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FROM SELLING QUICHES TO BECOMING KEESH

Local chef Keith Cedotal is a pastry one-man show

Story by ALYSSA HIGH | Photography by JESSICA TURNER

A quiche made with spinach and goat cheese.

KEITH CEDOTAL practically grew up in the kitchen. Between his French and Mexican grandparents, Cedotal was exposed to many different cooking styles and flavors. Far from the gadgets found in the high-end eateries in his portfolio, Cedotal learned to cook by eye and taste. “I just remember watching them cook and I was always amazed by the flavors of their dishes,” Cedotal says. “They both inspired me because they were both so humble and confident in their skills.”

Cedotal brings these blended cultures and experience in Dallas’ top restaurants to his own “bakeaurant,” called KEESH, or Keith’s Epic East-Side House.

“I’m a Texas native,” he says. “But I got to visit my family in France this past year, and I thought that I’d kind of make it (KEESH) a Texas bakery on tour and give it a French twist.”

These inspirations are evident in his pastry menu, with current items like a breakfast taco “KEESH” with housemade salsa or a chocolate pecan eclair with brown butter custard. The menu

A savories and pastries box is available for delivery.

rotates regularly to keep up with seasonal trends.

Cedotal was also influenced by his history as a chef in many of Dallas’ top restaurants. He started his career at The Art Institute of Dallas, before working as a pastry chef for venues like Hotel ZaZa, the Adolphus, Craft, Uchi and the Joule Hotel.

“I took a little bit from everybody, the good and the bad,” he says. “After working with so many people, you get to a point where you’re like ‘I can do this,’ and I’ve learned a lot from their knowledge and education.”

The “bake-aurant” serves more than pastries and token keeshes. Cedotal handmakes a seasonal fruit jam (apple-jalapeño), granola, pickles, hummus and hot pockets. For Thanksgiving, KEESH is preparing East-Side pumpkin pie, White Rock apple-pecan pie, savory turkey KEESH, light and buttery dinner roals, spicy or sweet cranberry sauce and turkey bone broth to round out the feast. These items are available to order online now.

While Cedotal started the business baking the pastries in his home kitchen, the pastries soon took over, and he began baking in a ghost kitchen downtown. He then delivers them himself to East Dallas and Lake Highlands. But he’s on the hunt for a building to turn KEESH into a local spot.

“I love Dallas,” Cedotal says. “It reminds me of San Antonio’s vibe, so I wanted to focus on the community and the east side.”

Customers can order by 1 p.m. Thursdays and receive their pastries and other foods hand-delivered that Saturday or Sunday from 8-11 a.m. for a $4 delivery fee. From order to delivery, Cedotal is KEESH’s one-man show. Some of the eggs used in the pastries are even from his own backyard, where he has seven pet chickens.

Cedotal named his first three chickens after the Golden Girls, and after two of them died, he got two more: Heckle and Jeckle. Four chickens later, (Stevie, Amy, Plum and Violet) Cedotal’s husband said, “enough,” and Cedotal was left with seven bakery helpers.

“It helps with egg production,” he says. “It’s weird and they’re a weird animal, but I love it.”

“I took a little bit from everybody.”

KEESH, keeshbakery.com, keith@ keeshbakery.com

September MLS home sale statistics*, plus annual totals area home valuesREAL ESTATE REPORT

SUB SOLD SOLD Year-To-Date Year-To-Date Avg Days on Avg. Sales Avg. Sales AREA SEPT ‘21 SEPT ‘22 Sales ‘22 Sales ‘21 Market YTD Price YTD ‘22 Price YTD ‘21 1 4 2 22 31 14 $414,054.00 $390,574.00 2 8 4 54 68 15 $387,110.00 $309,674.00 3 7 8 62 62 19 $352,189.00 $304,602.00 4 19 19 177 206 24 $300,387.00 $229,833.00 5 0 0 3 0 12 $415,667.00 $- 6 1 2 16 21 20 $723,769.00 $567,723.00 7 3 5 71 51 17 $654,851.00 $591,877.00 8 4 1 18 30 15 $738,486.00 $535,717.00 9 4 6 52 70 20 $604,119.00 $545,721.00 10 9 11 120 78 21 $217,679.00 $248,108.00 11 1 1 13 21 9 $736,625.00 $681,340.00 12 0 3 14 18 6 $907,500.00 $659,472.00 13 8 11 100 103 20 $631,728.00 $553,922.00 14 3 2 29 22 10 $634,564.00 $547,068.00 15 5 9 42 62 22 $556,748.00 $477,742.00 TOTAL 76 84 793 843 244 $8,275,476.00 $6,643,373.00 AVG 5.06 5.60 52.86 56.20 16.26 $551,698.40 $442,891.53

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STEVE CAIRNS STEVECAIRNS@EBBY.COM 972-740-2517

*Statistics are compiled by Ebby Halliday Realtors, and are derived from Dallas Multiple Listing Service (MLS). Numbers are believed to be reliable, but are not guaranteed. The Advocate and Ebby Halliday Realtors are not responsible for the accuracy of the information.

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in a pickle

THE KINGS & QUEENS OF LOW-KEY ATHLETICS

Story by RACHEL STONE Photography by EMIL LIPPE

They call Cynthia PaineDrennan the pickleball pusher.

She’s brought at least a dozen people into the fast-growing sport, described as a cross between tennis and pingpong, and she plays every day. Paine-Drennan packs paddles and balls and plays pickleball on vacation. She uses tournaments for fundraising, and although she has a career and volunteers at her kid’s school, she generally organizes her life around playing pickleball.

