Ruhling: The Woman who takes History to Heart

As a historian, Heather Nicole Lonks Minty is used to telling stories.

Other people’s.

So that’s where we start.

We’re in England, where in 1909 two suffragettes, identified as a Miss Solomon and Miss McLellan, find a novel way to draw attention to the cause.

They mail themselves to the prime minister at No. 10 Downing St. so they can advocate, in person, for the right to vote. (The postal charge is 3 pence, and the “human letters” are unceremoniously returned when the recipient refuses to sign for them.)

Heather starts a new job next month.

“A delivery boy had to actually walk them there,” Heather says, smiling at their audacity and cleverness. “During the mailbox bombing and arson campaign of 1912 through 1914, one woman used to hide explosive devices in her wheelchair.”

In the United States, the women were not so militant. In 1917, they merely chained themselves to the fence around the White House to get President Woodrow Wilson’s attention.

Heather, a tall woman with glamorous gold-rimmed spectacles, tells these and other stories about everyday people to make history come alive.

Whether you’re talking about women picketing to get the right to vote or young men protesting the draft, the stories resonate because “it could be you or someone in your family,” she says.

That’s why she finds walking tours so thrilling: You get to stand in a space where history took place.

As far as Heather’s own history, it starts in Flushing, where she was born 32 years ago and where she spent most of her childhood and young adulthood.

At LIU Post, she earned a bachelor’s degree in TV and radio (she loves watching historical documentaries, and her thesis was a video walking tour of the Civil War draft riots) then proceeded to earn a master’s in public history at Royal Holloway, University of London.

“Public history is all about getting history to the public,” she says. “These days, there are many engaging ways to tell stories that are not just exhibitions in museums.”

After returning to New York, she landed a job at the New-York Historical Society, a move that would change her own history in ways she never imagined.

It was there that she met Chris Minty, a “cute” Scotsman fascinated with U.S. history who had a fellowship with the museum.

“We actually were in London at the same time, both frequenting the same research libraries when I was in college, and I did take some day trips to Scotland, but our paths never crossed,” she says.

They were introduced at a staff meeting, but Heather wasn’t impressed enough to pay much attention to him.

It was Tinder that kindled their romance.

“I swiped right, but I still didn’t recognize him,” she says, adding that the people on fellowships like Chris had separate work areas so she never saw him. “He sent me a message saying he thought we worked in the same building.”

Heather thought it was a pickup line until she verified the information.

On Nov. 4, 2014 – Heather, ever the historian, remembers the exact date – they met for coffee.

“Our love of history connected us,” she says. “We spent five hours talking – it’s probably the longest coffee date known to man.”

Their relationship deepened their appreciation not only for each other but also for their respective areas of study.

“He opened my eyes to parts of American history I had never seen before,” Heather says.

Although they had been dating only a couple of weeks, Chris traveled all the way from Morningside Heights to Flushing to have Thanksgiving dinner with Heather and her parents.

“The holiday, of course, is not celebrated in Scotland, so he really didn’t know what he was getting into,” she says. “My mother sent him home with so much food – and he discovered corn bread.”

Heather makes history come alive.

They married and moved themselves and their voluminous collection of history books to Boston, where Chris had been offered a job.

Heather took a position with the Boston Athenaeum and later worked for the Boston Arts Academy Foundation then Respond, whose mission is to end domestic violence.

At the end of 2020, during the pandemic, they returned to New York to be closer to Heather’s family.

Heather was working for Citizens Budget Commission, a nonprofit that focuses on New York City’s and state’s finances and services, when their daughter, Isla, was born.

(For the record, the only reason Isla, who is 6 months old, has not visited a museum yet is because of covid restrictions.)

Next month, after taking a short break in her career, Heather’s starting a new job as the development director of an institute in New Jersey whose mission is gender equality, which syncs with her keen interest in women’s rights.

“Having a daughter makes this even more exciting because instead of fighting only for myself now, I’m fighting for her and her generation,” she says. “That makes it easier for me to leave her and go back to work.”

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at [email protected];  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Ruhling: The Woman in Retro

From the color-coordinated racks of clothing, Lisa Ferrari-Sullivan pulls out a 1940s sundress and holds it up to the light streaming through the front windows of her new shop, Pimbeche Vintage.

She points out its flamboyant green-rose floral print, its contrasting yellow piping, its perky front bow and its metal zipper.

Although the dress is at least 80 years old, it looks as gorgeous as it did the day it was made.

