Our First Week

We've begun the process of clearing the decks in the space, removing the old carpeting and the dropped ceilings. We found a secret room in the ceiling where only the walls remain. Hard to describe it in words, but I just like the idea of trying to imagine all the different businesses that have been in the space since it was built in the 1930s. I found an old deflated balloon with "You're Incredible" written on it. I replied back out loud after wiping a bit of sweat from my brow, "Thanks!". Ventilation seems like it might be an issue, so we're going to try to creatively resolve it, but definitely having that extra air space with the 14 feet ceilings is going to help. However, we were doing the work on the muggiest days of the year, so the stuffy observation may be out of context.

So far, the process has been about making sure the contractors I'm working with do what they say they're going to do. A plumber we were excited to use decided not to show up on Saturday. I called him several times, but he just disappeared; probably just fell into the toilet. We've lined up another plumber, and his quote was a quite a bit higher than we budgeted for, but he's Johnny on the spot ready to go, and we've really got to get that part going since the city is changing the grease trap requirements on July 31 so our cost would be substantially higher if we wait. Also the phone installer decided to show up early, so we missed our appointment because we weren't there yet. And the funny thing is we tried all afternoon yesterday to reschedule, but the line was busy. Aren't they the PHONE company???

But we're trying not to let too many of these setbacks get us down and we're trying to keep our eyes on the prize. Installing the gas line is going to be way cheaper than we budgeted for so that was super cool. and another major thing is that I think I may have finally decided on a point of sale system that can integrate with a recipe costing software. All in all things are starting to fall into place.

We've only just begun

We signed the lease yesterday and picked up the keys today for our new retail location at 1014 Madison in the wonderful First Hill neighborhood in Seattle. We must have been extremely excited because I immediately got some posters printed and we put our name in the window right away.

It's such a huge project. Where to start. We're trying to get the plumber in this weekend, then start with the remaining permits and such. We've got drawings to finalize, funding to figure out, recipes to test, paints to choose, and so much more. But I'm so thankful to have an actual physical space that I can actually walk into with my very own key. Which reminds me, I've got to make a few copies of the key!

a little birdie told me so

At some point, all the planning, preparation, and risk estimating has to ultimately give in to the actual thing itself. I am a do-er, so as you can imagine, having almost one year to sit on the idea of opening a retail store and it never happening is pretty much driving me crazy. Sure we've come close several times, then something (either cancer or cold feet) stopped us. So with every day the anxiety of not doing builds and builds eventually giving way to mini-explosions. Let's just call them that, rather than refer to them in the usual way as melt-downs.

This particular mini-explosion was caused by the building stress and anxiety of being about to spend nearly $100,000 to start the retail store, and the fear that it will fail, and that all this planning will be lost in the flurry of the moment we open our doors only to find our sales numbers are not what we hoped and the business slips into bankruptcy. Of course even though I have an extreme amount of faith in myself and the bakery's possibility of success, that anxiety still manages to creep in. Unfortunately, that anxiety was also fed by my dear husband asking me to reduce my startup costs for fear of imminent failure, which made me think his faith in me was lost, which led to me storming out the door and down to the water's edge. I needed some place to drain my tears!

I did the usual mid-mini-explosion crying, trying not to let it get too strong while I was supposed to be driving. I took a brief walk and found a nice little bench and phoned my mom.

My mom and I have a very unique relationship. Early in my life, she seems to have decided I was independent enough to not need the typical mothering, and stopped trying to tell me what to do with my life. It was the smartest thing for her to do because believe me, it's nearly impossible to offer me even the slightest bit of advice. My mom has had a lot of hardship in her life which has led to some instances of psychological crisis, and as a result, most of the time when we talk it's about her problems, etc. But she is still my mom and knows instantly when I'm upset and quickly turns the floor over to me.

Through our long phone call we didn't come to any conclusions, but I felt better, calmer. That and watching the sky change after the sunset helped bring me back to center. As we were hanging up the phone, I looked down on the bench to the right of me and saw the most amazing words scribbled on it.

Sorry for the bad cell phone photo, but you can sort of see somebody's attempt to spell succeed. I mean here was one of those motivational posters sitting right next to me, and I can't believe it took me two hours to notice it. I'm not usually very religious, but I'm pretty sure SOMEBODY was trying to tell me something. Well, that's the way I'm choosing to interpret this message, even though it makes me sound self-obsessed. In writing this post, talking about success just sound silly and trite, but I think I've figured out at least for this moment that success probably can't be described in words; rather, it's a drive, a feeling, and now, because a little birdie wrote it on a bench, it's an obligation.

Strange Meat

I knew I was going to eat some sort of organ meat, or something strange in Paris. I was ok with that, and so I haven’t been too careful with my menu translations. Finally, my carelessness paid off and I was treated to a strange black sausage tartlet. It was good, tender with a crunchy outside. It had a fairly sweet flavor and nice subtle spice. I knew it was something weird, but at the time, just ate up, acting as if I knew what I was doing. I remembered the name of the thing: Boudin Noir.

