Dear Sugar aka A letter to Satan

I typically post a mini column called "dear dairy". It's my adorable play on words in which I complain about my dairy free woes. Or, more often than not, my attempting to give up dairy woes.

Two years ago when I did a candida diet, which isn't really a diet per se, it's more of a way of eating to cleanse your body of unwanted yeastie monsters, I noticed several things. My energy level was kkkrrrraaazy after about 2 weeks of being on it. My skin, while normally very clear, was even glowing with health. My weight dropped off like buttah on a hot cob of corn. And my attitude & depressive tendencies were G-O-N-E gone!

However, it is very very very hard to stay on that "diet". I've mentioned this before but it warrants mentioning again....you are supposed to, for the first 4 months, give up dairy, sugar, wheat, vinegar, yeast, mushrooms, alcohol, pork and all cured meats like bacon, caffeine..... and fruit. Dude.

I always start my diet that way, and give up a day or two later. Sometimes an hour or two later. While knowing that this eating will totally make me feel awesome, I appear to not care. I just want my cheetos. And starbucks, and taco bell. But who can blame me, look at all the things you have to "give up"! It feels like a prison sentence.

So, this time I only gave up sugar. I thought instead of overwhelming my body with such a huge change, I'd start small, but really? Sugar was probably the hardest to give up, so it felt huge.

To prepare for this, I got rid of ALL evil sugars from the house, and I brought in healthy sugars, like agave nectar and fruit juice sweetened cookies, as well as loads of fresh veggies and sweet fruits. I use to think that the raging headache I got a few hours into this diet was due to the caffeine withdrawal, but this time the ONLY thing I gave up was sugar, and - you saw this coming - I got a huge headache. SO, obviously the sugar was the evil culprit all along.

But, let me tell you. I feel awesome. I gave up sugar 7 days ago. Given the fact that I made a raspberry cheesecake for someone and received that package of goodies from sugarmohawk, I have eaten a little bit of sugar. But compared to my daily consumption, it has really been nothing. My energy level is getting back to normal, and my mood was improved within a day or two.

I exercised for an hour on the treadmill a few nights ago, and still had enough energy to go for a fast paced walk around the neighborhood with my hubby. You don't know how good it feels to get your life back.

It seems ridiculously obvious that sugar is the devil, but do we ever stop to really pay attention to what is going on in our body that might be caused by sugar? Are you tired? Are you at all mopey or hopeless or down? Is your memory slipping? Well, if you said yes to any of those, then it is so worth it to at least try giving up sugar for a week. Once you feel the difference and see the results, you won't want to go back. And, thankfully, with the great natural sugar alternatives available today, you don't need to.

I may start writing just about sugar for awhile, but I do plan to eventually eliminate dairy and wheat again. I will document each step though, so I have a clear understanding of what exactly my body reacts to.

I'd love to hear your sugar experiences, and tips if you have any! No artificial sweetener info though....I don't do fake.

lady on a plane

I can't remember if I read an article about this, or saw her on a television show, but I remember vividly the story of a woman in the airline industry. It was just after 9/11 and she knew instinctively that her time as a flight stewardess was going to be coming to an end, given the trickle down effect this horrific incident would inevitably have on airline companies.

She had been a stewardess for most of her life, and wasn't sure what she should even do next. So, she just started doing everything. She began planting seeds everywhere she could think, and eventually many of those seeds sprouted at once! She found herself having money coming from all directions, just in time for her to lose her job, as expected. I believe she ended up writing a novel, and traveling the country as a motivational speaker, as well as penning several news columns.

I took inspiration from this at the time, and still hold onto it every day. As a stay at home mom, with a fairly successful business that brings me slim to zero cash, I often wonder what I really should be doing with my life. I am a multi talented, creative, intelligent person with interests in a wide variety of subjects. There has to be SOMETHING I can do to be "successful". (although, really what is success? but, that's for another, more philosophical post.)