For Lisa, who is wearing a kaleidoscopically colorful 1980s Guy Laroche cotton top and 1980s Gitano jeans, retro fashion is much more than mere window dressing.

It is, she says, a really good way to recycle and repurpose, which she has been doing her entire life.

Lisa, model tall with long black hair that she tames by tying it back in a ponytail, was born and raised in Wallingford, Connecticut, which she calls a “lovely little suburban town that I always wanted to get out of when I was young but that I now am nostalgic about.”

She gets her own sense of style from her mother, who she says is “extremely fashionable.”

Lisa adds that her mother was in her early 20s – nearly three decades younger than Lisa’s father, a World War II combat veteran and first-generation Italian-American she met while he was working for the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic.

“She was always well dressed but on a shoestring budget,” Lisa says. “She was Latinx, she was exotic, and she was the talk of the town. I was in awe of her. She didn’t look like the other Connecticut moms.”

As a youngster, Lisa borrowed her mother’s clothes to play dress up and came to love vintage clothing, which she subsequently began collecting.

At first, she frequented thrift shops then switched to estate sales and online auctions.

“I love 1970s clothes,” says Lisa, who was born at the beginning of that fashion-forward era. “They are carefree and bohemian – it was anything goes. People used clothing to express themselves.”

When it was time for college, Lisa didn’t major in fashion – she has a degree in business management from Southern Connecticut State University – but she knew she wanted to make her career in New York City.

“I had a friend who had a job here,” she says, explaining what prompted her to move. “My first job, in 1998, was as a receptionist at Thierry Mugler.”

Lisa climbed the fashion industry ladder, eventually becoming a national sales director for a succession of major fashion houses.

Around the turn of the century, she got married, moved to the Astoria area and had two daughters, who are now 14 and 11 and sometimes help her out at Pimbeche Vintage.

“After my first daughter was born, the showroom I was working at closed down,” she says. “I wanted to stay home, but I didn’t want to stop working —  I had been working since I was 16. My side hustle was selling vintage clothes.”

She started selling online and about eight years ago began setting up at the Brooklyn Flea in Dumbo and Chelsea.

“I originally did it with my mother, but she had to drop out to take care of my father,” Lisa says. “I used the money I made through the years from the flea markets to fund Pimbeche Vintage.”

Pimbeche, which, by the way, is French for “snobby girl,” carries women’s fashions, including jewelry, shoes and handbags, from the 1940s to the early 2000s.

“I love selling pretty things,” Lisa says as she puts the sundress back on the rack. “But I also want to help the environment. I have a strong passion for sustainability.”

Pimbeche Vintage is still a work in progress.

Lisa, who wears vintage when she’s in the shop, is working on a website and soon will add live online sales.

As she’s talking about her plans, a customer walks in.

After searching through the racks, she selects a prettily patterned cotton dress and heads back to the dressing room to try it on.

Lisa smiles.

“The Astoria community has been amazing,” she says. “People come in to browse, to buy and to talk. I’m grateful that they want to support small businesses like mine.”

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at [email protected];  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Ruhling: The Planet Proponent

The planet is weeping when Kayli Kunkel opens the door to her store, Earth & Me.

It’s raining cats and dogs and elephants and lions.

She sighs –she’s holding an event later, and this May monsoon isn’t about to stop sobbing any time soon.

The planet’s perpetual peril pains Kayli.

Kayli, whose face is defined by horn-rims and a sense of urgent earnestness, grew up in the Mississippi River bluff town of Dubuque, Iowa, where she spent her spare time playing on the beach and riding the waves in a pontoon boat.

“My dad took us on hikes, and we were always catching frogs and tadpoles,” she says. “We always had pets, and once we even brought home a wild rabbit. I liked to watch Steve Irwin’s nature shows on TV.”

Kayli tried several pursuits before she focused her passion on the planet.

For pretty much the first decade of her life, she was a dancer, stepping and spinning her way around the Midwest, winning competitions.

Later, she devoted herself to show choir, performing at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville as well as at Carnegie Hall.

But she also was interested in writing and storytelling, which is why she majored in graphic design and magazine journalism at Drake University, which is in Des Moines, some three and a half hours from the house she grew up in.

“My biggest goal was to be an art director for a major magazine,” she says, adding that she stayed in Des Moines to take a job with the media conglomerate Meredith Corp.

As magazines around the country started folding like dinner napkins, Kayli shifted to a career in content marketing, which she pursued for a couple of years before coming to New York City.

“My partner, who I’m still with, was studying architecture and got a job here,” she says. “I was ready for a change, too.”

