SELF-CARE AT ITS SWEETEST

BY CHRISTINE EDDINGTON

Tiny little daily luxuries make life sweeter. It’s a universal truth. We know this. Why, then, do we constantly find ourselves just slogging along as though we don’t know that there are simple, delicious delights to be had, easily and daily?

Europeans seem better equipped to make a habit of this notion of intentional daily pleasures. Case in point: One tried-and-true way they build pleasant moments into the week is by stopping in at their neighborhood patisserie every few days. Maybe more. It happens here in the New World, too. The Oklahoma City ex-pat community has discovered Ganache Patisserie, which they visit in droves. Their lead is well worth following.

Add Ganache Patisserie — 13230 Pawnee Dr. in Chisholm Creek — to your orbit and watch. Like any good-for-you routine, at first you’ll have to make a point of remembering to stop off, but after a couple of weeks it will become a wonderful habit. You’ll find yourself smiling more. You’ll no longer see the point of eating a mass-produced croissant; fresh or nothing! And that little bit of alchemy, that dab of magic, is precisely why husband and wife team Matt Ruggi and Laura Szyld opened their French pastry shop and café five years ago. It’s incredibly laborintensive because they do it beautifully right. Neither would have it any other way.

“I had this guy, an older man. He sat down by that column right there,” Ruggi says. “And he calls me over. He had a quiche and a croissant … and he was almost in tears. And he got me in tears. Because he was saying that since he was deployed however many years ago in Europe, he hadn’t had a pastry like that that made him feel that way. So to me, ultimately, that’s what it is — I share a piece of me. We put all our passion into what we do and make someone happy with it.”

The couple met more than a decade ago in Szyld’s native Argentina, through a mutual friend. Ruggi was working in accounting and Szyld held a bachelor’s degree in culinary arts, having decided to follow her passion. She comes from a family of doctors, and had been all set to follow that path herself. “I always said that I was going to be a doctor. But then I realized that in all my spare time the only thing I wanted to do was cook for my friends and family,” she explains. “So it came to a point where I chose to dedicate my life to the thing that I enjoyed the most. And that’s a good thing, even though I love medicine and math and everything. It’s just a matter of doing every day what I love.”

Ruggi and Szyld started dating, and soon decided to go into business together. “We started doing some catering together; we put a catering company together. That went really well,” Ruggi says. “Then we went to Italy, to Europe. And then we decided to move to the States.” The move to Europe was to further hone their culinary craft. Ruggi’s formal education until then had been in accounting, an asset for sure, and he augmented that with pastry chef training. Connecticut was their first home stateside, because Szyld had family in the Northeast.

The couple came to Oklahoma thanks to Szyld’s dad, who was then working at the University of Oklahoma. “He was like, ‘This place is a hidden gem. You have to really come and check it out.’ We’d always wanted to open a place. When we moved to Connecticut, I worked at a hotel for visa purposes,” she says. All the while, she and Ruggi were imagining their own patisserie.

It can be easy to miss the sweet little storefront amid all the hubbub and giant neon guitars in the Chisholm Creek shopping and entertainment center — but through its little door is an immaculate, sunny space dotted with tables and a comfy sofa arranged around the pièce de resistance: the pastry and confection case. As alluring as fine jewels, crafted from the best ingredients in the world, with every component made by hand … this is the essence of Ganache.

“Nothing that we do can be made in less than two days,” Szyld says. Even something simple-seeming, like a mousse cake, is intricately involved with its four layers of cake and myriad components. “You have to bake them before you make mousse … Cake layers will last one or two days in the fridge while you get everything else done. Then you make your own ganaches that actually go into the freezer to be moldable. Then you make your fruit fillings.” On the fourth day, she says, it’s ready to assemble. With a latte, mousse cake makes a satisfying, sweet pick-me-up — or breakfast (we won’t judge).

Szyld and Ruggi also want you to know they’re equally happy to bring Ganache to you. The macaron towers or dessert bars are show-stoppers, just the ticket for a graduation party, baby shower or birthday celebration.

Ganache Patisserie has an outpost at the Museum Store at Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and recently bought a building in the Britton District to house its production kitchen as demand for its artisanal goods increases. Around the corner from the original Ganache is the couple’s other sweetery, Domenico Coffee & Dessert Bar. Restraint is thrown straight out the window at Domenico. Huge, decadent milkshakes and sundaes are big enough for a crowd, and topped with Ganache-grade confections. The “All In,” for example, is 25(!) scoops of ice cream topped with everything: cookies, candies, whipped cream, sauces, chocolate pieces, nuts, chocolate-covered strawberries and more. Big or small in scale, a sweeter life awaits. •