Baker

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Baker/19″/mike1st/LK/mark2nd

By ELIZABETH HAYES

Staff Reporter

La Mascota Bakery’s customers are also its ambassadors.

All morning long, they stream into the Boyle Heights shop many of them regulars who have been coming here for years and know exactly what they want.

From there, the bakery’s cookies, sweet rolls and tamales will find their way all over town, from LAPD substations and construction sites, to a Century City bank and a Mexican restaurant on Olvera Street.

“Now you can feed the whole army there,” Rosina Valencia, one of four siblings who run the bakery, tells customer Sylvia Ramirez, who is en route to work at a Beverly Hills health club laden with bags of goodies.

The small bakery with the bright pink fa & #231;ade stands out along an otherwise drab strip of Whittier Boulevard dotted with auto repair shops. Inside, Valencia and three female workers, all clad in pink uniforms, stand behind cookie-filled glass cases and greet each customer with a cheerful “Buenos Dias!”

It’s almost 8 a.m. and Valencia’s brother, Edward Salcedo, is finishing up about 12 hours’ worth of baking back in the kitchen, while brother Ygnacio, or “Nacho” as he is known, mans the cash register.

“You got your ‘chaparral?’ ” Ygnacio calls out to Eddie Banks, an LAPD officer, teasing the man about his mispronunciation of the bakery’s top-selling beverage, champurrado, which is made from cornmeal, milk, Mexican chocolate and a dash of cinnamon. As Banks hauls away plastic bags of goodies, Valencia says, “Have a wonderful and blessed weekend.”

In an adjoining workroom, three women spread freshly ground cornmeal onto husks, adding layers of pork, chicken, cheese and chili. The raw tamales are then piled into large steamers.

As big-band music plays in the background, a dozen or so patrons out front stand in line, many of them speaking Spanish. They wear Postal Service uniforms, cowboy boots, Raiders hats and jeans, as well as business suits. Some are recent immigrants from Central America, others grew up in Boyle Heights before moving to Orange County or other suburbs and have swung by on their way to work.

Al Silvas is typical; he’s been a La Mascota customer for 20 years. “I jump off the freeway, pick up some bread for the office and make everyone happy,” says Silvas, an LAPD detective.

Minutes later, Maria Escamilla is ordering pan dulce for her co-workers at the Red Cross. “They’ve got to have it at least twice a week,” she explains.

A young boy points to a pink elephant-shaped cookie he wants his grandmother to buy for him. Another customer, a middle-aged woman, sweeps her hand along the glass cases and says, “If I were 20 years old, I’d take all of this, too.”

Theresa Villa stops to pick up several tamales. Her brother-in-law died the day before and she is picking up several to bring as comfort food to her sister in San Diego.

“I’m sorry to hear that, mija,” Valencia tells Villa, wishing her a safe trip.

As the line disperses, Valencia wipes down the countertop, before another wave of customers floods to the counter. She and her three brothers have known the bakery all their lives. Their father, 92-year-old Ygnacio Salcedo Sr., started La Mascota named for his home town in Jalisco, Mexico in 1952, at a location farther west on Whittier Boulevard in Boyle Heights.

The business moved to its current location in 1959. Their father does occasionally stop by to check on things, but not this morning. Their mother, Vidala, who died five years ago, also taught the children the business. Pictures of the both parents hang by the cash register.

Both Ygnacio and Valencia, who wears a button saying “pray until something happens,” treat customers like old friends. And many of them are; one leaves Ygnacio an invitation to an Easter play, another asks one of the workers why she hasn’t gone back to school.

Art Perez, a flour supplier and another longtime customer, strolls in and Valencia gives him a hug. After filling his coffee cup, Ygnacio and Valencia chat with Perez about the bakery’s much-anticipated expansion, which will soon double the size of the operation.

“Have we outgrown this place, or what?” Valencia says to Perez.

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