New York State
Assn of Manufacturing
 Retail Bakers
October, 2021 | Late Fall Newsletter
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New York State Bakers Officers

Chairman of the Board 
Joseph Gifoli
516-354-3930

President 
Nick Stork

1st Vice President 
Aaron Wasserman 
 
2nd Vice President
Mary Sydor

Secretary
Werner Simon

Treasurer 
Edward Maher

Newsletter Editors
Rosanne & Brian Rush 
 
Executive Assistant 
Mary Sydor 

New York State Bakers 
Scholarship Applications



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New York State Bakers
Wish You a
Safe and Prosperous Thanksgiving and Present for Your Enlightenment and Pleasure

The True
Story of Thanksgiving

“The story of the Pilgrims begins in the early part of the seventeenth century,” the late 1600s.“The Church of England under King James I was persecuting anyone and everyone who did not recognize its absolute civil and spiritual authority. Those who challenged ecclesiastical authority [of the Church of England] and those who believed strongly in freedom of worship were … imprisoned, and sometimes executed for their [heresy]. A group of separatists” people who wanted no part of that in England “first fled to Holland and established a community.

“After eleven years,” in Holland, “about forty of them agreed to make a perilous journey to” what was then called “the New World, where they would certainly face hardships,” and experiences that none of them could foresee. But to them it was worth the try, because for them the objective was to “live and worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences,” their beliefs and their desires. “On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail."

“It carried a total of 102 passengers,” not all of them Pilgrims, “including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract,” for all the Pilgrims to agree to and sign, “that established just and equal laws for all [forty Pilgrims] of the new community…” It didn’t matter what their religious beliefs were. None of that mattered. They just set up a contractual agreement that dictated behavior and a number of other things. Now, where did the ideas…? This is the Mayflower Compact, by the way, is what it was called.

“Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible. The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the” Bible, both “Old and New Testaments.” It was the reason they lived: To read it, to study it, to practice it. “They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example. And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture,” this is all according to Bradford’s journal, “they never doubted that their experiment would work.” They were supremely confident that their objective would occur.

But everybody knows “this was no pleasure cruise.” It was long. It was arduous. There were the usual bad relationships and problems on board this tiny ship with 102 people. But they made it. They made it in ways that people would not travel today. They had no other choice. Think of the primitive forms of navigation, lack of knowledge of any upcoming weather or condition of the seas. Yet they did it, “[a]nd when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford’s detailed journal,” nothing “a cold, barren, desolate,” unsettled, “wilderness."

“There were no friends to greet them, he wrote.” There was nobody to greet them. “There were no houses…” There was no shelter whatsoever, other than the trees. There was nothing that could be considered creature comforts whatsoever. There were no friends. There were no hotels. There were no bathrooms. There was no place “they could refresh themselves. And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning.” They arrived at the onset of winter. Half of them, half of the first 40, “including Bradford’s own wife — died of either starvation, sickness or exposure.”

No houses, no hotels, no Safeway, no American Express. Nothing. They endured the winter as best they could. “When spring finally came, Indians,” the Native American, did welcome them, and “taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats. Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they” were nowhere near prosperity. “This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end.”

This is what the traditional thanksgiving story is. The Pilgrims arrived, barely made it through the winter. Indians befriended them and saved them — and today, to this day, we give thanks to the Indians for having saved the Pilgrims. This could not be further from the truth. This is not to diminish the assistance, but this is not what Thanksgiving is about. “Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives,” but that’s not what it was.

“Thanksgiving, in truth, my friends, is “a devout expression of gratitude” to God for their survival, which depending on a whole lot of things after they arrived — a whole lot of things besides assistance by the Indians. “Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into,” the Mayflower Compact, “with their merchant-sponsors in London…” They had no money. They had to have people help them here.

“The original contract … called for everything they produced to go into a common store,” a common account, “and each member of the community was entitled to one common share.” In other words, everybody got the same as everyone else. That’s the way it was set up. It was fairness and it was equality. “All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community,” not to the people personally. “They were going to distribute it equally. All of the land they cleared… Nobody owned anything."

“They just had a share in it. It was a commune,” pure and simple. “It was the forerunner to the communes we saw in the ’60s and ’70s out in California — and it was complete with organic vegetables, by the way. Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this” wasn’t working. This was collectivism. Nobody had any more than anybody else, nobody had any less, but that did not lead to prosperity. It never does.

So after a while, realizing that there was nothing but stagnation going on, “Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage,” and whatever they produced was theirs — and, in an early fashion, this unleashed “the power of the marketplace. Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn’t work!” You know why it didn’t work?

When everybody was entitled to the same you have slackers. Slackers didn’t do their share, they didn’t contribute their share, but they got the same amount as everybody else. It led to recriminations and jealousies and anger. Bradford had to change it, and he did. “What Bradford…” It’s all in his journal. “What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation,” i.e., keep a majority of what they produced or earned.

“But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years — trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it — the Pilgrims” learned in less than a year that it was a failure. “What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild’s history lesson. If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future.” He wrote, “‘The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years…that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing — as if they were wiser than God. …"

“‘For this community was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service” didn’t. They waited. They didn’t want to produce for other men’s wives and children what other men should have been providing, and eventually this “was thought injustice.” Why should you work for other people when you can’t work for yourself?

What’s the point? “The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did [they] try next? They unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the … principle of private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market” whatever they produced, able to sell — for whatever price they could get — their crops and their products. What do you think the result was?“‘This had very good success,’ wrote Bradford, ‘for it made all hands industrious,” which means everybody got off their duffs and started working. “‘[M]uch more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.'” This is when they first began to experience prosperity, and it is for this discovery… By the way, it was at this point that they welcomed the Indians in, because there was so much production after that first barren winter of arrival — not knowing anything, not having anything.

