Other People Do Get Inside Your Head

The bakery is my life. It consumes me. It makes me have insomnia. I am here in the wee hours of the morning surfing the internet on my laptop. I tried really hard to get back to sleep. I tossed and turned, I snuggled with the cat, I shifted the covers, I let my foot hang on the edge of the bed, but here I am, wide awake downstairs with the light on, watching my other cat sleep on the chair across the room. I suppose I was thinking about other people, and wanted to get them out of my head.

Last week was really long, and in some ways I'm glad it's over. I would like to start the new week, and maybe if I get some sleep, I can start the new week feeling fresh. But it looks like it's going to be a groggy start. Luckily tomorrow is Sunday.

On Tuesday of last week I interviewed 8 people to fill a new barista position. This is a new way I'm doing hiring at the bakery. I used to call only 4-5 people, ask them a few questions to decide whether I'd bring them in for an interview, but then bring them in anyway, because what can you learn about somebody over the phone anyway, I thought. The interviews used to be very spaced apart, over several days, so by the time I was done, I could only remember the last few people I interviewed, and one of them would get selected for the job, just because they were the most familiar. Some good and bad choices were made by that method I suppose.

I've run the gamut on hiring mistakes, from hiring people I like to hiring people because of their credentials only. What I've learned, and this keeps coming up in my life over and over again, is my gut is by far the best judge of character and performance. Having all interviews happen essentially at the same time is a way for me to force my gut to react.

But it has another weird side effect. At the end of the 8 interviews, I've realized I've gotten into the minds of 8 people I just met. They are telling me their life's story, their hopes, their dreams, who they are at work, who they are at home, little bits of what they like to eat, and so on. It's very intense. It's like 8 very good short stories, and rather than read them one by one, I've read them all at once.

For somebody like me, who spends a lot of time thinking about her life, someone with a big personality who dominates most conversations with her own stories, her own daily conflicts, her own successes and failures, this is like jumping in an ice cold lake.

Those people you meet, they become part of you. You are hearing their stories and you can't stop thinking about them. You forget about your stories which is weird because you're always thinking about yourself. All of a sudden the world seems so monumental, even though you knew all along it was a huge place, and that you could never ever meet everybody in it, and hear their stories. You can't even really replay your own stories in the short span of your life.

This reminds me of something that Bill Viola said, that if you were to record your life on video, you could never watch it because it would have to be in real time and you would have too much footage.

When I can't sleep, I seem to be trying to replay footage from my day, my week, my life. I am trying to watch it again and again, trying to reinterpret it. Maybe if I never slept again I could catch up.

Wonderful Evening at Volunteer Park Cafe

I'm recovering from a wonderful evening at the Volunteer Park Cafe last night (the person pouring wine was very generous).

The dinner was to help promote Farmer Jane, a new book by Temra Costa http://www.farmerjane.org/book.html

We started with a tour of VPC's new garden space, accompanied by delicious bubbly and great conversation. Our first course was asparagus with aioli and shaved radish, followed by delicious lemony fava beans. We moved on to some delicious salmon, pork belly, and then a wonderful rhubarb galette.

It was so great to finally meet Heather and Erika from the Volunteer Park Cafe, both of whom I've been great fans of.

Slight Calm at Sugar

Who says the first few months of the year are slow for bakeries after the holidays?

Between Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, my Mom's birthday, St. Patrick's Day, and Easter, we've certainly had our fill of special frosted sugar cookies, seasonal one of a kind products, and busy busy days. It will be nice to have a slight break from all the madness, and just focus on daily goodness. Of course, I've got a few ideas and tricks up my sleeve for the next few months.

My Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Walked in the door to find my computer still on the fritz so it would be down for the day. Then found that my barista from the night before improperly thawed out the ice machine, so when trying to get that worked out, got squirted in the face with a broken faucet which I fixed temporarily by wedging it back together. Ran around in circles a few times, then started to notice the hot water didn't seem too hot. You must have hot water to be open. Checked the breaker and it was fine. Checked the hot water heater and it was cold. Re-switched on the mini on/off switch. No change. Called my husband who in turn called his dad, the grand pooh-bah of fixer-upper genious. Started unscrewing things and found a little reset button. Then realized we were out of frosted shamrock cookies already and it was only 9:30am. Pulled some flower cookies out of the freezer to bake. Went back to the water heater and jiggled around the reset button until it popped out ever so slightly. Waited 20 minutes and the hot water came back. Phew. Another barista pointed out the espresso machine was leaking, so we tried to trouble shoot that for a little bit, and it seems to be fixed for now. Worked like lightening to keep the stock of St. Patrick's Day products flowing and make anything green that can possibly be green. This was in between running up to the front of the house to help manage the line. Did I mention I didn't get much sleep the night before? Baking, helping customers, baking, helping customers. Back and forth. Stopped for a second to receive a delivery of a replacement panini grill, trying to quickly examine the box and contents for any damage. Had to say my name like 15 times to the driver, but he finally got it. I'm getting stressed out just writing this. Around mid-afternoon, the pace slowed a little, and I jumped upstairs to sort through the paperwork madness on my desk. Once our old broken panini grill was cool, back downstairs to help install the new one, only to find it was indeed actually damaged in shipping on the bottom so it was all wobbly on the counter. Then tried to contact the shipper who is only available on online chat and was told to send a picture of the damage to them. Luckily, technology worked to my advantage and I was able to grab my camera, snap a few pictures, and get them onto my laptop (which I had luckily brought to work since I thought my desktop computer might be down). A few glitches here and there and the pictures were on their way. Tried to squeeze in a call to mom, but she wasn't in, so jetted over to try to get a replacement part for the faucet, but traffic was super hectic so I headed towards the gym instead. Stopped at the store to pick up some tomatoes and basil, then had a massive workout at the gym. Incredible. Headed home and picked up my hubby who came with me to the hardware store. Idiots worked at that hardware store so we bolted. Then a friend called and wanted to get all festive with the holiday, so we decided to do dinner at our house. Stopped at the store to pick up some eats and then rushed home, jumped in the shower. Made a lovely meal, but it was way past our bedtime. Had some great conversation, and before I knew it, it was 12:30 and I had to be up bright and early for a big panini sandwich order which was going to be compromised by the busted grill. Crazy.

Skinny Wednesday

Everybody is exhausted after all the craziness of millions of King's Cakes for Mardi Gras, but it's all well worth it when you get something like this from a customer...

"Hey Stephanie,
I just wanted to say thank you for hands down the most delicious King Cake I have ever eaten. I lived in New Orleans for 5 years… then a job brought me here. This is my 3rd Fat Tuesday away from the city and both the last ones I had cakes flown in from a New Orleans bakery. Everyone at my office has agreed that this has been the best one.

Thanks!!!"

My Profile

I thought I'd update my profile today...here are the choices for industry:

Not Specified
Accounting
Advertising
Agriculture
Architecture
Arts
Automotive
Banking
Biotech
Business Services
Chemicals
Communications or Media
Construction
Consulting
Education
Engineering
Environment
Fashion
Government
Human Resources
Internet
Investment Banking
Law
Law Enforcement
Manufacturing
Maritime
Marketing
Museum or Libraries
Non-Profit
Publishing
Real Estate
Religion
Science
Sports or Recreation
Student
Technology
Telecommunications
Tourism
Transporation

That's quite a lot of options, and not one of them concerning food, food service, baking, even hospitality. For one thing, aren't food, clothing and shelter the primary things we humans need to survive? I see fashion made the cut, and so did real estate, but food apparently isn't that important. And it's not just on the Google profile I can't find my profession, it's everywhere. I am hurt.

I am thinking I can say that I am in the Biochemistry industry, as I'm taking biological materials and chemically altering them through baking. Or maybe I'm in the arts as there really is an art to what I do; however I guess there's an art to many of the other disciplines on the list. I used to be in the internet field, but am not now, so I can't put that even though I've got a blog and a site on the internet, but that's just silly. I could say Tourism as many of our customers are from out of town, but I'm really reaching then.

When I became a pastry chef, I thought food was really important. It's important to me. Well, actually, good food is important to me. It's probably the most abundant thing in our country, and we've all got cushy thighs to prove it. But nobody knows who's making our food. Well I am one of those people.

Trickiness with Discounts

I've been getting several calls by people wanting to order larger numbers of our frosted cookies. They're currently $2.25/ea or roughly $2.08 for a dozen. It's been really difficult because even though we've been even able to even reduce the price for larger orders, it's still not quite enough for most people.

I do feel the cookies, even though they might seem expensive to some people, are a good value, when you consider the work that goes into them. They are actually one of our most labor intensive of our products. We don't have a machine to make them so each one is cut out. We have a small deck of ovens so baking high volumes can be a challenge. Each one needs to be frosted and decorated individually by hand, and while we can be more efficient at higher volumes, we still have to pour the love into those cookies. So for a $300 cookie order which seems like a lot of money, we might work 5-7 hours, which may seem like we're making $60/hour which seems like a lot for a baker, but then you have ingredients, overhead, and such. I know at my final wages, I certainly couldn't afford them, but I know that there's just no short cuts for good quality.