Bakery shop Ivy and the Poet brings New York City standard of excellence to Marshall

MARSHALL - Shawn Barry's bakery brings the chic and tasty elements of a New York City bakery to Madison County, as the downtown Marshall shop Ivy and the Poet will celebrate its anniversary in April.

Barry grew up in Queens and developed a love for New York City bakeries, where she worked for more than 10 years.

"When you grow up in Queens and you're in the neighborhood, you don't do fast food," Barry said. "You've got all these awesome places you go to, and of course there's always that neighborhood bakery that has all the things, and all the ethnicities are smooshed into one thing."

For Barry, that neighborhood bakery she describes is the same one where she worked for years, which was "down the hill" from her grandmother's house and where her mother grew up.

"I used to always remember, my mom would bring the black and whites and the rainbow (cookies), and they were like the best thing ever, as well as the rugelach," Barry said. "There was a summer where I was transitioning from living with my parents to my own apartment, and I stayed with my grandma for a month, and I got a job at that bakery down the hill."

Barry continued working for the bakery for years, including while she was in college studying fine art and graphic design at Fashion Institute Technology.

While at this bakery, RIchard's Bakery in the Little Neck neighborhood of Queens, she worked her way up from a "counter girl" after proving to the shop owner that she was an asset.

"The owner was that very old school - men worked in the kitchen and everything," Barry said. "But he asked me to write on a cake, and he said, 'Your handwriting is way better than mine.' He started to realize that I was creative, and he eventually made me an area in the kitchen where I became a cake decorator. I had zero experience. I just taught myself. He gave me all the stuff. I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to make buttercream, or anything. He just handed it to me, and I just got to be creative."

After college, Barry worked briefly in textile design while still maintaining a job at a separate bakery in Astoria, where she worked for roughly 10 years.

"I always still on the side worked at restaurants over the years," she said. "I was doing custom cakes for people - wedding cakes and birthday cakes. I ended up getting another job at a bakery on the corner. I was the counter girl again, and he just always needed help. So, I like baking, and he really took me under his wing and taught me everything. All the things."

This particular shop owner, Michael, served as Barry's baking mentor, giving her the foundational experience she needed to pair with her creativity.

At Ivy and the Poet, Barry brings that creativity to Marshall. At the Marshall bakery, mostly everything is made from scratch.

"It's pretty much all my own prep cooking," Barry said. "Like that black and white cookie, I wanted to recreate the one that I remember from my childhood that seemed so perfect to me that I could never find anywhere again."

Part of the shop-owning experience involves Barry fine tuning her skills through a specialized approach.

"We go to New York a lot, and I would make a day of it," she said. "I would go to bakeries and just try a rainbow cookie. I would be like, 'I don't remember it tasting like this,' you know? So, I started to realize that most bakeries just buy those big tubs of almond paste, and they have preservatives and chemicals and artificial flavors. You can really taste it in the cookie. So, we make our own almond paste from scratch, so we know it's nothing but good ingredients in there."

Barry aims to incorporate as many organic ingredients as possible. The bakery also offers a number of gluten-free options and stocks a number of local vendors, including Stella Luna Sol.

"They're local and they make caramel from local honey and the milk from their cows," Barry said. "It's delicious."

In keeping with the New York City theme, the bakery also carries Blunt Pretzels, which previously operated out of the same building at 133 S. Main Street in Marshall.

Ivy and the Poet even has a thrift shop for visitors to collect household items in addition to stocking up on sweet treats.

But the shop's bread and butter, of course, is its baked goods.

The black and white cookies, or what some refer to as "half moon cookies" are one of Barry's favorites.

"That's like super comfort food to me. Whenever I'm stressed, I'm like, 'How about a black and white?'" she said. "Cannolis are very popular. The pignoli cookies I think are our number one selling item.

Pignolis are a light golden color and studded with golden pine nuts.

"The pignolis are also made with almond paste," she said. "It's an old school Italian cuisine that typically you don't find here. It's the kind of thing you see in New York. People come in and say, 'Oh my gosh, I haven't had that since my grandma used to make it.

"Also, it's naturally a gluten-free cookie, so it's gluten free and dairy free. The rainbow cookie is definitely also an 'up North' thing. That was my other number one favorite childhood thing. As a kid, it's a treat to have those."

The carrot cake has been especially popular lately too, Barry said.

"The tiramisu and the tres leches we make through an almond flour-based cake," Barry said. "They also happen to be gluten free, and they're pretty popular. Even our oatmeal cookie is a really good oatmeal cookie."

As the customer demand is not as immediate as it would be in New York, Barry said she had to identify what the most popular items were.

"I kind of had to dial in to what I know," Barry said. "Of course, we do a lot of special cake orders and things like that."

The bakery has already established a number of regular customers, according to Barry.

"They've been really supportive," Barry said. "

The bakery draws its name from Barry's middle name, Ivy, and a nickname for her partner, Ryan Ashley, who established a name for himself in Asheville crafting street poems on a typewriter, and also works weddings.

Ivy and the Poet's interior decor is reminiscent of a European cafe, a nod to Barry's background in textile design in college. The stylings also reflect Barry's love for travel, as she visited Spain and France in March.

The bakery shop even features a typewriter to honor Ashley.

The couple moved to Western Carolina in 2008 and currently rent a Capitola Mill apartment. Ashley said he was proud of his partner's commitment to excellence.

"She went through so many different recipes to get it right, and to get it to the standard that she had when she was a kid," Ashley said. "My profile, my palette is not as refined as hers. I always thought they all tasted good. But she nailed it."

Ivy and the Poet is open Wednesday through Sunday and is available on Facebook, by calling 828-649-8373 or emailing ivyandthepoet@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Marshall bakery brings New York City standard of excellence to Madison