Los Gatos Weekly-Times Photograph by George Sakkestad Bob Cancellieri, owner of the Saratoga Plaza Bakery, holds up a platter of fresh-baked Christmas cookies. Pies fly and bakers sing at Saratoga Plaza Bakery By Suzanne Cristallo If you see a pie flying, hear a tenor singing and smell a cake baking, it means "Sourdough Bob," alias Bob Cancellieri, is busy in his Saratoga Plaza Bakery. During the dark hours of the morning, he fills his ovens with the softly yielding dough that blossoms into soft breads, muffins and rolls, flaky pie crusts and layered pastries. For the 40 years they have lived and worked in Saratoga, it's been that way--Bob and wife Shirley, seven days a week--creating hunger-rousing goodies. First it was in the Corinthian Corners building for nine years, then in the Plaza ever since. "I'm the patriarch in town now, ever since the Buteras sold out," Bob says, referring to the several brothers who owned the Buy and Save Market in town for some 50 years. Besides wafting aromas, the 40 years have been filled with passion, fun and family--and lately, even the little pizza and egg rolls the bakery has been offering. The passion can be witnessed occasionally in the form of a flying pie when things aren't going just right. "I really don't throw a pie against the wall that often," Bob explains, "but I do warn new employees and let them know it's nothing personal." The fun comes in singing--Shirley with her Sweet Adelines, the Sacred Heart Choir and the Panhandlers, and Bob with the Valley Singers, the Garden City Chorus and the Skillet Likkers, a local country and western band. It's with the latter that he is known as "Sourdough." Beyond the public appearances, practice for the choral groups alone consumes six hours every week. "I don't know if the audiences enjoy what we do as much as we do," Bob says. Of course, there's a lot of humming and some outright solos around the bakery, earning Bob the title of "singing baker" with some customers. It's probably the only place customers might hear the Cancellieris singing together. Shirley comes from Hackensack, N.J., and Bob was born in Watsonville. They met at an Italian wedding some 34 years ago, where she was a guest and he delivered the cake. "I was smitten," he recalls. Bob grew up on the family farm eating his mother's apple pie. But it wasn't until he had grown, moved away and had become a baker that he realized there was more to pie. "When I went home with this new perspective, I told my Mom her pie tasted terrible," he reveals. "The next visit, she had a new recipe. After 40 years of the same pie, she changed." There is a lesson in there somewhere. The bakery is where the Cancellieri children grew up. Young Rob, 28, is now a baker himself, working with his parents. Daughter Sheryl is in merchandising, promoting her own creation, a huggable pillow doll called "Anybody." Recently, the bakery has become "more like a deli," according to the Cancellieris, who have added pizza by the slice and sandwiches ranging from pastrami and turkey to roast beef and ham. The egg rolls come in five-inch-long shells filled with vegetables and pork. But a full line of bakery goods is still the main offering, with decorated cakes their signature. Saratoga Plaza Bakery, 14440 Big Basin Way, Saratoga. Open Mon.-Sat. 6 a.m.- 6 p.m., Sun. 6 a.m.-5 p.m. 867-9606. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, December 16, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.