a whole new world.

Once settled in Sequim she began looking for employment and that turned up surprising results. As she began to realize that she was not going to find comparable employment in Sequim, she started thinking more about what she could do, bake!

Her neighbor introduced her to a woman named Cathy Collins, a baker in town. Cathy was baking in a church kitchen and had various wholesale accounts. She took Linda on as her apprentice and after few months declared that she was ready to retire from baking. Fortunately for Linda, Cathy gave her all her wholesale accounts and passed everything on to her.

Linda hoped to expand the business and contacted the Sequim Farmers Market in 2010. The market, of course, was thrilled to have her. I asked how the market shaped her start. “It gave me the confidence to open my own place, to launch my own bakery,” which opened in 2011. After almost three years in the shop she realized that again, it was time for a change. So early in 2014 she closed the shop.

“I enjoy the market so much more, I love this! I can do this! I am outside, I love the music.”

She tells me the long hours running the bakery wore her down and this was the best thing she could have done for the business. While I am talking with her, a favorite customer approaches for her anniversary cake and gives Linda a heartfelt hug. This is one of many loyal customers who gratefully have found her at the market. She regularly takes special orders for anything from wedding cakes and pies to catering meals. You can pick up orders at her certified home bakery just two blocks from the market during the week or Saturdays at the market.

Her approach at the market is, “I honed in on what sells best, the favorites of my customers which includes a variety of berry hand pies, mud bars and lemon bars.” Each week she brings a beautiful selection of cookies, pies, bars, savory quiches and more.

Finally, she adds, “The people at the market, the other vendors, they are wonderful people. The vendors here all help each other, there is a huge sense of family and friendship among the market community. I love everything about the market and the new location is fabulous,” she says with a big smile on her face.

Town tunes

The music will be the fabulous Buck Ellard on Aug. 9 and the outstanding band Still Kickin’ on Aug. 16. Live music is every Saturday from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

In the Suzanne Arnold Community booth on Aug. 9 will be the Rotary selling tickets for its Salmon Bake and on Aug. 16 it will be the Gem and Mineral Club.

Hosting the Family Fun Booth on Aug. 9 will be Olympic Nature Experience and on Aug. 16 the Sequim Library.

See you at the market!