Joseph's Storehouse Baking Company

San Antonians who fondly remember the buttery yeast rolls, spicy jalapeño potato soup, and towering fudgy cupcakes at Joseph's Storehouse Baking Company need wait no longer to once again taste those favorites. Michele McCurdy-Buonacorsi, founder of the bakery/restaurant has published a cookbook, Joseph's Storehouse Baking Company: From My Heart to Yours, with all the recipes from the long-closed business, allowing cooks to recreate those dishes and hundreds more in their own kitchens. The book includes some 720 recipes in all. She estimates 40% of the recipes are from Joseph's Storehouse, the remaining 60% those she's gathered and savored in her home through the decades. "I always wanted to write a cookbook," she says, noting that she and husband Gary Buonacorsi, who she married eight years ago, have nine children and 14 grandchildren between them. "I wanted to leave something for them. I'm not going to be around forever, and I wanted to write out these recipes." McCurdy-Buonacorsi started out with the goal of devoting 30 minutes a day working on the cookbook. Quickly, she became so engaged by the project that she ended up spending six to eight hours a day for the last three years writing the 475-page book. She describes the book as "a record of over 40 years of cooking and the culmination of my recipe scrapbook, filled just as I would fill a kitchen journal that I want to pass along to my children as they start their own homes. It's a collection of some of my favorite recipes, the ones I love and the ones I've shared with my family and friends. Woven into many of them are my favorite flavors. They're familiar and satisfying. Some are inspired by a sweet childhood memory, a European classic, or a time-honored restaurant or bakeshop. They are flavors that I will never tire of. They have meaning to my family and have been accompanied with laughs, tears, and many memories."

San Antonians who fondly remember the buttery yeast rolls, spicy jalapeño potato soup, and towering fudgy cupcakes at Joseph's Storehouse Baking Company need wait no longer to once again taste those favorites. Michele McCurdy-Buonacorsi, founder of the bakery/restaurant has published a cookbook, Joseph's Storehouse Baking Company: From My Heart to Yours, with all the recipes from the long-closed business, allowing cooks to recreate those dishes and hundreds more in their own kitchens. The book includes some 720 recipes in all. She estimates 40% of the recipes are from Joseph's Storehouse, the remaining 60% those she's gathered and savored in her home through the decades. "I always wanted to write a cookbook," she says, noting that she and husband Gary Buonacorsi, who she married eight years ago, have nine children and 14 grandchildren between them. "I wanted to leave something for them. I'm not going to be around forever, and I wanted to write out these recipes." McCurdy-Buonacorsi started out with the goal of devoting 30 minutes a day working on the cookbook. Quickly, she became so engaged by the project that she ended up spending six to eight hours a day for the last three years writing the 475-page book. The idea for Joseph's Storehouse Baking Company began in 1987 after Patrick left his position as pastor of Shearer Hills Baptist Church to start the non-denominational River City Fellowship. Pastoring a small, new church meant living on a greatly reduced salary and, with five children, money was tight. After taking a bread-baking class from an Alamo Heights bread baker, McCurdy-Buonacorsi, a stay-at-home mom, was encouraged by her friend Connie Briscoe to sell the loaves of bread she had been giving away to friends. McCurdy-Buonacorsi was baking the bread using organic Montana wheat that she ground herself. Briscoe sold the first loaves at the hair salon she used and both stylists and customers wanted more. Shocked that there was a market for her cooking, McCurdy-Buonacorsi baked more bread and added lunch sandwiches to the mix at her customers' request. Soon she was being approached by groups to prepare box lunches for business meetings. Since her single oven at home wouldn't support larger orders, she rented space at a small nearby restaurant and used their three ovens in the evenings. She quickly outgrew that space and, a few months later, rented a space at a wholesale bakery near the airport where she had use of its 10 ovens at night after the bakery closed. In 1992, business had increased to the point that McCurdy-Buonacorsi and Patrick left the ministry and opened Joseph's, naming it for the Biblical story told in Genesis in which Joseph stockpiled grain in storehouses in preparation for a great famine. "When I learned to bake bread, the wheat I used came in 50-pound buckets that we stored in the garage, so I thought the name based on grain storage was fitting," She describes the book as "a record of over 40 years of cooking and the culmination of my recipe scrapbook, filled just as I would fill a kitchen journal that I want to pass along to my children as they start their own homes. It's a collection of some of my favorite recipes, the ones I love and the ones I've shared with my family and friends. It is important to me because the dishes that fill these pages have real meaning and emotion attached to them. Woven into many of them are my favorite flavors. They're familiar and satisfying. Some are inspired by a sweet childhood memory, a European classic, or a time-honored restaurant or bakeshop. They are flavors that I will never tire of. They have meaning to my family and have been accompanied with laughs, tears, and many memories. Some have their own story and meaning. It's a compendium of all that I've learned about home cooking and at its heart are the treasured recipes that have proven to do one thing, make people happy."

