Stopping in at Baba’s House

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This article was published 17/09/2021 (1661 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Call her Baba.

Orysia Ehrmantraut is the owner of Baba’s House, an ice cream shop and bakery that has brightened the corner of McGregor Street and Bannerman Avenue with Ukrainian charm for the past seven years.

It doesn’t take long to feel welcome in Baba’s House — Ehrmantraut greets you with a warm, hospitable smile before the door has closed.

There are linoleum floors checkered with pink, blue and yellow tiles, and on the windowsill sit matching flowers and knick-knacks from Ukraine. There are honey cookies, banana loaf and peanut butter marshmallow squares at one counter; at another is a rainbow of ice creams beneath golden waffle cones.

“Everything here is not the kind of things you can buy at the grocery store,” Ehrmantraut said, her deep-set smile still making apples of her cheeks.

The shop is full of mementos to Ehrmantraut’s family. The name itself is an homage to her own grandmother, the ice cream flurries are named after her grandchildren and a needlework banner that reads “Home is where you make it” hangs from a pillar.

Ehrmantraut pauses to stare at the needlework.

“My mother made that,” she said as tears welled in her eyes. Her mother recently passed away.

“When they say funerals and things during COVID are tough — you’re only allowed so many people,” Ehrmantraut said. “My heart goes out to all of these people who’ve had to experience this.”

The pandemic has also been difficult for Ehrmantraut for lesser, yet still important, reasons.

Business slowed down. Custom cake orders ground to a halt. Like many small business owners, she worried she might not be able to keep her doors open.

“That crosses your mind all the time, because money is tight for everyone,” she said. “And ice cream and desserts are a luxury.”

But since restrictions have loosened, orders have begun to flow again. One popular order is korovai, or wedding bread. It’s a braided bread, round as a cake, and decorated with rope-like weaves and doves made from flour and water.

At Baba’s House, ice cream is cheap ($3 for a cone). Those prices are a little tough to sustain, Ehrmantraut said, but she’s found it necessary to keep it accessible to the broader neighbourhood.

And ultimately, that’s what she loves the most about running her shop.

“It’s the people,” she said. “It’s been a wonderful, wonderful neighbourhood.”

She beams with pride when she talks about her regulars sticking their heads in the door and asking if there’s apple pie, cabbage soup or borscht today — or about the time she insisted a group of rowdy boys say “please” and “thank you” before handing them their ice cream cones, and how the next time they came, they elbowed a new friend and told him: “You have to say please and thank you at Baba’s House.”