By Matthew Halverson
Photograph by Katherine Bish
Kevin Moss is an all-natural, no-preservatives kind of guy. We may partake of the occasional spongy prepackaged dessert with a half-life of 12 years, but he’d just as soon eat an eraser.
This fall, on the Hill, the veteran server at Pueblo Solis opened Moss’ Organic Sweets & Stuff, where you’ll find all kinds of muffins, cookies and other bakery items, sans the bad stuff, of course, so we called him to ask why he hates Hostess.
Can you define “organic bakery”? It’s a bakery that sells items that have no pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics or hormones. I only use the freshest and best natural products available, which, in a way, makes the desserts gourmet in their own right.
How did you go from server at Pueblo Solis to organic baker? I wanted a place of my own, so I came up with some recipes last fall, and then I made them last Christmas and passed them out to family and then some friends and customers at the restaurant. A couple weeks later, they called me back and wanted to know if they could get some, and a couple weeks after that, more people called. It just kind of went from there.
What were your most successful items? My cookies: my version of chocolate chip, which is an orange–ginger–chocolate–caramel chunk; my version of oatmeal-raisin, which is an oatmeal–cranberry–black walnut–lemon–chocolate; and my version of a peanut butter cookie, which is honey–peanut butter–
macadamia chocolate.
Doesn’t the “healthy” thing take all of the fun out of sweets? There are still calories. I don’t think we could ever get away from that.
Imagine, just for a second, that you fell off the organic wagon: Hostess Cup Cakes or Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies? I’m going to say Hostess Cup Cakes.
Let’s draw on your Pueblo Solis experience: How would you capture the essence of fried ice cream in a healthy bakery item? The world doesn’t really need another fried ice cream, but I’d maybe make a puff pastry and put the fried ice cream on it with a drizzle of chocolate on top.
2131 Marconi, 314-773-6677. Hours: 8 a.m.–2 p.m. Tue–Sun.
