FT Face Meets Tiny Town

It's not too often we get to meet "celebrities" here in our little community of less than 300 people. And it's much less often that I get to serve them our homemade burgers at "The Chocolate Moose", our bakery & cafe. So please excuse me if I'm a little excited to tell you that I met, had a chat with, and served Jeanne Beker yesterday.

For those of you who don't know, Jeanne Beker is the face of Fashion Television and considered an icon in the industry. She is most recently, a judge on Canada's Next Top Model, which is how I'm most familiar with her. She has a super long list of career info, which you can check out here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Beker
or here:
http://www.fashiontelevision.com/show/personality_jeannebeker.aspx

Anyways, Jeanne Beker is in town right now for the Woody Point Writers Festival, an annual event that began about five years ago at the Woody Point Heritage Theatre to celebrate Newfoundland writers, artists, and musicians. The event was originally founded by Mr. Stephen Brunt, a sports journalist and columnist for the Globe and Mail, who just happens to own a summer home in our area with his lovely family, who...ahem...also like to come out to "The Chocolate Moose" on occasion.

I know, it's a shameless display of self-promotion but I just can't help myself - I have to take advantage of the celebrity visits just like everyone else, right?

Anyhoo - the Writers at Woody Point does draw some very interesting people for a few days in August and certainly adds a boost to the businesses in the area. It's very exciting to see the festival become more and more popular and I, for one, welcome the opportunity to have Bonne Bay South in the spotlight, however small that spotlight may be.

Back to Jeanne Beker. Just like my crazy brain, my blogging tends to get slightly side-tracked. Okay, so one of my favourite summer-people - Yes, "we" (and by "we", I mostly mean "I"), actually term our season residents "The Summer People" - Maisie, opens her gorgeous bayside cottage every August to host a "Writer" or a guest thereof. Last year, it was Gordon Pinsent. This year it's Jeanne Beker. Maisie loves our little cafe, God Bless her, and brought Jeanne and her partner in for lunch.

It just so happened that one of the other summer-people happened to be eating lunch at another table, recognized Jeanne Beker as an old university classmate, and started chatting it up. At another table there was a family with 3 daughters, the oldest of which cautiously approached Jeanne's table and, with head-down, hands shaking, said, "Um, excuse me, but you look just like Jeanne Beker...are you?" and after some teasing about how amazing it was that she looked "just like" Jeanne Beker, she enthusiastically talked to the girls about their interest in fashion and the importance of following their dreams and signed autographs for them. And there I was, in between, cooly noting that I was a fan as well whilst rhyming off the topping choices for her burger, "lettuce, tomato, pickle, cheese, bacon,....". The 6 oz burgers were a huge hit, a fact that I am very proud of, since I am personally responsible for the making of the burger patties from scratch. And I am happy to say Jeanne Beker was a lovely lady to serve.

I even bumped into Jeanne (see how I've graduated to a first name basis...haha) at the Writers meet-and-greet that afternoon and her partner was, much to my delight, telling everyone about our wonderfully fully-loaded burgers. "I love a burger you can wear!" was his actual sentiment. Awesome!

Now back to promoting my business - you can visit "The Chocolate Moose" online at our blog www.chocolatemoosebakerycafe.blogspot.com - it's a work in progress but it's a start.

It's just too bad I didn't get a photo of Jeanne Beker to add as proof for this post. And chances are I won't ask either - I may be a fan of hers but I'm also a fan of letting people eat their lunches in peace, celebrity or not.