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ORAL HISTORY

Michele Bell

Michele Bell first learned about baking in the central Florida kitchen of her great-grandmother, where she made her first baked dessert, berry cobbler, as a child. As a young wife and mother, she put her own spin on her family’s traditional cooking, by baking and decorating lemon and vanilla wedding cakes and Death by Chocolate muffins for sale. She fell in love with Patrick County while driving through on the highway with her husband, and once she relocated, her business–which includes soapmaking and art–flourished. Her specialties are pear honey and her signature chocolate cake, the product of a secret recipe. But all of her baking relies on quality ingredients often sourced from the larger cities in Piedmont North Carolina and from nearby farmer friends. Over the years, she has learned to adjust the spice and sweetness of her food to regional palates. She produces cakes, pies, and more for the farmers’ markets in Patrick County and Martinsville.

Bell and her husband discuss opening a bakery in the future, but Michele does not want to compromise on her reason for baking from home in the first place–freedom to spend time with family. As the interview concluded, she noted, “The whole entire family is coming over tonight and we’re gonna eat dinner and we’re gonna play board games and things like that, and that’s what we’re gonna do. So I think as a society we’ve gotten away from that, and I think it’s important because it shows that we’re connected, that we’re a family.”