With love, Marianne – THE ROCKAWAY TIMES

By Dan Guarino

It’s not easy to start a business, but the Rockaway Peninsula offers a unique mix of factors that make it a great place to start, especially for its many entrepreneurs.

“Living on the quiet beach of Rockaway and having access to the bustling city is a wonderful combination for creating balance in entrepreneurship,” says entrepreneur, yoga teacher, professor and author Dana Humphrey. Humphrey is the co-founder of Rockaway Creates, which helps Rockaway businesses and creatives network and thrive. “Walking on the boardwalk and feeling the salty air allows me to be… more mindful and present… which allows for new ideas and is an ideal recipe for creativity, which I find necessary as a business owner.”

Marianne Bertini, gluten-free baker/owner/founder of Love, Marianne, agrees the recipe is good. “I feel like Rockaway is a community that supports things culinary,” Bertini said. “It’s a very diverse community. People here are willing to try things. You can try and do all kinds of things here!”

That’s when Bertini, an Arverne resident, decided to start her own culinary venture. Love, Marianne offers a variety of colorful cakes and sweets, as well as vegetable dishes, appetizers, and more. Everything is made fresh to order and has names like Brown Buttered Brownies, Salted Carmel Bites, 18 Carat Cake, Cat in the Hat Cake, and Choi, Roasted Peppers, Franklin, and Moxie.

Love, Marianne’s Facebook page is overflowing with pictures of new and different kitchen creations of all kinds, including delicious-looking cakes, tarts and tarts as well as creative dishes fresh from the garden.

Bertini notes: “I also do catering. For two to 24 people, in people’s homes. I do everything – I’m the waiter, the cook, I clean up so they can enjoy their party!”

What sets Love, Marianne apart, however, is what is and isn’t in all of her creations. “I bake gluten-free. We never know when our allergies or tolerances will flare up. It’s amazing what all has gluten in it – salad dressings, sauces, soy sauce.” She also points out that how foods are prepared is important. French fries may be gluten-free, but mozzarella sticks coated in flour and breadcrumbs and fried in the same oil are not.

“Five years ago, this happened to me when I ate peanut butter pretzels. I felt my stomach pushing out.” Her first thought was, “Oh no! I’ve developed a peanut butter allergy!” The next night, when I ate regular pretzels, the same thing happened. “I hadn’t developed a peanut allergy, just a gluten allergy!”

“It takes patience and practice to avoid gluten,” says Bertini. “But my home and my baked goods are gluten-free.”

Although she is not vegan, she works on creating vegan sweets and dishes as well as lactose-free products for her customers.

Gluten-free products like flour weren’t as readily available a few years ago. But even today, Bertini says, “I have to make my own dough,” and working with different ingredients requires creative calculations to get the taste, appearance and texture of each dish just right.

“I think that’s why I enjoy this so much, because it involves a lot of math,” says Bertini, who has worked as a high school math teacher in New York State and New York City for 22 years.

Other experiences also helped her start her own business. “I worked for Walmart, the largest retailer in the world, for seven years. I learned a lot about how to market and present things. I have a degree in marketing. I worked in the hospitality industry – in bars, hotels, restaurants.”

He began cooking at a young age. A Facebook photo shows the young Bertini standing at a “Kenner Easy-Bake oven… waiting for the 100-watt bulb to heat up.”

In the 1980s, she cooked “on a dive boat in the Caribbean. We would take people out for a week. It wasn’t like running to Stop and Shop. If you didn’t have it on the boat, you didn’t have it. I found a recipe called ’18 Carrot Cake.’ That’s what I’ve been doing ever since.” It’s offered in its own section on the Bungalow Bar menu along with her other desserts.

For her Caribbean rum cake recipe, she now uses King Arthur’s gluten-free flour, a rice flour with tapioca flour and xanthan gum. “The gluten in the wheat is what holds it together,” she says. Bertini often has to come up with new, creative ways to adapt recipes. “I enjoy the challenge,” she says.

Since retiring, Bertini has used her business and kitchen skills to start her own business. She also began feeding those in need, learning what it was like from parents who had lived through the Great Depression. On each container, she wrote “Love, Marianne.” And so her company name was born.

“I want to offer really great stuff and not break the bank,” she says, pointing to an $80 gluten-free chocolate cake someone bought in Brooklyn. But locally, she says, “I don’t want to compete with the other bakeries. Because they do what they do well. I do what I do.”

“Every day I learn to do something better.” For example, when she travels she takes extra boxes with her to put her cakes in so that they don’t smear.

“My name is on my business,” Bertini explains, so she works hard to make sure her “products are well presented and are as good as they can be, as far as I can control.” For example, by picking her own blueberries in season. “Oh, sure, I can get blueberries and strawberries (anytime) at the grocery store – no. That’s not OK.”

She is also constantly adapting and testing her offerings. She says her best tasters are the NY Dippers, who dive into the Rockaway sea all year round. “I try things multiple times, and if I’m not satisfied, it doesn’t even go to the Dippers.” She and her husband have been very supportive and even offered her many network contacts for her business.

“My goal is really to find a small place where I can do commercial work, a place to bake. I don’t want to open a bakery. I need a place with a commercial oven and refrigerators where I can store my products. That’s my next step.”

“I love taking care of people. I love feeding people,” says Bertini. And each label is still signed “With love, Marianne.”

You can find Love, Marianne on Facebook, online at www.lovemarianne.com, by phone at 607-745-5883 or by email at [email protected]

Photo courtesy of Love, Marianne.