A Fusion of Faces: Behind the Walls of Eagles Nest

Words By: Mary O’Boyle Photos By: Eileen Shelton

Plexiglass barriers and airtight masks separate you from the cashiers who ring up your chocolate chip muffins every morning, making their name tags impossible to read. Although the men and women of BC Dining sustain this campus, we forget all too easily—especially as our physical and social distance increase—just how integral they are to our daily lives.

3:00 a.m.

As you stumble home from the library, John and Clint fire up the six-deck oven behind the double doors of the Eagles Nest. The giant machine slowly climbs to the 325 degrees that make it the warm heart of the Boston College Bakery.

As the sweet smell of sugar oozes out the second floor windows of McElroy Commons, John and Clint move about the bakery. After so many years of working together, they are effortlessly in tune with one another. Clint loads and unloads almost 100 dozen croissants, muffins, and Danish pastries from the oven while John starts mixing. 4:00 a.m.

The whirring of mixers and the voice of Billy Joel cut through the silence of an otherwise dead campus. The other bakers stumble in, jumping immediately into the longestablished rhythm of transitioning from breakfast pastries to cookie preparation.

John rolls vats of freshly mixed cookie dough over to Scott and Bill, who stand ready and waiting. They feed the dough through the ancient cookie machine, which spits out perfectly portioned discs on the other side. Scott wheels the racks of dough into the walk-in refrigerator where they chill before baking.

6:15 a.m.

The first pickup for distribution across campus comes precisely at 6:30 a.m., which makes for a mad dash to bake, cool, and package the thousands of freshly-baked products on time. Clint gives the chocolate croissants a quick

chocolate drizzle and the apple fritters a fresh coat of icing. As the racks are wheeled out of the bakery, the aroma is enough to get anyone out of bed at this ungodly hour. Few, however, are there to enjoy it. Athletes and early-risers are the only students you might see at this hour. As they rush off to practice or the library, they don’t even notice the sweetened air outside of Mac.

8:00 a.m.

Maybe by this time your first alarm goes off. You hit the snooze button, fully intending to get out of bed on the second alarm. Or maybe the third. Definitely the fourth at the latest.

For the ovens, mixers, and bakers, the day is already halfway over. As the dining halls only just open, the bakery team takes its lunch break. For the first time since 3 o’clock in the morning, the machinery, radio, and half-asleep employees fall quiet. The silence is unnatural.

9:00 a.m.

After the breakfast items and cookies are all set and shipped, John gets ready to mix a 50-pound batch of chocolate cake. Bill papers 14 dozen giant cupcake pans and greases 35 10-inch layer pans in anticipation. The cart of precariously stacked cake pans makes its way over to the oven master, Clint.

At this point, the oven shelves have rotated an unimaginable number of pastries for 5 hours. Each tray of baked goods across campus offers a small glimpse into what the bakery produces daily.

9:34 a.m.

After a prolonged internal debate, you pick up a chocolate chip muffin on your way to the 10 a.m. class that you considered skipping. The muffin will get you through this “early” morning.

10:30 a.m

When Scott isn’t weighing out batter, he is decorating one of dozens of specialty cakes. Even in the midst of a pandemic, birthdays and holidays still warrant celebrating. Elizabeth adds a personal touch to finish off bite-sized cheesecakes, tartlets, and flourless chocolate cakes for the Faculty Dining Room. Head Pastry Chef Tim experiments with chocolate and almond financiers in the hopes that VIP events will restart soon. Everyone is locked into their own task, and the bakery team dances around one another, each anticipating what moves will come next. 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

The first bakers to arrive are the first to leave, finishing their day before some students even begin. A few of them hang on a bit longer, prepping for another day of chaotic energy to match the last.

The fully-risen sun is a welcome contrast to the darkness that colored the bakers’ walk to campus that morning. In the midst of the hustle to your next class, you and your chocolate chip muffin surely pass the bakers on their way home. While they don’t stand out among the crowd, they surely don’t blend in completely. You may still have a whole day ahead of you, but the bakers of the Boston College Bakery already have a whole day behind them.