Poetry and ART at Malibu Elementary School

NEWSIES Continued from B1

Sorensen, Brigette Leonard, and Amanda Kofsky.

After the cast bowed for their final applause, Bellamy and Ortiz thanked their directors and techni cal staff for their hard work.

“We’d like to give a huge thank you to Amanda [Kofsky] our cho reographer for this entire show,” Bellamy said. “She helped us out so much and made it so easy and adjustable for everyone.”

Bellamy and Ortiz asked Kofsky to join them on stage to accept a gift and share a hug.

“Without Mrs. Amanda, we wouldn’t have a show,” Ortiz said.

Technical staff included Joellen “Cha Cha” McNaughton, Vaughn Sloan-Veenstra, Brigette Leonard, Connor Hayes, Bryan Baysore, Alejandro Melendez, David Peters, and Julia Cheri Hoos.

The Middle School Theater Arts Department would like to extend special thanks to Arts Angels, Jolynn Regan, Debbie Sabag, Will Harper, Loan Kim, Dina Newman, Nicki Polatin, Farnaz Gaminchi, Rachel Stowell, Carla Bowmann-Smith, Beth Papp, Tania Jolly, The MMS custodial staff, the MMS security staff, Jodi Plaia, Paula Lytz, Patrick Miller, Cindy Smith, and all the sup -

The background mural following the theme, “All Living Creatures,” created for the Arts and Education program is shown.

The City of Malibu wants to thank Malibu Elementary School fifth-grade teachers, Robyn Estela and Tracy Kooy, for participating in the city’s Arts and Education program.

The four-week workshop included lessons in poetry writing with former Poet Laureate Ricardo Means Ybarra, Jolynn Regan, and Nathan Hassall. Art teach- fermented vegetable yeast starter that was gifted to them from her Japanese preschool teacher, who had brought it back from a monk in Nara, Japan. The starter used to make the dough originated in the 1970s. Smith started making bread from the special yeast but was drawn to the bagels.

“I enjoyed that process,” she said.

She described shaping the dough as “sculptural” since she had studied fine art and ceramics in New York, where her friends there missed her and her extraordinary baking skills.

“People were asking for them,” Smith said of her bagels. So, in 2021 instead of an intended move to Japan, she returned to New York to launch her business. Because she feeds the starter with carrots, apples, rice, and Japanese mountain yam, Bagel Bunny was born. She’s been captivating fin- ers and Nicole

The icky New York foodies since and was even featured on the tastemaker and trend-spotting web guide Thrillist.

While Bagel Bunny bagels are smaller than a traditional New York style bagel, what they lack in size they make up for with a unique flavor profile. It’s all due to the provenance of the special starter used to make them.

“A starter is something that’s alive,” Smith said. “It’s similar to a sourdough.”

And the packaging is cute too: Noriko Smith drew the logo.

“It has a sweetness about it I like,” Smith said.

And New Yorkers are gobbling them up. Smith described her creations as “really soft.”

“They have a sweetness,” she said. “They’re fluffy.”

She commented that other New York-style bagels can make her jaw hurt sometimes because they can be too chewy and tough to eat.

“When you taste them (Bagel guided

Bunny bagels), they are so unlike a traditional New York bagel that I get to feel like I have a part of Japan or California with me here in New York,” Smith said. “It’s kind of nice.”

The MHS graduate started baking out of a typically tiny apartment in Brooklyn, but quickly moved to a commercial kitchen when her bagels were a constant sellout and demand grew. The baker wakes up at 4 a.m. to start making dough that’s later boiled and then baked.

For a big order, she may be a night owl in the kitchen from midnight until daybreak. By Thursdays and Fridays, Smith says she’s exhausted.

Bagel Bunny now supplies to the trendy and tastefully appointed café, Salter House in Brooklyn, and to Dimes Market, the curated specialty store in the whitehot micro-neighborhood Dimes Square near Chinatown. She also distributes her bagels to a couple of other restaurants, private clients, and office buildings; often hand

Bagel Bunny typically bakes four flavors: plain, black sesame, everything, and turmeric cinnamon raisin. Smith likes hers topped with butter and honey or cream cheese and cucumber.

“Some people don’t put anything on them because they have so much flavor already,” she explained.

One of the general managers at Salter House, Sophie Haulman, commented, “We got to know Sakura and wanted to bring her in as a café resident. We started carrying her bagels, and they got really popular really quickly. We always sell out. It’s like nothing anyone’s ever had before. We’re always ‘fiending’ for the bagels as well.”

To paraphrase the song, “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” And Smith said by phone from New York, “I’m grateful to be from Malibu. This project also helps me stay close to my family and my Japanese roots. That’s been very nice.”