When the pandemic hit, Kayli was the marketing director for a software company, a job she was laid off from in June 2020.

Because everyone was staying home and doing things like making sourdough bread and masks between Netflix binges, Kayli literally tried her hand at home goods.

(The colorful coasters she created out of vintage yarn are for sale at Earth & Me.)

“I also joined the social justice protests,” she says. “I decided to open a zero-waste store that carries handmade eco-conscious items produced locally. This happened two weeks after my job ended.”

She began researching local sources and products and started doing pop-up stores that summer.

She opened her first Earth & Me (it is so named because she wanted to put herself in the  equation) in a small space on Astoria Boulevard in December 2020.

In September 2021, she opened an expanded Earth & Me on Steinway Street that includes a café with home-baked goods, an outdoor events space, vintage clothing and kitchenware and a substantial stock of hand-made refillable items that range from soaps and pastas to spices and teas.

“The idea of the refills is rather like the old milk deliveries,” she says. “You buy the product, and when the bottle’s empty, you bring it back or we pick it up and deliver a refill. Right now, we are local deliveries only, but we are going to expand to include all the boroughs. The items are transported in an electric van.”

She estimates that her refills have reduced the use of plastic bottles by the thousands.

Earth & Me looks like an old-time grocery store: The bulk items are displayed in glass bottles and glass canisters.

There are shiny silver scoops and funnels for the dry goods.

“There are no stores in Queens that offer these refills,” she says. “And there are very few in New York City. I want to make refilling as convenient as going to the bodega.”

Earth & Me and Kayli are all about saving the planet and building a like-minded community.

The shop’s cards are made of recyclable paper, and the products’ packaging is recyclable as well as compostable.

Next to the counter, there’s a plant propagation wall, where customers can rehome greenery.

“Our customers also donate clothing to SCRAP to be recycled,” she says. “We get about three to four bags a day. I’m proud to say that we’ve kept over 1,000 pounds of textiles out of the landfills.”

For Kayli, who lives in a Jackson Heights apartment with her partner and her dog, recycling comes naturally.

She composts and produces so little garbage that her trash can, which is only 2 feet tall, gets full enough to empty only every three weeks or so.

“We are conscious about what we buy,” she says. “And we only buy what we need.”

For the planet’s sake, she hopes her sustainable practices catch on.

“Typically, I’m in the store every day,” she says. “I knew what to expect from running a small business because of my parents, who each had their own company.”

Kayli has plans to expand Earth & Me.

She talks about refill pop-up stores, diffuser bars with signature scents and a line of skin-care products.

“But these,” she concedes, “are way down the path.”

She looks out the front door at the raindrops splashing on the sidewalk.

The showers aren’t expected to let up until early tomorrow morning.

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at [email protected];  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Ruhling: The Woman Who Took a Deep Breath

The Woman Who Took a Deep Breath

The lights are low, the music is soft, and the sweet scent of flickering candles is oh so soothing.

Erika Ferrentino, who has luminous blue eyes and the poise of a ballet dancer, is eager to welcome everyone to the first downward-facing dogs of the day at YUG Wellness.

She’s still pretty new at being a business owner – she started the studio in October 2021.

It wasn’t as simple and as straightforward as it sounds.

Erika had to make a lot of changes and choices to create YUG Wellness, whose Sanskrit name refers to the process of uniting mind, body and consciousness.

Erika, who at one time was passionate about CrossFit, didn’t discover the healing power of yoga until recently.

Born and raised in Rockaway Beach, she aspired to be a writer.

But after graduating from SUNY Albany with a degree in English, she became a residential real estate broker specializing in rentals.

To supplement her commission-only income, she waited on tables.

“I didn’t have any money,” she says. “I was living in my parents’ basement in Rockaway Beach and doing the long commute to Manhattan. When my mom asked me to pay rent, I started saving as much as I could so I could move out.”

She ended up on the Upper East Side.

For a while, she was the manager of a small Wall Street firm.

“I was so broke that I ate cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” she says. “And I walked to work to save the subway fare – it was five to six miles each way.”

Then she got a big break: an entry-level job at Morgan Stanley, where several of her cousins were employed.

She worked her way up, becoming an executive in wealth management.

That career took her to Miami, where she lived for a year, then back to New York City, which is where she was when the pandemic locked the world in a vise grip.

By that time, she was the mother of two daughters, Francesca and Gigi, who are, respectively, 8 and 5.

“I was working from home part of the time and commuting to Manhattan a couple of days a week,” she says. “And I was home-schooling the girls. The stress got to be too much.”