Trying everybody getting fair treatment didn’t work. When they unleashed the incentives (stated simply as you get to keep what you produce), it turned everybody into — compared to the past — mass producers. They had so much more than they needed that they actually had a gratitude winter with the Indians where all of this bounty was shared, and the original Thanksgiving was to give thanks to God for the enlightenment and the courage and the fortitude to withstand all of the hardship and to endure all of the hassles and the problems to finally see through it and prosper.

“So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians. The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London” and Holland who had sponsored their trip. “[T]he success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the ‘Great Puritan Migration.'” It was the word of success and prosperity among the original Pilgrim arrivals that spread to the New World and spawned to massive additional trips to the New World.

You could reduce it to say it was capitalism versus socialism, which it was. But that would be to undersell — under-emphasize what really has happened. A people who had undying faith in God survived circumstances that they never knew they were going to face and ultimately prospered — and, at the end of it all, were still able to practice their religion as they chose who was the original reason for their trip in the first place. And for all of that they were eternally thankful. That is the story of Thanksgiving.

Taken from Rush Limbaugh's second book titled
See, I Told You So in Chapter 6: “Dead White Guys or What the History Books Never Told You, The True Story of Thanksgiving.”



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The Atlantic Bakery Expo, Now Renamed
Artisan Bakery Expo,
Has Been Rescheduled For
October 16 & 17, 2022
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The Gourmet Bake Shop Celebrates
Its 30th Anniversary
Serving Long Island

The bakery was purchased by Joe and Judy Gifoli in October of 1991. It was owned by Saccente and Sons, a family-owned Italian bakery. There were several different owners over the years and the bakery has been in existence since the 1940's. When they bought the bakery they changed the name, remodeled the storefront, and over the years expanded and improved upon the product line.
In 2013 they did a large expansion and have become a fixture in the community.

At the 30th Anniversary, local dignitaries and New York State Board members attended the celebration.
A display of advertisements from the Original Grand Opening were showcased in the store .

Let's just take a closer look and see what may have changed.
Pumpkin
Cheesecake


$6.25 ?

I'll take two please.
Danish
Ring


$2.25 ?


Three of those also, and a hot cup of coffee.

Thanks!
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The business has evolved and grown over the years, with Joe gradually building and improving the cake business. The one thing that has not changed over the years is the bakery's commitment to providing the best quality baked goods possible, at reasonable prices.

Joe's involvement in the NYS Bakers Association has helped them run the bakery with advice and shared knowledge from these bakers.

HAPPY 30th

Spotlight On



The Story of Nickolas Stork


Nickolas Stork was born in Schweinfurt, Germany on June 7, 1946.  As a young boy, Nickolas lived in Germany with his Grandmother while his parents, Karl and Doris moved to America and opened Stork’s Bakery in Whitestone, NY. 

 In 1961, Nickolas attended the Fran’s Oberture School of Trades in Wurzburg, Germany and became a baker. In 1964 Nick moved to the US and began working with his parents in their bakery.
Nick fondly remembers the shop, the neighborhood, the quality products
they created, and the lines out the door of satisfied customers on weekends and holidays.




 

 
Nick met his wife Karen when they were neighbors in Whitestone.  They married on March 20, 1968 and have 5 children and 10 grandchildren. 
 
In October of 2004, Nick had a serious accident which ended his baking career.  He was hospitalized for 6 months and by some miracle he survived.  Once Nick was home from the hospital and rehabilitated, he continued to be President of the Queens Master Bakers Association.


In 2014 Nick was elected President of the New York State Bakers Association and has remained in that position ever since. While serving in this capacity, Nick has had the honor to serve as a judge in the Preliminaries of the 2021 International Panettone World Cup.
Additionally, he volunteers his time to serve as a judge with local Culinary Colleges , encouraging future bakers. The New York State Association provides scholarships and employment opportunities with its member bakeries.
Nick and his New York State Bakers Associates continue to work hard to meet the ever changing needs to keep the Atlantic City Bakery Expo thriving after almost 40 years.  

Today Nick enjoys coaching soccer, spending time with his family and baking in his garage for the lucky friends and family.
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“Bake the best with something good"
Our commitment to the quality of our products and the initial raw materials has been in place from day one. Only the best ingredients with a flawless certificate are included for sophisticated and gentle processing. This is the only way we can ensure that our products are full of the quality we guarantee.
User-friendliness, high quality and nutritional aspects are extremely important – only succeeded by our primary focal point: You. Our customer. In addition to our extensive standard range, we also offer countless tailored products, providing everyone exactly with what they need.
Up Coming Events
 


Nassau & Suffolk Bakers Meeting
When: November 18, 2021  
Where: Your Mother's Place
2349 New Hyde Park Road
New Hyde Park, NY
516 493-9030 
  
New York State Bakers Meeting
When:November 18 , 2021 
Where: Your Mother's Place
2349 New Hyde Park Road
New Hyde Park, NY
516 493-9030 
 
Atlantic Bakery Expo
Aka. Artisan Bakery Expo East 
October 16&17, 2022  
Atlantic City Convention Center 

Bakers Amusement Corner
Jokes, Quotes, etc!





George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation



“Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.’”

Thanking God for America, folks, thanking God for the Constitution.
“Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th. day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the … tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted,” referring here to the Constitution, “for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

“And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations … and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best. Given under my hand at the City of New York on the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.”
New York State Bakers