“I didn’t say I was good at it,” she says after whiffing a shot. “But I love it.”

With its ridiculous name and cult-like status, it’s easy to make fun of pickleball. But the sport is addictive and rewarding, players say. It’s a cardio workout and a social outing that can seriously shake the blues away.

Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the world, with an estimated increase of 40% to 4.8 million players last year, according to a 2022 report from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association.

Interviews with about 15 people in Dallas who play pickleball daily turned up no one who played before 2017; most took it up in 2019 or later. Pickleball is taking over rec centers and tennis courts all over town due to high demand. The City of Dallas Park and Recreation Department has reconfigured at least five public tennis courts to the 50% smaller pickleball courts in the past year, says Assistant Director M. Renee Johnson, who has also taken up the sport and plays every Wednesday at Thurgood Marshall Rec Center in Red Bird.

Indoor pickleball courts can be found at about 20 rec centers around Dallas, and there is a game somewhere every day.

The premium outdoor courts at Campbell-Green rec center in Far North Dallas can draw 50-60 players at a time, who mark their place in line by shoving the handles of their paddles into the chainlink fence.

At the Lake Highlands North Rec Center, about 30 players take turns, two to a side, on four pickleball courts painted into the floor of the basketball gym. Most of them are here every Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., but they also see each other at Cole Park, Samuell-Grand and Walnut Hill Rec Center.

There is a no-nonsense urgency to turn-taking — Who’s next? Whose turn is it? Who’s playing? Cheers and congratulatory paddle taps are mixed with light-hearted trash talk. But it’s not like things get heated.

“We call it chuckleball,” says MerriLee Anderson, who started playing after the start of the pandemic.

“That was my lifesaver. That’s the only time I was seeing people.”

Pickleball has since become a thing at her church, Northridge Presbyterian, and it’s a growing trend among neighborhood churches that have gyms they can convert to courts.

Joleen Decle of East Dallas started playing about two years ago when a friend who works for a pickleball company took her out to Cole Park. This was before the tennis courts were converted, and they used tape to mark out pickleball courts.

Now she plays at rec centers all over town, and she organizes the Lake Highlands group, sending out a group email and overseeing the system of play — paddles are stacked on the bleachers to mark players’ places in line. She recently celebrated her birthday with rec center pals at Chicken N Pickle, a restaurant and bar in Grand Prairie that has multiple indoor and outdoor courts.

“The nicest thing about pickleball is that it’s a social event,” she says.

Decle used to play racquetball, and lots of former tennis players take up pickleball, but plenty of players have no prior experience with racket sports.

“Most of the people we play with are older and retired,” Decle says. “Some locations have reputations for being very competitive.”

Getting into pickleball is inexpensive. There are start-up sets with two paddles and balls costing less than $20. A good paddle can be had for $30-$70, and a set of balls costs less than $10. Tennis fashions are part of the fun for some, however, and opportunities abound to spend money on pickleball gear.

On Cloud tennis shoes and Lululemon (or knockoff) skirts are trendy among the pickleball set in Oak Cliff.

Jan and Jim Dauterman of Preston Hollow started playing at the Walnut Hill Rec Center about a year ago because they wanted a little exercise and socializing without having to join a country club.

Now they play four or five times a week at various rec centers around town.

“We’re not competitive,” Jan Dauterman says. “We’ve had a lot of fun meeting people and playing with different folks.”

Pickleball is a professional sport with televised matches that are played around the world. But it’s also accessible for many people of all ages and easy to pick up. The game was invented for children in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington. It was named the official sport of the state of Washington this year.

Basics

A pickleball court is 20 feet by 44 feet, about half the size of a regulation tennis court, with doubles or singles using the same lines. It is played with paddles, not rackets, and light plastic balls with holes. A pickleball net is a couple of inches lower than a tennis net in the center. A 7-foot box directly in front of the net on both sides is known as “the kitchen,” or non-volley zone. Players cannot hit the ball from this box unless it has bounced once.

Rules

Games are usually played to 11 and won by two, with only the serving side winning points. Serves alternate between the right and left sides of the court. A ball that hits the baseline or sideline line is in. A server faults if the ball lands inside the kitchen or on its line. Unlike tennis, there’s only one shot at the serve, which must hit the diagonal crosscourt. Underhand serves only in pickleball, and they must be from the waist, with contact on the upswing. Drop serves are also allowed. The “two-bounce rule” means a serve must bounce once before it is returned, and the return must also bounce once before the opposite player can hit. After that, “volleys” are allowed. That is, hitting the ball before it has bounced.

Terms

Dink : This is an onomatopoeia for a soft shot that usually lands in the opponent’s kitchen. Kitchen: This 7-foot zone is essential to the game, and strategies are built around it. If a player’s foot or even part of their clothing is on or over the line while returning a volley, it is a fault. Players’ feet cannot land in the kitchen in execution of a shot, even after the ball is dead. It’s similar to an offsides rule and best to stay out of the kitchen. Rally: Volleying, or hitting the ball before it bounces, is not allowed until the third shot. A rally is the continuous play before a fault.

FOLK SINGER. POLITICAL ACTIVIST. COUNSELOR. TEACHER. ZONING QUEEN.

Claire Stanard is a career collector helping to make important decisions for Dallas

Interview by ALYSSA HIGH | Photography by YUVIE STYLES