Speak to Stephen Strauss and he’ll regale you with stories of his adventures in the Amazon during his time as an animal trader, or the time he picked up his first poisonous snake with his bare hands, or the time the Avian flu hit Singapore just as he was waiting for authorities here to approve his bird trade business.
But speak to him about cakes, carrot cakes for that matter, and this hardened, weather-beaten man who has been around the toughest places in the world will get serious with you.
“Did you watch Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi episode?” I ask. He laughs and says he has. I told him his honesty reminded me of that soup shop owner who was aggressively confident about his food because it was truly good.
And so it goes that honesty is the best policy, and if you were to ask Strauss where the best dessert carrot cake is in Singapore, the 74-year-old American and founder of Calendar’s American pies and cakes is not going to hold his tongue.
“Nowhere. Most of it is shit,” says Strauss adamantly, though he added after some thought, “Maybe P.S. Cafe and Jamaica Blue.”
“Anywhere else?” I ask, smiling uncomfortably without sounding like I was uneducated about the finer points of American pies and cakes, which I am.
“No,” he proclaims.
“A lot of people here try to make things that they really shouldn’t be doing. They should spend their time working on stuff they know instead of going online to find the recipe and then selling it to people for stupid amounts of money.
“Look, if I tried to make bak kwa (sweet dried pork) in the States, I know I couldn’t do it. And if people told me it tasted like shit, I would believe them, because I know it wouldn’t taste anything like the stuff here if I didn’t grow up on it.”
I just got schooled.
“If I was looking for somebody who did the best chicken rice in Singapore, I would ask the locals. I would go to them and try it out. I might not like it, and I might find some other place better but at least I would know the benchmark. And that’s how I feel about cake of any type.”Stephen Strauss
Take nothing away from Strauss’ friendliness despite his unwavering insistence that Singapore severely lacks good American carrot cake. He’s not shy of speaking his mind, blaming the want for quality on a lack of experience cafe owners have with real American carrot cake, their compromise on ingredients and people’s gullibility for falling for the marketing of products “that taste like shit”.
And so I asked what his benchmark was, trying to remember the taste of the carrot cake I had in West Hollywood’s Urth Cafe in Los Angeles a few years back, when Singaporean chef Violet Oon took me to try what real carrot cake was meant to taste like, unlike what we were used to in Singapore.
“I’m American and I know American carrot cake,” Strauss says as he sighs.
“If I was looking for somebody who did the best chicken rice in Singapore, I would ask the locals. I would go to them and try it out. I might not like it, and I might find some other place better but at least I would know the benchmark. And that’s how I feel about cake of any type.
“My benchmark in America is almost anywhere. They’ve got too much competition there to make bad carrot cake. In Singapore, you’re up against a situation where the market doesn’t know what it is supposed to taste like.
“A lot of people say (he mentions a famous bakery chain in Singapore) has pretty good carrot cake. To me, it’s not even carrot cake. It’s not even close. It’s more of a butter cake and it’s too dry. They put carrots in there. Carrots are for the moisture. It’s not supposed to taste like actual carrot.”
Strauss steams on albeit jovially. He’s passionate about cakes and it shows.
“Some people say that our cake is better than (he mentions another chain famous for its chocolate desserts), but I don’t know. I refuse to even try their chocolate cake and pay for something where I’m paying for the marketing. All I want is a decent cake.”
Strauss’ attitude in which he runs the small cake and pie company with his wife, Kim, is reminiscent of the family corner shops in New York City’s boroughs or the residential alleys of Melbourne, Australia, where honest products are made with very little marketing involved.
Strauss and Kim have a Facebook page which is irregularly updated.
The two met briefly more than 30 years ago while Strauss was in the animal export business on an Indiana Jones-like adventures through Peru and the Amazon, and while Kim was working in nursing. They reacquainted 15 years ago when he was back in Singapore.
They work at a humble factory in a far-off industrial area of Singapore, with six employees including Strauss and Kim, two full-time kitchen help and two part-timers. On a good day, they have no “occasional” driver, so Strauss is happy to take over the deliveries.
