I am a pastry chef/graphic artist and a practitioner of metaphysics. In my long, quiet hours in the bakery as I prepare for Monday’s Gourmet Store deliveries I enjoy lots of creative thinking time.. I try to think about happy things because I want to be sure that my work tastes good. Lately I have been reflecting on my childhood days with new eyes. Although my childhood was very solitary it was alive with interesting experiences that wove the fabric of a reality that was truly my own. It was a world filled with wonder and great visions of what “someday” would look like. It was ordinary on the outside but what went on in my head... well, it made me what I am today, as they say! As a child, I had a basement workshop where I designed May baskets and other gifts for the neighbors, and visited with my terrarriums full of snails, salamanders and mosses gathered on my solitary expeditions all over Chestnut Ridge Park. I started going on Saturday window shopping trips into downtown Buffalo alone on the bus at a very young age. I relished wandering around Ulbrich’s in search of art supplies. Halloween was another favorite time. I loved the anonymous and sugary outpouring of love from neighbors within at least a three block radius of where I lived. My parents weren’t overly apprehensive as I ventured out on my own to see the world. Nothing bad ever happened to me either.
Back to the present... I started working with the Gourmet Store over ten years ago. Jane and Martin, owners of The Gourmet store eventually became parents of a little boy, named Finn. As my thoughts wandered around in those long, silent hours I started thinking about all the fun that Finn would be having as he grew up. I realized that he might not experience some of the things that I did though, because today some of that stuff just isn’t safe because of the negative energy that has washed over our world.
“Energy is energy!” I thought... “You can’t destroy it BUT you CAN counteract it.” I thought about what I could contribute to a happy, safe world for Finn and his contemporaries. I am only one person, so I thought about who I am connected to. I thought about Martin and The Gourmet Store.He touches the lives of so many people every day, as a debonaire and zaney ambassador of good taste, charm, and fun. In my mind, I envisioned him right away as my counterpart in the goodie give away which is “ The Finn’s World Project”. Each week I create special, limited edition edible items that Martin gives away free of charge... except for one little string attached... the recipients are charged with doing something kind for an unsuspecting person. It can be anybody... it can be anything that makes cosmic sense. It becomes a mission to shift the world balance toward LOVE.
The Finn’s World project is actually a verb... you know... ACTION! It’s time to become part of the solution to combat the weirdnes, negativity, and real evil in this world that threatens joyous and free living. DO SOMETHING POSITIVE instead of just standing there! Right? Remember... If you do what you can from where you are with what you have, you will be the change you’d like to see happen. Start today. Spiritual teachers everywhere tell us that love and kindness are the most effective elements in creating a miraculously positive shift in how we will be living as Finn’s world unfolds. Thanks and best blessings!

A view of the back of the Maryelizabeth's edibleart bakery taken in 1989.