Last week my friend Kate gave birth to her second baby, a little girl! Now Kate and Erick have two little ladies to love and guide through life. I’m so happy for their happiness, truly. I decided to give little Alba Mae (love that name!) a baby blanket that I crocheted in gender neutral colors. I hope they like their homemade gift! The card I included was one I had on hand; I love it’s multi-purpose design.

PS: Remember, if you’d like a card sent your way, the offer still stands! Email me at offswitchmagazine@gmail.com with your name, mailing address, and a short introduction. And I will absolutely be sending out cards to all of you who have emailed me already. Thank you for your patience!

Click to see the entire 52 Cards series!

Oh, chickpeas. They are super delicious, don’t you think? After a couple years making my own hummus (sans tahini, because really, why?) with canned garbanzo beans, I finally took the plunge into dried beans. And oh my goodness, are these little guys amazing when soaked overnight and cooked on the stove with a simple blend of “aromatics.” Snack worthy all on their own, I say! And today, I’m going to give you the simplest “how-to” I could muster on cooking chickpeas. All of my knowledge comes from this wonderful cookbook: “Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone” by Deborah Madison. The steps for taking your dried chickpeas to the stage you would find them at in a can are listed in my own words below. If you want the full scoop, with loads more information, I highly suggest you check out Deborah’s book.

SOAK: Did you know that beans absorb 3 to 4 times their volume in water AND swell to 2 or 3 times their size? It’s true! This means they need loads of water to absorb as well as space and time to do it. Fill your large pot with nearly 4 times the volume of your beans (I always use the entire package). Soak “overnight” for the beans to absorb as much water as they can. This can mean as little as four hours, or quite literally overnight, which is what I usually do for convenience sake.

DRAIN & PARBOIL: Now that your beans have soaked, replace the soaking water with enough fresh water to cover them. Bring the beans to a rolling boil for 5 to 10 minutes. Scum typically forms on the surface during parboiling which you can skim off with a spoon. No worries if you forget to de-scum, it’s not a vital step!

COOKING (STOVE): According to Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, “a perfectly cooked bean is soft and creamy inside, never hard, its skin intact, not broken.” While there are various ways to cook beans (pressure cooker, oven, slow cooker), as of now I only have experience cooking them on the stove.

I love to snack on chickpeas as is, but if you’re looking for a recipe to make them a bit more flavorful, check out the recipe in volume two of Off Switch Mag! And trust me, there IS a huge difference between canned and dried beans. I’m a convert and I hope you will be too!

“Give grace freely”

Bottom line: don’t be stingy with your grace. It seems like a simple concept, but it is one that I’ve learned isn’t easy, not even a little bit. It requires swallowing pride and reminding ourselves that no one is perfect– not even us. I’ve been learning just how important it is to remember that there are many factors that affect everyone’s lives, their relationships. Nobody makes decisions isolated to what’s in front of us. There is a back story to every encounter, every word, every action. It is important to remember this when dealing with ourselves as well. Give grace freely, and find beauty in the fact that there is always time to start again.

Mae Laubhan is a photographer and writer living in Grand Rapids, MI. When I was introduced to Mae and her husband Bryan via The Fresh Exchange last year, I reached out and extended an invitation to photograph for Off Switch. Since then Mae has contributed to Off Switch Magazine on three occasions — check out her work in volumes three, four, and five! Her writing literally makes me swoon…and I of course think she’s magic behind a camera. These photos were taken at Joshua Tree National Park at the same time as Jillian’s.

Rachel Bernard is the gal behind Figgy Bakery, a sweet treats business located in Long Beach, California. With a passion for keeping things healthy and natural, Rachel was the perfect person to sweeten up our spring volume’s Dreamland dinner party. Read on to learn a bit more about the owner of Figgy Bakery and her tips for baking and entertaining. Then enjoy the bonus photos (after the jump) from the dinner party shoot featured in the magazine!

Where did the name “Figgy” come from?

The name Figgy kind of came to me randomly one day. When I started dabbling with the idea of starting up my own small business, I began to do a lot of research to see what I was getting myself into. When I think of bakery, I think of the words “sweet” or “sugary.” Being that I wanted to go in a healthier direction with my baked goods, I wanted to make sure that whatever name I chose expressed what I was providing. I jotted down words that were my favorite, and what I wanted someone to think of when they saw or ate our goods. Organic. Clean. Rustic. Alluring. Delicious. Which made me think of a fig. There is something so captivating about a fig’s features, so raw and rustic, with a taste so original. That is what I wanted for my bakery, for it to be captivating, real, original. So, I went with Fig, and to keep it simple, but catchy, it became Figgy. And I am still so very pleased with it.

Share with us how you became interested in healthy eating and what inspired you to start a bakery.