It’s a business that started as a result of experimentation and time-wasting while Strauss was waiting for an approval from the environmental authorities for his impending bird import and export business in Singapore in 2005. Kim, meanwhile, was working in a hospital and would come home to a disturbing mess of flour, kitchenware and ingredients Strauss would create in the kitchen.
“I just couldn’t find decent carrot cake or apple pie, so I played around with recipes,” says Strauss.
Chance came into play when Kim took one of Strauss’ early mega-cake creations, a 2kg carrot cake, for her last-day treat at the hospital. A few days later, Kim says, a surgeon called her and asked where Kim got the cake from.
A lot of back and forth took place when the surgeon offered to pay for an order.
“We had no idea how to price our cakes,” Kim says laughing. “So finally, Stephen just threw up a number. The affordability must have surprised the surgeon because she ordered 10, saying that the price ‘sounded good’ to her.”
“They were too moist, to be honest, that’s why they were so heavy,” Strauss adds. “But that’s the typical American size.”
The surgeon then ordered 20 and after a short while, orders came in by word of mouth.
“At that time, I was just making apple pie and carrot cake. I didn’t think about making a lot of money from it. It was just something for me to do,” says Strauss.
“Calendar’s bakes the best apple pies and carrot cakes anywhere in the Western Pacific. At no other port can a ship get this quality, which tastes just like home. Pies from any other port in Asia are just not quite right.”US Navy’s sealift command’s operations planner, Charlie Brown
Today, their repertoire beyond carrot cakes and apple pies includes cakes such as cookies and cream, coffee, chocolate, green banana and pink lemonade. They also do cheesecakes such as blueberry, Oreo and strawberry, among others, and for pies, Kim and Strauss have apple crumble, peach and pumpkin on offer.
“We’re getting more enquiries from vegan and health conscious customers. Dairy-free, nut-free…”
“Taste-free too,” Strauss cuts her off jokingly.
They’re keeping customised cakes such as wedding cakes and other ingredients to a minimum owning to their lack of manpower and reluctance to overload their staff.
Currently, Calendar’s supplies Halal carrot cake to Ikea Tampines, Swensons’ buffet at Ion and Gloria Jean’s at Plaza Singapura.
But the biggest bulk of orders comes from the US Navy whenever the fleet is in town. At one point, they had an order of 1,000 carrot cakes and apple pies to be ready in five days before the ships left dock.
Speaking to Contented, the US Navy’s sealift command’s operations planner, Charlie Brown, who spotted Calendar’s cakes for the navy, said that having a taste of home is important to the morale on board the ships. And he reckons Calendar’s desserts fit that criterion.
“Food, specifically a ‘taste of home’, is really very important to all sailors whether in the commercial maritime industry, but especially in the Navy,” said Brown.
“I can’t speak for the people who decide to buy them for the visiting navy ships, but I can speak for myself – Calendar’s bakes the best apple pies and carrot cakes anywhere in the Western Pacific. At no other port can a ship get this quality, which tastes just like home. Pies from any other port in Asia are just not quite right,” Brown added.
But, for the uninitiated unaccustomed to growing up amid carrot cake desserts, and whose version of carrot cake in Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore is a heap of fried egg and stir-fried radish, I wanted to know what Calendar’s carrot cakes tasted like.
Kim, the chirpy hostess that she is, brings out the cakes as a parting gift.
“You can’t eat them now. They’re just out of the freezer. Wait about an hour and a half,” she says. “Then you’ll enjoy the real texture.”
Strauss chips in before I leave.
“Good carrot cake is all about the moisture, the texture, the right spices and the right combination of spices, which they never seem to get right here.”
Back at the office, I tuck in, and then memories of sitting at that simple, independently run coffee shop along Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood come rushing back to me. If anything, the cream cheese for the Asian palette comes across a tad bit sweet and bordering on heavy but takes nothing away from the taste and texture of the cake itself. It was everything Strauss confidently claimed it to be. He’s a man of his words.
And making it less sweet for the Asian palette? I doubt Strauss would give a damn and would rather stay true to what carrot cake is supposed to taste like. American.
