Ready to be sliced
Find everything you need to know about Elizabeth Nunez’s business on Instagram @homemade_heritage_. Customers receive the farm stand address after placing an order online. Homemade Heritage will also be at the Old Town Orcutt summer farmers market starting May 20.
Making sourdough is a little bit like teaching first grade.
“It’s a process, but it’s chaos at the same time,” baker Elizabeth Nunez said. “It’s patience.”
She teaches at Battles Elementary, rushing home from school three days a week to prepare dough for her cottage bakery, Homemade Heritage. The sourdough mad dash occupies Nunez’s afternoons and evenings from Wednesday to Saturday.
Her schedule is mapped out on Google Sheets. It’s chaos as she preps all her ingredients, forms the dough, ferments it for 48 hours, and bakes. It’s a long, slow process, just like teaching her first graders how to read.
“Tonight, I’m going to feed my starter, and then that way tomorrow I’ll have more starter,” Nunez said on a Wednesday afternoon. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll feed it again. When I get back from work, my starter will be ready for me to start making the dough.”
As of February, the Homemade Heritage workweek extends to Sunday.
Nunez and her husband, Anthony, repurposed an antique dresser into a farm stand at their home in Garey to sell goods a couple Sundays each month. It’s been a goal of the baker’s since she started her business two years ago.
“I love being out and about in the community, but I’m like, ‘What if the community came to me?’” she thought.
Customers can order online for pickup through Instagram, but the baker always makes extra loaves for people to stop by and purchase on the honor system.
Everything Nunez bakes is filled with organic ingredients, her own farm-fresh eggs, and a sourdough base. Visitors choose from chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon rolls, pancake mix, and scones. On the savory side, Nunez also sells focaccia, bagels, pizza crust, and a variety of loaves.
‘In the Hispanic culture, food is a way of connecting to people, and it’s kind of like the love language.’
—Elizabeth Nunez, Homemade Heritage founder
Staple sourdough flavors like original and jalapeño sharp cheddar are always available until sold out, but the business owner also rotates through the likes of chocolate chip, cinnamon sugar, blueberry lemon, and roasted garlic rosemary.
“You can put anything in sourdough,” Nunez said. “It’s just so fun to make different recipes with.”
Her love for baking is inspired by her mother’s cooking. As a kid Nunez remembers her mom’s tamales and enchiladas, but dessert was her favorite.
“I always go back to a cheesecake that she always makes, and it’s a family recipe,” Nunez said.
Calling her business Homemade Heritage is a nod to those good old family traditions and the hard work she does with her own two hands. Nunez took a little bit of her mom’s generosity with her to college, cooking for friends and roommates.
“In the Hispanic culture, food is a way of connecting to people, and it’s kind of like the love language,” she described.
When Nunez attends pop-up events, she enjoys interacting with customers and other vendors. Over the past couple of years, she’s sold Homemade Heritage goods at the Los Alamos farmers market, Zaca Mesa Winery, and lavender farms in Los Olivos. Now she sells her bread at Bien Nacido Vineyards and the Old Town Orcutt farmers market, which starts on May 20 this year.
Supporting other entrepreneurs—and befriending them—is one of Nunez’s favorite parts of networking with the small business community in town. The local hot sauce company Sauce Baby stocks bottles at the farm stand, and Nunez hopes to partner with Feral Future soon, a Solvang company that makes teas and spice blends.
“A lot of these businesses are small-batch, and it’s not mass produced. I feel like that takes time, effort, and it’s great quality,” Nunez said. “We all have that same purpose to give back to the community and make that connection with people.”
Her business philosophy also leads back to the way she runs her classroom. Nunez came from an immigrant family and was an English learner in school. It presented hurdles, she remembered. Now as a teacher, she sees herself in the eyes of her students and wants to model how kids like her can pursue a career in education.
“I think that’s the main reason why I became a teacher, is to give back to the community and to have a purpose and to help these kids have a voice,” Nunez said.
She was the first in her family to attend college—on a Division I swim scholarship at UC Santa Barbara no less. She went on to earn a master’s degree, too.
Her journey is an example for the first graders that education is important, especially for those who are in sports.
Student athletes are no stranger to effective time management. Along with the fact that she’s “so type A,” Nunez believes her sports background set her up for success as a business owner and a teacher. However, Nunez knows she’s grown and gotten better at finding the patience amid the chaos.
“I’m so busy,” she said, “but I kind of thrive off it.”
Reach Staff Writer Madison White at mwhite@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in April 23 – April 30, 2026.