Rosie Gilbreth, 4, and Laila Palmieri, 4, take off running through the apple orchard at the encouragement of Amanda Rainey and Johnny Gilbreth, who are followed by Cheri Palmieri, a family friend, and Micah Gilbreth, 1. Amanda is currently homeschooling her two daughters and this week’s was focused on apples and Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. “I taught them the word “orchard” today,” Amanda remarked to Johnny as they walked.
Bagels are a central part of the Jewish faith and Amanda’s heritage, “the Jewish people’s love language,” as she says. Amanda Rainey grew up around bagels, recalling them served with cream cheese and lox at every family function and a frozen six-pack in every relatives’ freezer.
After meeting Sarah Medcalf when they were both new mothers searching for a mom-friendly breakfast place, the idea of Goldie’s Bagels was born: “bagels made by moms for your mornings, meetings and mazel tovs.” Before jumping into a brick and mortar location, Goldie’s Bagels is beginning as a pop-up in Pizza Tree’s kitchen, which Amanda’s husband, Johnny, owns.
Sarah Medcalf and Amanda Rainey, left to right, work side by side weighing ingredients for the first dough of the morning. Sarah and Amanda are grateful to Pizza Tree for “incubating our business” and making the start much easier. By partnering with Pizza Tree, Goldie’s Bagels has access to ingredients and equipment they wouldn’t otherwise.
Amanda Rainey’s “Mizzou Hillel We heart Bagels” sticker is front and center as Amanda emails out reminders to the day’s customers to come pick up their bagels. Goldie’s Bagels is far from Amanda’s first bagel experience in Columbia. In the Fall of 2013, Amanda started Bagel Tuesdays at Mizzou Hillel to encourage Jewish students to come in and engage in the culture.
Amanda Rainey puts bagel dough in the oven to bake. Eighteen bagels fit on a tray, and in the oven, and is a multiple of 90, which just so happens to be the perfect batch size of bagels. Eighteen also happens to be a very special number in Judaism as well. The Hebrew letters that spell “chai,” which mean living, add up to 18 in the Jewish numerology form, gematria. Amanda also said that when giving money as gifts, you always receive a multiple of 18, as a symbol of gifting them a good omen for life.
The bagels are handmade by Amanda and Sarah with locally sourced ingredients, and each week a special bagel sandwich is featured for their Monday popup. One of September’s bagel sandwiches was apple, honey and lemon cream cheese on a bagel for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Apples and honey symbolize a sweet new year and are an annual treat at the Rainey household as Amanda and Johnny teach their two young daughters the Jewish religion. This year also featured a special field trip to an apple orchard as a way to combine the homeschooling Amanda is doing for the girls due to COVID and their religious education.
Amanda Rainey takes a photo of this week’s featured bagel for Goldie’s Bagels social media. Amanda hand placed each apple slice and slowly drizzled the honey with consideration making her care for detail evident. According to her partner Sarah, Amanda is the queen of Excel and handles all the spreadsheets for the business, as well as most of the social media.
As typical of moms, Amanda balances a lot between raising, and now homeschooling also, her two daughters, starting a business and maintaining her own faith and health. She does this with grace, seamlessly weaving together the parts of her life that are important: family, bagels, and faith.
Amanda Rainey shows Micah, 1, how to twist an apple off a branch. Each week, Goldie’s Bagels features new sandwiches which Amanda finds inspiration for based on what is in season. On Saturday’s, Amanda and Sarah go to the farmers market to find fresh ingredients for Monday’s pop-up.