Turns out I ate pork blood sausage. John ate some too. We squeeled just a little bit, but were also a bit proud for taking a little culinary adventure. Apparently, it’s one of the oldest known charcuterie traditions in France, having a history of some 2000 years. That made me feel fairly French inside, but I wondered how I would feel the next day so to speak. It’s a bit hard to stomach the idea of it, but actually it was fairly ok. Now knowing that Boudin is blood sausage, I’m not sure it would feel the same going down, but trying something once is a good way to know what it feels like.

Baguettes in Paris

Sitting in our apartment in Paris we started to notice tons and tons of baguette crumbs. We started to think about it and realized that it wasn’t gravel dust that paves the walkways in the parks of Paris, it’s finely crushed baguette and croissant crumbs from the hundreds of baguettes Parisians consume each year. The theory goes that they are swept into small sacs and placed in receptacles in the garbage areas in everybodys courtyards. Each year, a new minister of baguettes is appointed, who carefully monitors and controls the conversion of the thin flakes into dust…if crushed into too thin of a powder, they will be too absorbant and make mud too easily during the unpredictable rainy spring. If crushed too coarse, the papery flakes will be too slippery, and not provide adequate footing for Parisian women with their high heels to tromp over. It’s just a theory…

Paris and Bollywood

We’re in Paris for a much anticipated pastry pilgrimage and to celebrate my 40th. The weather’s beautiful, can you say “Paris in the Springtime!”

We headed over to a chocolate tour with David Leibovitz today. It was a bit tricky being our first time on the metro, and we were still a bit jetlagged from getting up at 5am since the day prior was the big travel day. But we finally figured out “the secret” to the metro, which boiled down to us actually finding the metro station as opposed to trying to use our metro map at the RER station. We’re still not sure how the RER works with the metro, but we’re really happy with how the metro gets us around really quickly. Geez, they need something like that in Seattle. So back to the tour…

Our first stop was Laduree which was actually on my list, but I was happy that we were going to the original store on Rue Royal. I love the way the shop looks on the outside, like a dress boutique. We snapped a couple of pics and headed in. The other thing that’s great about the high end patisseries in Paris is that they have display cases that are topless, which makes viewing the desserts very easy, and very beautiful. Laduree is famous for inventing Parisan Macaroons, and they sell some 5k a day of them (I’m sure mostly through mail order and such). We picked up a few of the more interesting flavors like Rose, Licorice, etc. But what immediately caught my eyes were these really cool pastel balls in pink and green. I had no idea what they would be like, were made out of, but had to get one to try it so got a green one. Turns out they were crunchy meringue sandwiches with chocolate ganache centers enrobed in crème de menthe buttercream. Fabulous and light.

Next we went to about 5 more chocolate shops, each with a unique style or specialty, but most of them were very progressive in their flavor choices for their truffles. I don’t have a list of names,only that most of the shops were in the St. Germain district.

(photo courtesy of Laduree, used without permission)

Stuck

I am now just waiting for that moment to come when it becomes obvious what I should do. After passing on the big retail space and pursuing the option of purchasing that catering kitchen, I’m sort of in a holding pattern waiting for the next step to become clear. Every moment raises doubts on whether I’ve done the right thing. In my heart, I feel like there’s something holding me back, and I’m just not sure what it is. Here are a few possibilities…

John’s cancer plays a huge role in this, I believe. He’s been in remission and just had a PET scan which proved that there’s no cancer activity in his system. I am sure he will never have a recurrence, but I suppose his body failing him temporarily made me realize mine might fail sometime soon. But I am not sure this holding pattern comes from me living in fear of a short life.

Again, I ask myself, is the thought of turning 40 such an anticipated turning point that I’m anxious of not having any idea what I want to turn to? Is this the time in my life when I’m supposed to know what I want? Definitively? Why am I so unsure what I want? Why am I still asking people for advice on my life. Is it fear of failure or fear of success?

Every small little setback stops me in my tracks. The internet goes down, I can’t work. I can’t do anything. I’m stuck, using the simplest and most minute little excuses to stop moving forward.

On the one hand, it would be great to move into that kitchen, but we already went through this before, and building a commercial kitchen just to do wholesale didn’t make sense. So let’s say we get a 3 year lease on that space, spend about 50k getting it up and running. Our rent seems cheaper in the short term, but add a retail later and we’re looking at another 3k probably, moving our rent even higher than the combined space. Then we’re split between two locations and I’m running back and forth all disconnected.

So the other option is to move into another shared space, but then we don’t seem to have the ability to have an office, which is hugely important when considering how much information needs to be organized when running the business. I do much better when I have all the information I need in front of me.

I’m just so frustrated that we finally had a direction, and now that direction seems like it just isn’t going to work as well as we hoped. It was clear we weren’t ready to take the big step for the retail location, and it seemed like buying that other catering kitchen was a good fit with our goals, but now it just doesn’t seem like a good option. I absolutely need to take a next step, but somehow am stuck in my tracks. Do I need more time? Do I need more information?