“These Calories can do you no harm”

By M. Leth-Soerensen
Sun contributor
There is a little green gingerbread building in the midst of Glen Arbor with its door beckoning you to enter. The signs posted announce tea and pastries, and you are visiting “Thyme Out”. You walk into a lovely space filled with delicate pastries, cakes, tortes and other edibles as well as colorful and fun ware reminding you of summer celebrations and entertainment. This little place is tastefully restored and the transformation over the last five years has raised many questions in the community about the fate of the building.

Carol Worsley bought the place 12 years ago and rented it out for some years to help finance the purchase. There was a video store here and later a wine shop. When the transformation started all-wooden surfaces were scraped and refinished or painted. A local contractor suggested wallboard, but Carol vehemently defended the rustic woodsy cottage look and preserving what was already there. The name relates to Carols’ wish to provide her customers and community friends with an escape from busy life as well as her love of the herb Thyme.
Carol Worsley is an attractive Scandinavian-looking woman of Finnish descent who say’s she is “filling in the gaps” with delectables in our little community. She has sought a niche and is not seeking to compete with her business neighbors. She has been here summers since she was a young woman in the 1960’s when she and her husband bought 5 acres of land on Miller Hill. My morning meeting with Carol is over freshly brewed latte with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a delicious and crisp tasting lemon poppy seed cake. We sit at one of a couple of tables in her shop looking out over the busy street of the town while in our minds we travel to several continents with Carol telling me bits and pieces of her life, her vision of this shop, and future plans.
Behind the building is her lovely little garden where guests are invited and encouraged to sit among the purple lavender and giant hostas and admire the giant blazed roses and the hydrangea tree while listening to flowing water, birdsongs, or the distant street sounds. This is, like her shop, a true little oasis. She is also the owner of “the old farm house”, known to some as the former antique store The Brotherton House. This building serves presently as a warehouse for this little shop. Future plans for this -maybe the loveliest of Glen Arbor’s houses- is a bed and breakfast that hopefully will open next summer.
Like her Finnish grandmothers, Carol believes in using the best ingredients in her food. As a little girl growing up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan she helped pick seasonal berries and learned to make fresh pastries without ever consulting cookbooks. Her local pastry chef Susan McConnel shares the same vision and uses less sugar and shortening but an abundance of fresh ingredients to provide most flavors and attractive looks. Carol, with the help of Martha Ryan and other talented cooks, creates the cakes, scones, bars and cookies as well as making you a specialty coffee, a low calorie very fruity smoothie or providing you with regular coffee or tea. The creative team also experiments with making bruchetta and other delicacies.
The display of sweets includes luscious looking tart cherry tarts in pastry shell with hazelnut crusts, mascarpone and white chocolate fruit tart with chocolate crust, lemon cheesecake tarts, cherry clafouti with cherry cabernet, walnut caramel nut bars with chocolate glaze, coconut lovers bars and espresso mousse. On the counter is a display of a variety of truffles and shortbreads and the shelves display a variety of specialty jams, sauces, salad dressings and salsas. Thyme Out is also a place where you can find unique gifts. Here are picnic baskets with all you need as well as colorful and artsy gift items and paper products for fun eating.
From mining towns in northern Michigan and simple living, Carol’s marriage to a naval officer took her to Japan where she studied fine cooking with the chef on the naval base. Later she familiarized herself with Provence, France and the regions food culture. Here she met and befriended the famous cookbook author Julia Child. Carol traveled Europe many times with her husband and her three children, studied food, and developed a love for antiques wherever she went. Her family settled in Birmingham, Michigan where Carol’s commercial kitchen served as a teaching kitchen for many years for a number of cooking classes. Here she cooked for friends and family and participated in amateur theater. She would bring her children up to Glen Arbor summers, providing them with the informal life of wearing swimsuits and sneakers all day in contrast to the formality of affluent Birmingham. Today a new generation has made their footprints and grandma Carol allows her four grandchildren treats from the store when they visit on the days the store is closed. Her grandson has named her his winter Grandma, referring to the much more time he’ll spend with grandma in the off-season. Carol seeks to spend more time in the Leelanau community she so loves. She plans to stay open as late as possible in the fall and will have her business open weekends through Christmas.
The taste of Carol’s flowerless chocolate torte brought lines of this Jerome Stern poem “The Taste of Life” to mind:
“These calories can do you no harm, these are the calories of life, that nourish the soul, enrich the psyche, and help you make it through the daily round at the mill with the slaves. These are not the dangerous empty calories of nutritionist’s nightmares. Empty calories are empty of thought, of attention, of concentration. Empty calories are those sticky wads people are stuffing into their mouths while they are arguing about the lawn.”
August 15th will be a day of painting in the garden where Joanne Wilson from her studio Creative Corner will host a workshop and Carol will provide gourmet food for participants. The event will take place at the Arbor Inn (next to Glen Arbor township Hall) from 8:30 am to 4 pm. Coffee and pastry will be served in the morning and later a lunch. Any art media and people with all level of skills are invited. A demonstration of floral paintings and techniques will be shared. Please call Joanne at 334 6120 before Tuesday for reservation.