Michele McCurdy-Buonacorsi was never trained as a professional chef because her career as a chef began by accident. In 1987 her husband at the time was a pastor. They made the decision to leave the main line denomination to start a small Christian fellowship. She was a stay-at-home mom raising four small children with one soon to be on the way. It didn't take long for her to realize that they could not survive on the small salary her husband received from the church. During that time, she met a woman who sold organic whole wheat and milled her own flour to make this delicious whole wheat bread. Michele was intrigued by the idea, so she contacted her, and she agreed to teach her how to make the bread. She learned quickly and immediately started buying organic whole wheat, milling her own flour, and making bread for her family. Several of her friends had commented that she should sell the bread because it was so delicious. She was shocked, she couldn't imagine anyone wanting to buy something that she made! The holidays were approaching, and things were getting dire financially. One day, her friend, Connie, who knew of her family's financial struggles, called, and said she had a Saturday hair appointment and wanted to know if she could take a few loaves of bread to the beauty salon to sell. Her first response was, "No way!" But after giving it some thought, she figured she could use the money to at least give her kids a Christmas, so she swallowed her pride and put aside her insecurities and hesitatingly agreed. Saturday arrived and she made a few loaves of bread, put them in a pretty basket and sent her on her way. Later that day her friend returned with $100 having sold every loaf of bread that she sent her with. She said that everyone loved the bread. In fact, they loved it so much that they wanted her to come back the following week with more loaves of bread along with sandwiches made on the bread! The following week, she made more bread, a few sandwiches, and some cookies and that's where it all began. At the time, it never occurred to her that hairdressers didn't have time to go out and buy lunch nor did she realize that most women get their hair or nails done at some point. It wasn't long before the news spread. Suddenly, she began to receive calls from other beauty salons and hairdressers asking if she'd come by their salons and bring them lunch. People who had purchased a sandwich while in a salon began calling her and asking her if she would make box lunches for their luncheons and business meetings. With the help of Connie and her ex-husband, they were soon preparing and delivering food daily all over town. It didn't take long before she had more business than the three of them could handle in her small home kitchen. She was earning enough money to support her family and was even able to save a little money on the side. She knew that she was on to something. She also knew that to keep up with the demand and keep her customers satisfied, she would be forced to hire some help and move the production to a larger facility with more ovens and more space. In 1992 she decided to lease a small store front, serving breakfast and lunch. The restaurant was an instant success. McCurdy-Buonacorsi left the bakery in 2000 when she and her husband divorced. A single mom of five, McCurdy-Buonacorsi worked in retail and sold cars for Lexus and Mercedes before becoming a real estate broker in 2007. She remarried eight years ago, and between her and her husband the two of them they have nine children and 14 grandchildren. Knowing that she was not going to be around forever, she wanted to write out the recipes to pass along to her children as they started their own homes. McCurdy-Buonacorsi started out with the goal of devoting 30 minutes a day working on the cookbook. Quickly, she became so engaged by the project that she ended up spending 6 to 8 hours a day writing the 475-page book containing over 700 recipes.