Indeed, her anxiety became so severe that she began having panic attacks.

“I would get on the train and have to get off because I couldn’t breathe,” she says, adding that she also lost her vision twice. “It was so bad that my doctor put me on medication.”

Although her symptoms declined, Erika, who rarely takes a Tylenol, didn’t want to be dependent on prescription drugs.

At her doctor’s suggestion, she reluctantly tried yoga, which she thought would be boring.

The poses were easy; it was calming her mind that proved difficult.

“Yoga changed my life,” she says. “The first thing I learned was that I wasn’t breathing – I was holding my breath. Yoga reconnected me to my breath.”

The results were so dramatic and positive that Erika wanted to learn as much as she could about yoga, a quest that led her to binge-read books and ultimately take a 200-hour teacher training course.

Last year, Erika, who lives in Astoria, quit her job of 17 years at Morgan Stanley to establish YUG Wellness, which offers not only yoga classes in Italian and Spanish as well as English but also a variety of holistic wellness experiences that range from facials and body contouring to meditation and IV vitamin therapy.

“For the second half of my life, I want to do something that helps people walk out feeling better than when they came in,” she says. “And I want to create a community space where people can connect in person.”

Erika, who was used to making overseas phone calls at 4:30 in the morning when she was with Morgan Stanley, is at YUG Wellness six days a week.

“I don’t teach the classes, but I take at least one a day,” she says, adding that she does fill in sometimes as a substitute.

She usually arrives at the studio after she drops her daughters off at school.

When they come home, she takes a break to be with them.

On weekends, they sometimes visit the studio and help her at the front desk.

Like the students who are arriving for class, Erika’s taking things one downward-facing dog at a time.

“If I can help one person like me change their life, that’s important to me,” she says. “I want to be present and let go of the past and move forward and feel grateful.”

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at [email protected];  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Ruhling: The Deep-Discount Guy

Chris Sciacco, who is wearing a grey sweater and a big smile, throws open the doors to Kaiya’s Pallets.

This is week No. 5 of the wholesale/discount store’s existence, and he’s really pumped.

Come on in! We have deals you can’t pass up!

Water is 10 cents a bottle.

Gatorade is 50 cents a bottle.

Diapers are on sale for $10 a pack.

And brand-name cereals are $3 to $5 for a two-pack.

Come on in! Fill your cart without emptying your wallet!

“I’d say that 90 percent of the people who come in here do not leave empty-handed,” says Chris, as he greets another customer. “I decided to open the store because there’s nothing cheap in Astoria.”

Kaiya’s Pallets, which he describes as “a mom-and-pop BJs-Costco,” certainly fits the bill.

Its ever-changing inventory of brand-name products, which range from toothpaste and olive oil to clothing and lounge chairs and appliances, is the very definition of deep-dollar discounts.

Despite his enthusiastic sales pitches, business is not Chris’ first love, something you might guess if you’ve seen the hilarious videos he creates and stars in that promote the store.

A native of Whitestone, Chris moved with his family to Maryland right before he started high school then came to New York City when he enrolled in The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts.

He majored in film.

“I always had a camera,” he says. “I was an athlete and goofball, and I was always making stupid stuff. I fell in love with filmmaking after I took a course in high school.”

His parents, he says, were not amused by his affinity for the cinematic art.

“I begged them to let me do it,” he says.

To appease them and ease their fears for his future, the summer before he started school, he worked at his uncle’s discount store, Thomas Ventures, in Corona.

He bartended his way through college, and when he graduated, he moved to Astoria in 2007 shortly before his daughter – in case you haven’t figured it out, she’s the Kaiya in Kaiya’s Pallets – was  born.

“I started working for my uncle full time,” he says. “He told me he wanted me to follow my dreams, so he allowed me to take time off to continue making films.”

Chris took him at his word: So far he has made 300 shorts, and his first feature-length film, The Improviser, has just been released.

In 2018, when his uncle died, Chris began running the store and successfully shepherded it through the pandemic by adding a wholesale component.

And that might have been the end of the story had his aunt not decided to retire and sell the store, which, he adds, may or may not happen any time soon.

“She encouraged me to start Kaiya’s Pallets, which is a mini version of Thomas Ventures,” he says. “Right now, I’m working seven days a week and going back and forth between the stores.”

It is, he admits, a lot.

Kaiya’s Pallets, which covers only 5,100 square feet, is staffed by Chris and four of his friends.

Kaiya, who is 13 and is the model for the store’s logo, works a weekend shift in the clothing section.

