Baking a living: New Orleans transplants bring a taste of home to their new venture in Waterford

By Lee Roberts

Sunday, April 16, 2006 2:09 AM CDT

WATERFORD - It isn't the French Quarter, but there's a little spot in Waterford that smacks of New Orleans flavor.

The sign outside says Bordelon's Bakery & Beignets and inside, the aroma says heaven.

There, just beyond the front counter, you'll find Brandon Bordelon dressed in kitchen whites mixing, kneading, shaping and baking everything from coffee cakes to pralines and Doberge tortes, along with a variety of buns and breads. Ask the pastry chef a question, and his answer will tell you that he's not from around here.

Having lived all but the last seven months of his life in New Orleans, Bordelon has a friendly, laid-back drawl that goes well with the pots of jambalaya and gumbo he stirs up for the lunch crowd at the bakery. And those are just a couple of the Southern specialties he brought with him when he came to Wisconsin last summer.

Bordelon and his fianc�, Sandy Kreeger, landed in Waterford at the end of August, having fled New Orleans just ahead of Hurricane Katrina. Bordelon's aunt and uncle, Marybeth and Marc Balkovich, are Waterford residents and they convinced the couple to visit for a few days to wait out the storm.

Having evacuated New Orleans many times before, Bordelon and Kreeger said they figured on being up here for two or three days, and then heading back to St. Bernard Parish to clean up any water damage they may have incurred. After three days of watching CNN reports in Waterford, they realized that their home - along with the new flooring and appliances they'd installed in preparation for their impending wedding - had been destroyed, along with much of the city they loved.

New direction Their first task, in the wake of the storm, was to locate family and friends who had stayed in New Orleans, which they eventually did through Internet and phone contact. Once they had made sure their loved ones were OK, they decided to look for work in Wisconsin, rather than trying to make their way back into the flooded city.

Both had been employed at Randazzo's Bakery in New Orleans, and they were hoping to get similar jobs here. But the closest thing they could find was work at the local Pick 'n Save grocery store, where Bordelon was hired to do cake decorating. Meanwhile, the chef's longtime dream of opening his own bakery stirred in the back of his mind, and when he heard about a vacant business space in Waterford, he jumped at the chance.

He and Kreeger acquired the building, just off Main Street, on Nov. 15 and on Dec. 1, they opened the bakery doors to the public for the first time. Working day and night, they did most of the building renovation themselves, with help from Kreeger's brother, Nathan, who came up from New Orleans in November and decided to stay.

"I got a call from them on Nov. 15 saying they needed help - on Nov. 20, I saw the building for the first time and 10 days later we opened," Nathan Kreeger said.

Since then, Nathan has done whatever is needed to help keep the bakery running smoothly, from filling cannolis and frosting cakes, to manning the front counter and running errands.

"I guess you could say I'm Brandon's right-hand man," he said.

Sandy Kreeger, too, is an essential part of the operation of Bordelon's Bakery, doing a variety of tasks including design of the bakery's logo. She, her brother and Bordelon not only share the dream of bringing a bit of New Orleans to Wisconsin, but they make a good team. Everyone pitches in wherever they are needed and their enthusiasm for their work is evident in everything they do.

Beignets on the way Right now, the trio's biggest challenge is building an addition on the bakery so that they can install a fryer hood - a piece of equipment that is necessary for the making of beignets (pronounced "ben-YAH") - sweet pillows of deep fried dough that are as much a part of New Orleans as Dixieland jazz. Bordelon had hoped to have the fryer operational by mid-March, but he just recently go permission to make the addition.

"They are coming," Bordelon assured those who've been anxiously awaiting the beignets. "We just don't know when yet."

In the meantime, there are plenty of other options for satisfying your sweet tooth and beyond at Bordelon's. In addition to the items mentioned above, the bakery offers a wide variety of fruit and whipped cream pies, petit fours, cheesecakes, custom-made birthday cakes and some unique cookies, including a New Orleans favorite called turtles, which consist of a pecan shortbread tart topped with a generous helping of fugde.

The pastry chef also specializes in seasonal items from King Cakes to hot cross buns and holiday-themed cookies. Bordelon said he will create baked goods for diabetics upon request. Lunch specials include muffalatta and red beans, sausage and rice served with cornbread (there is different special each day). Catering services are also available.

Thoughts of home When they aren't busy at the bakery (Bordelon gets there by 3 a.m. each morning to start baking), Waterford's three new residents do think of what they left behind in New Orleans. Their trip here in August was not only their first to Wisconsin, but the only time they'd traveled to the "northern states" and they had to do some adjusting to get used to life in a colder climate.

"We like it here," said Bordelon. "But I do miss my bayou."

"What I miss is the salt water fish," said Nathan. "That and the all-night cafes. In New Orleans, you can call your best friend at 3 a.m. and say `meet me at the cafe' and there will be one open just about anywhere in the city."

Sandy and Nathan went back to New Orleans for the first time in February to touch base with family members and see what they could salvage from the rubble. Despite all the images they'd seen in the media, and the conversations they'd had with relatives and friends back homes, they were stunned by what they found.

"What you see on television doesn't do justice to what the situation is really like down there," Sandy Kreeger said.

Making their way through the city toward her home, Sandy and Nathan saw 150-year old houses that had floated off their foundations, and devastation at every turn. And, while the outside of her brick house was pretty much intact, she had to crawl in through a bedroom window because there was so much debris on the floor that the doors could not be opened.

Inside, compacted crude oil from nearby refineries covered the floor and everything that had been knocked down on it. Marks on the walls showed that there was six feet of oil in the home at one point, and the water level there had been 14 to 17 feet high, Kreeger said.

Sandy was able to salvage very little. She brought back two plastic containers of photographs that were on a closet shelf (even they have water damage) and a painting that she had done that was hanging on the wall. But, things such as her yearbooks and scrapbooks, and a collection of her late mother's hand-knit, beaded sweaters, were ruined and much of the contents of the home was no longer even recognizable, she said.

"That's when it really hit us hard," Sandy Kreeger said. "We came to realize all the things we left behind and that was hard. But eventually you come to accept it. There isn't much you can do about it. Life goes on."

Moving forward Life is going on for the couple in Waterford, where they are not only working hard to make their new business a success, but planning their July wedding. They have become active in St. Thomas Church, and people in the area are getting to know them and their goodies.

As word of the bakery has spread, Bordelon's has drawn customers from as far away as Green Bay and Menominee Falls, the chef said. A few of them have been New Orleans transplants who have come in search of a taste of home. And everyone's support helps to keep the trio going strong in their new endeavor.

"We've seen bottom," Sandy Kreeger said. "We can only go up from here."

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