Made by Mom Gift Guide: Raleigh's Michael's English Muffins serves up billowy puffs of buttery goodness

Comisar's family has been deeply rooted in the restaurant industry for nearly a century. Her grandparents created an iconic restaurant in Cincinnati, the Maisonette, which was the longest, consecutive running five-star restaurant in the United States. Her father and his older brother would eventually take over the restaurant. And there have been other family restaurants as well — a total of seven during Comisar's lifetime. "It is no surprise," she tells me, "that I cut my teeth in the industry as a bus girl in one of our restaurants."

Comisar left the industry for a bit to work in fashion in New York before getting back into the business, working as a general manager at one restaurant for a small artisan bakery elsewhere and as a boutique wine distributor for Sour Grapes in Raleigh. As she got to know the local food scene and the people in it, she was drawn to the idea of launching her own food business and introducing the region to what a true English muffin is. "I used these relationships as a spring board to break in to the scene and have now successfully introduced a whole new region to this decadent and comforting food," she tells me.

My family is among them. We have fallen in love with Michael's English Muffins, which is named after Comisar's father, during the past many months. These are nothing like the English muffins you find at the grocery store. These are billowy puffs of buttery goodness that are delicious as a sandwich, with butter and jam or on their own. They also take some work to make, but Comisar is spurred on by her father's advice: "Attention to detail. Attention to detail. Attention to detail."

"The English muffins go through a 12 to 24-hour process where every gram that goes into the batch matters, including the long man hours they take to prepare," says Comisar, who lives in north Raleigh with her husband and young child. "It is a true labor of love and you can taste the difference."

Baking was soothing to me. It saved my life when I felt it was falling apart. Baking is precise. You follow a recipe. It was the first time since my dad died where there was instruction on what to do and how to do it. It gave me a sense of control over my life again because if you do the same thing over and over again you get the same results. It was comforting and, eventually, I felt safe again even when I didn’t have flour on my hands, in my hair or on my clothing.

Not to mention the actual motion of forming the muffins with your hands was also a form of therapy for me. It gave me a purpose again. Everyone grieves in their own way. Mine was through working and creating Michael’s English Muffins, named after my dad. As I started to heal, we started to create more flavors and grow. We now have six flavors and I’m currently working on the seventh.

We are always growing in many ways as a company and as a team. I have an amazing manager, Tammy, who also is a mother and runs the store and day-to-day production. Her work enables me to run the wholesale as well as grow the company. We started with one to two wholesale accounts and a farmers’ market here and there. Now we currently have around 30 wholesale accounts. We are regular vendors at five farmers markets, as well as our occasional participation in pop-up markets all around the Triangle. We wholesale in different areas of North Carolina, reaching as far as the Inn on Turner in Beaufort and we are always looking for new opportunities to grow.

We also saw a huge increase in companies we work with, specifically The Produce Box. Grocery delivery is huge and doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon and will be critical to our ongoing success as well! Without our wholesale partners, we wouldn’t be where we are today.