“At first she thought it was cute that I named the store after her,” says Chris, a proud single father since her birth. “But now all of her friends are making fun of her.”

And she’s making it fun for herself by promoting the store on social media.

In case you’re wondering, Chris is starting work on yet another film; it will, of course, be shot in Astoria.

And he’s planning on making a film about his grandfather, a Korean War POW who came out of the fighting with four Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars and three Bronze Stars pinned to his uniform.

Sometime in the future, he hopes to open more Kaiya’s Pallets.

“My dream is to have another location on the other side of Astoria,” he says.

Ruhling: The History Guy on the Soccer Team

There are two questions that everyone always asks Chris Minty:

Why is a Scotsman devoting his career to studying Early American history?

Why is such a serious academic so keen on spending his spare time playing football, or soccer as we call it in the States?

For the answers, we have to do what Chris, a documentary editor historian who literally gets to hold history in his hands, does on a daily basis: search and annotate the past to put the present in perspective.

Chris, long and lean and happily sleep-deprived because of his 4-month-old daughter, started his history in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital city.

If you didn’t know this, his subtle Scottish accent would give him away.

“I have always been interested in soccer and history,” he says. “My parents used to take me to historic sites, mainly castles.”

By the time he was in high school, Chris was so fascinated with the past that he knew it would play a large role in his future.

He felt the same way, it should be noted, about soccer, which he spent a lot of time playing.

In the beginning, Chris opened his mind to all kinds of history.

“I wanted to sample as much as possible,” he says.

His focused shifted to America, however, when he took a survey course in U.S. history at the University of Stirling, where he earned his bachelor’s degree with first-class honors as well as his doctorate.

“All the while I was studying, I was playing soccer,” he says.

His research on the origins of loyalism in New York prior to the Revolution led him to visit not only the Big Apple but also Michigan, Virginia and California.

He made trips to the New-York Historical Society, The New York Public Library and to the state archives and library in Albany.

“My first trip here, I stayed with a friend who had a fellowship with the New-York Historical Society,” he says. “And he gave me the tour of life. I thought the city was brilliant, and I loved the subway.”

So enchanted was he with the city that, like his friend, he applied for a one-year fellowship with the historical society, which came with a faculty position at The New School.

While he was waiting, he took teaching positions in Scotland, and of course, continued to spend substantial time on the soccer field.

He did, indeed, get the fellowship, and in August 2014, he came back to New York for what he thought would be only a 12-month stay.

But he didn’t know that he would fall in love.

As it turned out, the woman he married, Heather, also worked for the historical society; they had been introduced but didn’t pay much attention to each other until Tinder threw them together.

“We each recognized each other on the app,” Chris says. “We went out for coffee and started dating.”

The fellowship ended, but their relationship didn’t.

“I wanted to stay,” he says. “And even though I was applying for and interviewing for jobs on both sides of the Atlantic, I was looking for almost anything to stay.”

Things all came together when he got an offer to be an assistant editor of The Adams Papers Editorial Project at the Massachusetts Historical Society, where he co-edited volumes of the Adams Family Correspondence.

“It was exciting – Heather and I got married – and I got to handle and study original documents not only from members of the Adams family but also from the founding fathers – Jefferson, Madison and even Hamilton,” he says. “And after a break, I started to seriously play soccer again.”

Chris joined Kendall Wanderers Football Club, one of the oldest amateur teams in Massachusetts. He also managed two of its six teams and served as the club’s president.

“I felt as though I had rolled back the years,” he says, adding that he got to play all over the state. “I loved it – I can be moody when I lose, but we didn’t lose.”

 It was the pandemic that brought Chris back to New York.

“My father-in-law got Covid early on – he’s fine now – but he was very ill, so in December 2020 we moved back,” he says. “We wanted to start a family and didn’t want to do it in Massachusetts, where neither of us had family.”

Chris took a remote job with the University of Virginia’s Center for Digital Editing and began playing for New York International Football Club. He also manages the club’s reserve team and coaches both.

“I probably spend 20 to 25 hours a week with the team,” he says, adding that it’s like having a part-time job. “I absolutely love it even though it takes me days to recover from playing a game.”

Somehow with all this going on, he found time to write American Demagogues: The Origins of Loyalism in Manhattan, a book that will be published later this year.

Since the birth of Isla – she arrived, he delightedly points out, on Nov. 30, 2021, St. Andrew’s Day, which honors the patron saint of Scotland – Chris’ life has become even busier.

