HENDERSONVILLE – Rows of shining, technicolor pastries sat waiting in the glass display case at Merry Go Round Bakery and Café just after it opened one recent sunny morning: tarts, cakes, meringues and glazed mousses in the shape of fruits.
On the menu that day were the mango mousse, in a mango shape; the Dubai chocolate mousse, filled with pistachio, tahini and crunchy chopped filo pastry; the cream cheese-filled, berry-topped meringue Pavlova; the many-layered, grape-topped Napoleon cake and the sour-forward lemon tart.
Nataliia Konstantynova, 50, worked as a pastry chef in Odesa, Ukraine, before she and her family left the country two years ago, fleeing the brutal war there, to ultimately find safety in the Appalachians. She and her family opened her business in May, on Church Street in downtown Hendersonville…