First of all, I love DipSticks and won't ever give that up, but as much wholesale business that I do, I don't make a lot of money. Sure, we've made a profit technically, but I don't pull any salary. And I won't until I get more corporate orders and retail orders. Neither of which I can really focus on with two little kids running around. And let me be clear. I COULD do it, I just choose to put my family first at this time. Oh, and sleep. Yeah, I prioritize that too.

But, one thing is abundantly clear. I love food, and am super content talking about it, writing about it, watching tv shows about it...and obviously making it. So, as I focus on those "seeds" I have found that as I mention to people my love of food, as well as nutrition, that something interesting is happening.

Just last week I had a lovely email from a long time friend of mine with ridiculously spectacular news that I am not at this time at liberty to discuss. But, rest assured. It's huge. And totally food related.

And, a medical professional I've been working with has suggested a collaboration of sorts involving my helping clients with diet restriction options (such as gluten free, dairy free etc.) This could lead to even larger possibilities that even I had not thought of.

I am looking into going back to get my masters in Dietetics/nutrition. On one hand I'm very excited about this because I do love to learn. But, on the other hand, there's studying. And that whole part about going back to college.

I've been writing a column about food for Talk of the Town for a few months now and love it.

And, hey, just for kicks I have an invention I'm trying to get patented, and some adorable little bookmarks that I plan to launch on etsy soon. Those are my seeds. Grow little seeds, grow!

Sugar Mohawk

It's ironic that the box of goodies I ordered from the etsy shop "Sugar Mohawk" came the week I decided to give up sugar.

Actually, I ordered it well before my sugar elimination strategy was laid out, on August 6th. But, she took awhile to ship it, and then when a box arrived on the 19th, it was the wrong order. I had ordered some bizarre items like chocolate covered cotton candy/peanut butter cups, and cinnamon coconut s'mores, but what was inside this box was lemon pound cake and lemon bars. Booorrrring. I could make those at home.

So, I promptly started a "convo" with ms. sugarmohawk on etsy and she quickly solved that issue. Promising overnight shipping and a $20 credit for future orders. However, the new order didn't arrive until today, August 26th. I gave up sugar on Friday. Either the gods don't really want me to give up sugar, or I've really pissed someone off. It was obviously not shipped overnight, and alas, no $20 credit in my package.

I opened the box, and everything was nicely packaged in clear cellophane bags with yellow stars on them. The bag of chocolate covered cotton candy cups had broken open, causing sugar to be all over the box. Ya see, cuz chocolate + cotton candy + peanut butter wasn't enough. She had to sprinkle sugar all over it too. Makes total sense to me.

I sliced one of those babies in half, and noticed the cute pink, not even remotely fluffy, cotton candy that was in the top layer, and a thin layer of PB in the bottom. One bite of this and two things came to mind 1.) this isn't natural, and 2.) this isn't real chocolate. Okay, and probably one more thing popped in there a little too late...you probably shouldn't have ordered these. They were not my thing, to be super nice about it. Which surprises me, because I am all about trying new things. The joke in my house is that if it says "new" on the label, I buy it. I'm just a wild and crazy gal, I guess.

After eating those, I was a little bit afraid of tasting the rest, but the crazy runs deep. I took a bite of the one I was most excited about: two almond cinnamon thins, with red velvet cake sandwiched in between, all dipped in "chocolate". I loved it. Really, I did. The cookies had gotten soft, which was to be expected, but it didn't really affect the overall taste.

I ate one of those, and then tasted the s'mores. These were described on sugarmohawk's etsy shop as: "imagine a fresh crispy cinnamon&sugar sprinkled graham...chops&chops of sweeeet IMPORTED Belgian Vanilla Cocoa Brick plopped with Fresh Coconut Marshmallows....placed in the DEEP WOOD BURN ROASTER and thennnnn.out dons a GORGEOUS SWEEET CAMPFIRE MUNCHER!(use sweet Local cut maple wood)"

They didn't taste bad, but really they tasted like any s'more I could make at home. I couldn't really taste the coconut, and a real campfire makes the best roasted marshmallows, hands down.