Growing up I had always wanted to be a nutritionist. I distinctively remember telling my mom one day, around the time of middle school, that I was going to be a nutritionist and have my office in my house so that when my clients/patients came to visit for appointments they felt just as at home as I did. Ha! Healthy eating was something I always took interest in, but it wasn’t up until about four or five years ago that I really started indulging in what “healthy eating” really entailed. Truthfully, to me, there is nothing more fulfilling than having a great relationship with your body—understanding what it needs and doesn’t need, what makes it feel good and what makes it feel bad, what it needs to thrive. I think it’s one of the most important relationships you can have!

I have always been a huge fan of dessert, always thought they were so intricate and beautiful, but I ALWAYS passed it up. One bite, and I had felt like I ate a whole cake. “Too much sugar.”  I felt like I wasn’t the only one in this world passing up dessert for this reason, and I—we—wanted to start eating dessert again! Dessert is a delight, to be comforting, a reward, and can exude all of those without all of the extra additives and sugar! So I decided to start sharing that with people!

Tell us what’s new at Figgy these days. Where would you love to see your business in the next couple years? We’d love to know of any plans you have in the works! 

You know, I’d like to think Figgy is taking some big steps forward in the right direction! I recently took a little break after starting it up just over a year ago, because it seemed that in the time of my life, I wasn’t able to give it my 100%. This project is my baby, and I didn’t want to give it only half effort because it deserves it all. So, I took a break and decided that when my heart was ready to give it it’s all, that would be the time to jump back in. My heart caved about two months ago, and it couldn’t have happened at a better time!

Recently we started up an instagram account, @Figgybakery, as our little sanctuary of food photos! We have some great events coming up, including one with Casa De Perrin. We are also going to be revamping the website a little bit: new photos, adding things to the menu, making it easier to order, and sharing more photos from the events we have! Honestly, at this time, I couldn’t be happier with Figgy. The amount of feedback and compliments expressed to us recently have been surprising, and overwhelmingly appreciated! It is quite incredible how great of a community we have of people running small businesses and supporting other small businesses around them. It’s inspiring, and I thank you all for that! We are thriving and continuing to grow, meeting and partnering with incredible people in the process and that is all I could really ask for!

Hopefully we can make our way into our own store front one day! :)

I think it’s awesome that you  will adjust a recipe’s ingredients for a specific allergy or intolerance. Can you tell us a bit about that and the sorts of events you like to do?

Thank you! Like I said, I just think everyone deserves to not have to pass on dessert. I think that now, with allergies being so common and their awareness growing, more people are cutting certain things from their diet, that I think, especially when running a business within a certain dynamic, it is fair to include everyone! We keep those options open with any event we do, whether it be weddings, parties, showers, dinners, or simply orders! I bake because I like seeing people happy, because seeing someone enjoy something you could provide for them that maybe they couldn’t is one of the best feelings in the world. I couldn’t ask for more!

Right now Figgy is a catering/order online small business. We do events anywhere from weddings, to showers, to parties of all sorts, to dinners, and so on! Being that we are a business based on something that is of personal needs, we like to keep open and easily adjustable to our clients needs. If you see something you like, but want to customize it to reach more of your needs, we will do it!

What is your signature baked good at Figgy? The one that people talk about days afterward…

Oh my! I am going to have to say my pies. Which came as a huge surprise to me that they would be Figgy’s signature dish, because honestly, it was only a year ago that I made my very first pie. Growing up, I was not a fan of them! I was the kid that snarled and would pass on dessert during the holidays if there were only pies. Pass on dessert!? I know, crazy! But now, there is something about the rich beauty and homeyness a pie evokes that draws me in. Not to mention, they are quite delicious. Gratefully, I think I have learned to posses all of those qualities in my pies, and is what brings everyone back for more.

Share your best tip for throwing a dinner party. What was the key ingredient that made this party so special?

My best tip for throwing a dinner party… hmm. Well, first and foremost my tip would be to have fun! Throwing parties can get stressful sometimes. You want everything to look fantastic, the food to be delicious and your guests to be pleased! That is a lot to take on. Just like when making a dessert, you can tell how much warmth and enjoyment went into something. It shows! Ideas and creativity flows a lot easier when you are enjoying it and not stressing out!

Some other tips would be to plan ahead. Little do some people know, some desserts can be prepared days before an event, and taste even better a day later! If you are having something on a larger scale or are taking on way more than you can handle on the day of, plan desserts or dishes that can be made a day or two before! You can pop them in the oven the day of for a quick warm up, and they will taste just as fresh! Believe me, it makes things much easier the day of the event!

The key ingredient to making any and every party special are the people. Especially with this Off Switch dinner, when you have a good group of people surrounding you, lending their creativity and helping hands, and just their company, makes for an exceptional party. Oh, and a pie to top it off, of course!

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