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CNN Live Sunday

Lost Art Helps Unemployed Workers Rake in Dough

Aired August 18, 2002 - 18:25   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: In these uncertain economic times, many people who have been laid off from one industry are looking for job security in another. The problem is, how do they make the transition? CNN's Brian Palmer looks at how a lost art is helping some unemployed workers rake in some much-needed dough.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. So take a piece of dough and line up.

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): David Bernstein taught baking in the Army.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How much is four times four?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 16.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 16.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One pound of milk powder. Come on!

PALMER: He's a third-generation baker.

DAVID BERNSTEIN, INSTRUCTOR: We're the only school, I think, in the metropolitan area that is teaching artisan baking, strictly artisan bread baking, you understand, which is hand. It's a lost art. All the old-time bread bakers are all in the cemetery, you know, except for me, thank God.

PALMER: Now retired, he teaches job-seeking New Yorkers the art of artisan baking. Small batches of bread and cakes made by hand.

(on camera): You're retired, and yet you're here. This is not exactly retirement.

BERNSTEIN: I'm having fun. I'm having fun. Can't you see I'm having fun? I've got good students. They're all enthusiastic. You know, they're all motivated. And they love it. Tell him that you love it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do love it.

BERNSTEIN: See that?

PALMER (voice-over): Oliver Bradford was a cook. He plans to open his own bread bakery in Harlem. OLIVER BRADFORD: I like bread, period. It's spiritual. It's alive. You create it, you bake it, it comes alive.

PALMER: Laura Pierce says she'll be working with Bradford after they finish the 240-hour training.

LAURA PIERCE: I used to work for an umbrella company, and now we got laid off because of the cutbacks. Came here because I love to cook. And I wanted to learn how to make breads and pastries.

PALMER: Peggy Moore was a producer in advertising and film.

PEGGY MOORE: This has always been my kind of passion. And I was already unemployed. I've been unemployed, lost my job last July.

PALMER: The artisan baking program was funded with a grant from the U.S. Labor Department. The baking center is part of a national program to train workers for industries that need them, like artisan baking.

REBECCA LURIE, CONSORTIUM FOR WORKER EDUCATION: Our hope is to have workers develop to be the best entry-level employee, and then have access to skills training so they can move up.

PALMER: And with bakeries looking for new talent, they are moving up.

JESSE KIRSCH, TRIBECA OVEN: The reason why I'm here today is because we have needs. We have -- you know, we're growing. We need people who can mix and shape and bake breads.

PALMER: Skills that students are learning from Bernstein at the artisan baking center.

BERNSTEIN: Very good. OK. Let's go.

PALMER: Brian Palmer, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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