Bio

I am Jess Surtees, of Toronto, Ontario: foody, baker-chocolate master, poet, artist, academic, travel-enthusiast, caregiver, and bartender-sans-booze.
My culinary path has been a surprisingly hesitant one, littered with all the recalcitrance to be found in an excessively aware bipolar mind. (For is mania nothing but the pent up burst of an energy too frequently denied out of the otherwise self-loathing entity?) It has been a path reached only once all reasonable others were exhausted. Yet it contains all the obvious hints as in any life story.
Doesn’t it all begin with a mother? Some of my most conflicted memories are of my mother telling me to write—the memories of a spoiled, pouting child who just “doesn’t wanna”. I will forever remain in awe of her deep understanding and intuition for English Grammar and will forever be equally stumped by her naturally unnatural femininity and her ability to have utterly rigid opinions; these are admirable displays of a grounded perception of the world, a world of common sense. Not to be so dramatic as to say that I lack such common sense, but certainly it is neither quite so common nor sensical to me. And so it is that some of my fondest memories are of baking with my mother. A time at which I could be the messy, muttering, methodical putts that I truly am—a time that had no need for frilly crinoline, polite language, or politics, where those things were notable hindrances to the decadently delicious task at hand.
A wildly ordered cook, my mother was—and is—filled with a vibrantly silent, mystic energy. She is a dough guru who has no need for such contemptuously rigid tools as (dare it even be spake!) measuring spoons. They were always brought out, used, washed, put away; I had no idea what they symbolized, other than being rough guidelines not to be trusted.
Of all the many things that I have wanted to be “when I grow up” (linguist, train conductor, singer, editor, hair dresser, painter, poet, drag king gender fucker, academic, apple) there has never been much to calm me down during a storm, to distract me from negativity, to content myself and unite myself with others. Indeed, my two primary passions of poetry and of academe have borne the unfortunate flaw of keeping me all too focused, agitated, negative, and distant—a problem that has long been studied by psychologists who just can’t get enough of calling Nietzsche a syphilitic manic depressive.
How does an artistic intellect challenge itself—what will make it happy, fulfilled, well-fed, active, healthy, worldly and sane? These were the questions I posed myself over a year ago while I was unhappily commencing yet another degree, this time in the Principles and Practices of Editing (having left the first one [Political Science and Gender-Sex-Culture] pending). Was the solitary act of editing to be a proper task for an individual who cannot bear to be left alone? Who needs music, colour, and—to be quite candid—sex? Certainly it is not a profession for an individual who casts the rules of grammar to the wind… and despite the many opposing beliefs I have held (and about sex in particular) grammar, while many things, is not sexy.
Which brings us to my accidental mentor, the first voice of encouragement I had received for my foodly endeavors. He was supposed to be my undergraduate thesis advisor. But a year ago, while twiddling my grammarian thumbs (and avoiding the thesis, which he, too, was avoiding) I remembered his words upon tasting some spicy truffles: “If you ever want to call it quits to become a chocolatier you have my full permission.” After finally graduating and closing (mostly) the doors upon an education filled with manic depressions, I may finally be sane enough to take him up on what now seems the best piece of advice he ever gave me.
Even before exercising this piece of perhaps unintentional advice became a real possibility to me, I joked about this story with my father and immediately we simultaneously coined the name “The Hungry Poet”—the perfect name, we laughed, for a young poetess who possessed a ganaching for a deeper satisfaction out of life. One month later, after enduring some terrible romantic awakenings, coupled with the slow-burning academic crisis and a realization of my gradual starvation, I met the person who makes me draw upon every cliché imaginable—the love of my life, my partner, my other. Since I cannot conceive and we both treat children with an affectionate repulsion, what better than to conceive instead an ornate representation of our passions to the world, in the form of artistic sharing and nurturing: a bakery-gallery. As our interests flourished and as our mutual best friend became increasingly intrigued, we’ve expanded from a little musing to a full-blown plan for a bakery-café-gallery-venue-home-made-home-grown-production company multi-hybrid with expansions ever on the rise. These are bold dreams, representing palpable needs—from every food certification, including kosher, to an expanded public greenhouse—hello community farming!
But first, because nothing I do is in sequence, I must away from my home of Toronto and keep my food education methodical. So, to the land of my Scots ancestors I will soon go, fulfilling a far more personal journey, dragging with me whomever will come. Well… First before that I must acquire funds and spend a bit more time stalling, because what else is one who was raised in the ‘90s to do? So I begin by reaching out these interests to you, dear reader(s), to share the recipes and histories already conceived, the artistic collaborations already underway, those to come, those to be born out of each entry, and to publicize my humiliating attempts at city ‘farming’, each to be perfected and shared along the way.
Enjoy the meandering wave of musings—for what is life without great food, great thought, great artistic expression, and traveling great lengths?  Here is a song by my partner to set the mood for the beginning of our journey.