As a historian, he’s not accustomed to looking ahead, but there are things that he’s certain of.

He’ll keep his university job – “it’s a lot of fun” – and he’ll continue tearing up the soccer field.

“I’m 34, but I have a few years left at the level I’m in,” he says. “I’ll graduate to the over-30s, then the over-40s teams.”

In the meantime, he has the prospect of a team history project. The league, the oldest amateur one in the country, celebrates its centenary next year.

“I’m already talking to them about what I can do to bring historical context to the anniversary,” he says.

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at [email protected];  @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com,  astoriacharacters.com.

Ruhling: The Confectioner with the Sweet Heart

Crystal Gonzalez sets the small white box on the table and carefully opens it to reveal a half dozen elaborately iced cupcakes.

There’s one with a couple of cherries on top, one adorned with a gigantic strawberry, one defined by an upright Oreo and two decorated with edible parchment butterflies that look as though they are going to flutter off into the spring air.

She brought the home-baked goods, she says, to sweeten the day.

Crystal, a tall woman with a nose ring, large, dark glasses and long blue and purple hair that matches her blouse, has been baking all her life, but it’s only post-pandemic, since she became a wife and a mother, that she has really thrown herself into her pastry pastime with passion.

This is not something she ever thought she would do for a living, but now she can’t imagine her life without sugar and flour and eggs.

Before she started making cakes to sell, Crystal, who was born and raised in Astoria, had a career in her family’s now-shuttered Times Square restaurant, Theatre Row Diner.

She started working there full time after she graduated from the State University of New York at Purchase with a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies and a minor in sociology.

“It was,” she says, “my dream job. I loved the fast pace and meeting all the people – we had a lot of tourists from all over the world, and I loved giving them a great New York City dining experience.”

Shortly after she got married – she and her husband used to hang out in high school, which she didn’t remember until they re-connected on OkCupid – and found out she was having a baby, the couple took out a one-year lease on an apartment in Brooklyn at the end of 2019.

“My last day working at the diner before the lockdown was March 13, 2020,” she says. “I was pregnant and out of a job.”

While she was waiting for the arrival of daughter Elyzabeth, who made her debut in June 2020, Crystal began the work that would lead to the creation of her sweet sibling, Crystal’s Confections.

“I put this note out on social media saying that I would bake cupcakes for free so I could practice,” she says. “I got my first order in July 2021 – and the woman insisted she pay. I got $50 for 50 cupcakes.”

The orders kept coming in, and soon Crystal was making a steady income.

“I can earn $800 in profit in a good month,” she says.

These days, she does her baking in her Astoria apartment, which is in the basement of her parents’ house, the one she grew up in.

Crystal and her husband are part of the extended family that also includes her two younger brothers.

“I look at my hands, and I look at the cake or the cupcakes I have made,” she says. “And I think, ‘These two hands literally just made them.’”

She considers it an honor to bake for people’s celebrations and sees it as her duty to brighten people’s lives with something sugary.

Recently, for example, she baked cinnamon rolls, cupcakes and brownies for the guys at the fire department because they are on duty 24/7.

“I love how the ingredients come together and how this involves me in people’s lives,” she says. “Whatever the occasion – a child’s first birthday or a wedding – the cake is the centerpiece of the party.”

Although Elyzabeth is too young to help out, she does like to sit in her high chair and watch Crystal creating her confections.

“I generally give her a spoon to play with,” Crystal says. “And sometimes I use her as a taster – if she likes it, she goes ‘yummmm,’ and if she doesn’t, she literally spits it out.”

She laughs.

Crystal bakes during the day and applies the icing and decorations in the evening when Elyzabeth is sleeping.

“I don’t like to be interrupted when I do it,” she says, adding that she’s been collecting and refining recipes for years.

Crystal’s Confections is a one-baker operation: She puts Elyzabeth in her stroller and makes most of the deliveries on foot.

“I love to walk,” Crystal says.

Larger orders are delivered via Uber.

When Crystal started her new career, she envisioned herself manning a storefront, but now she’s thinking it would be more fun to remain a stay-at-home cottage baker.

“When Elyzabeth is in school next year, I’m going to get a part-time job,” she says. “Perhaps it will be in a restaurant or in a bakery. I like the idea of decorating cakes.”

Whatever she does, though, she’ll keep Crystal’s Confections going because her baking makes her and everyone else so happy.

Nancy A. Ruhling may be reached at [email protected]; @nancyruhling; nruhling on Instagram, nancyruhling.com, astoriacharacters.com.

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