At Work With... Bonnie Skillman, owner Sweet Temptations

My husband and I traveled across the country for a year and a half, and that's when I started in food service. I waitressed in Cape Cod in Massachusetts for two summers. I had never been in food service.

I liked the food service part, so when we got back, I got an associate's degree in science, in baking, from Tidewater Community College.

I worked in restaurants, and I noticed I enjoyed making rolls and stuff like that more than seafood. I just enjoyed the - I don't know - the yeast and flour. So then I took courses in pastry. And the last place I worked was the Founders Inn when they just opened, and they had a full pastry department. That was fun. That was nice. We did everything. We did all the desserts. We did a little area called The Muffin Pan, and then all the desserts and the buffets.

I lived in Port Norfolk, and I just saw the building that's now Sweet Temptations.

There are hardly any bakeries in this area. I think it's the South. Shoppers are used to going to the grocery store. In the North, they have all kinds of bakeries. Grocery stores are basically where they get their bakery stuff here. When we first opened up, we had beautiful cakes, and people would just come in and stare at it like it wasn't real. They'd always buy a chocolate chip cookie.

I guess it was word-of-mouth. I'll tell you what happened: This used to be a main street, but it is no longer since they did all this (construction of Pinners Point Interchange over the Portsmouth Marine Terminal) several years ago. We actually lost business because of it.

I'm a baker, not a marketer. That's my problem. I mean, going online and doing all that kind of stuff - I don't do it because I don't know how.

New people come in all the time. People tell them that we're a pastry shop, and then they come over here, and they get something, and they like it a lot.

It's a fine product. I get all my ingredients from Maryland. It's a pastry place. It's all premium stuff for baking: special flours and chocolates. I've always done it. And then when I've had to get something from (another place), it's terrible.

Our buttercream is real buttercream. Like at Wal-Mart, they don't even spell it butter. They used to use lard. They don't use lard anymore, they use just a shortening. And then they use flavoring.

Have you ever had one of our petits fours? That shows you that things are special. That's almond paste in the mix. That's just one little thing. That oughta do you for the day.

I enjoy cakes because you can design them. I like the chocolate ganache.

A lot of people order cakes. They order cakes, and they want specific things on them. They want wild stuff on a groom's cake. Sometimes they want a surfer and a surfboard.

As told to staff writer Carolyn Shapiro