LOCALadk Magazine

By Aurora Pfaff LOCALadk 60 Jammed with Flavor: Inside the Sugar-Spun World of Jamdots Baking Co. Smooth, twirling mounds of chocolate buttercream. The scent of fresh bread drifting around you. Gigan- tic cookies swimming before your eyes, studded with chunks of chocolate and gleaming with sugar crystals. This is not a dream, though it sounds like it. This is what you see and smell when you step inside Jamdots Baking Co., a bakery and catering service in Saranac Lake that opened its storefront on Main Street in early 2023. Yet time spent at Jamdots shows that for own- ers Gemma Fielder and Nick Rich, there's much more to the story than sweet treats. This is a unique spot that celebrates Adirondack creativity, producers, and sustainability. Gemma grew up in Killington, Vermont to British parents, Nick is originally from Tupper Lake, and both are madly in love with living in the Adirondacks. In a total meet-cute moment for foodies, Nick and Gem- ma found each other when they were both students at the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont; Gemma spotted Nick on the very first day of classes and she was instantly smitten. The feeling was mutual. Although their culinary tastes and joys don't always overlap — Gemma is a self-described "cake person" while Nick leans more towards the savory and adores cooking barbeque — they're now a dynamic team in the kitchen and out, enjoying a life of culinary ad- ventures and inventiveness. When they aren't in the bakery together, they're out in the woods foraging for ramps or trying out the latest local restaurants. For Nick and Gemma, the bakery isn't just about them; it's about the food community in the Adiron- dacks and being part of that world. As Nick puts it, "We're creating friendships and creating local con- nections." This is emphasized through the ingredients used at the bakery, with as much as possible coming from local producers. Local farms and farm stands are a much-relied on source for high quality ingredients, with whatever is in season featuring in the bakery's ever-changing creations. Fresh local strawberries become homemade jam, which is used as filling in cakes and cupcakes. The Cook Farm in Owl's Head, a small farm focused on regenerative farming, supplies an array of items, from duck eggs to blueberries. If you visit The Cook Farm yourself — and you should — you'll find Jamdots cookies for sale at the farm stand, a great example of the way local growers and produc- ers support and celebrate each other. On Saturday afternoons, anything leftover — from sandwiches to cupcakes — is distributed to other restaurant staff in the area because, as Gemma puts it, "restaurant peo- ple need to love other restaurant people."

• Cover