The one thing that I don't understand. Maybe it's just her shtick, but this person is fond of extra letters in her words. As you can see from the above s'more description. It was kind of annoying, and almost deterred me from ordering from her. But, seriously her creations are definitely uuuuunnnnique. So, more power to her!

Now, back to my regularly scheduled, boring, sugarless life...

UPDATE: Those little boogers are addictive, yo! Dammmmnnnn. Even the cotton candy pb cups were tastier when I went back for a second bite. My kids like them too. I suggest you check out her shop on etsy and at least give it a shot. There are seriously insane items for sale there. Heck, I may just go back in a few months to try these.....

*all photos, sugarmohawk

spacey and that's not a good thing.

so, apparently blogger likes to just randomly add space wherever it feels like. so, in the following post about the krabby patty cake, you'll see ginourmous amounts of space. Don't blame me, it didn't look like that when I previewed it. I swear.

A Krusty Krab Birthday party!

Dude. Why does time have to go so quickly!? Not only did my BABY just turn a whopping 4 (!) but that happened 4 weeks ago and I'm just now getting the blog up about his awesome party.

First I need to explain the history of my kids and their birthday cake choices. The first birthdays were always picked by me for obvious reasons, but as soon as they developed a personality and interests, it was clear what each one wanted. Unfortunately they often wanted the same thing, and sorry, as much as I love them, I just couldn't do that. Where's the creativity in making the same old cake over and over. Luckily it hasn't been too much trouble, until this last birthday. Jacob wanted a spongebob cake. But, I had already done a square yellow cake for Joshua, so I had to think outside the box, er, bun.

So, a giant hamburger patty, aka Krabby Patty, cake was invented.

After a quick trip to googleville, I discovered that I was clearly not original in this whole Huge hamburger as cake idea. Multiple sites were dedicated to their attempts at this feat. Many of them impressed me. Some of them just frightened me, but all of them were helpful in guiding my final choices.

I made a trip to Country Kitchen, our local candy supply store, and purchased my first ever fondant. I opted for the pre-colored stuff to make my life easier, but I'd be willing to try it from scratch next time. I bought primary colors since I'd be needing red for tomatoes, green for lettuce and orange (red and yellow) for cheese. the blue just got thrown out. My apologies to the fondant police.

One of the sites used a brownie for the burger portion of the cake. I thought this was genius, and a very clever way to get as much sugar as possible into this fast food fakery. So, I baked two white cakes and one brownie. I filled one cake pan up higher, to achieve more of a bun look.






I started mixing the yellow fondant with a tiny bit of red fondant. I'm glad I started with a tiny bit of red, because it didn't take much to turn all the yellow I had a nice shade of fake cheese orange. It works a lot like playdoh and was fun to use.

I layed it out on waxed paper and sprayed it with cooking spray, based on recommendations I found online to keep the fondant from drying out.

After I rolled the ball of fondant out flat, I simply cut it into the shape of a piece of american cheese.

I repeated this step until I had 3 slices,

One perfect slice.








The tomatoes were fun to do. Obviously rolling
them into a round circle was key, but one tip I found online was to square off the edges to make them look more like real tomatoes. I just used the blade of a knife and ran it around the edge of the circle. Then, used a toothpick to make the little indents on top for effect.








The lettuce was my favorite part. I used straight green for this, but if I were to do it again, I'd mix some white into, or maybe a little yellow. It was almost too dark green. To get it to look wrinkled like actual lettuce, I took more advice from the trusty ol' internets, and balled up my saran wrap first before pressing the ball out thin with my hand, then wrapped the saran wrap all the way around, making sure to keep it wrinkled. When I pulled the wrap off, it left all the lines, making it look very authentic.



Layering the cakes with a buttercream "mayo", and the cheese. I picked the edges off the brownie to make it look more hamburgery too. And it really did look like actual meat. Kind of creepy.

Added the lettuce and tomatoes....

I placed pine nuts on top to look like sesame seeds. Some sites used sliced almonds, but I thought these would look best.

Also, most of, if not all, the sites I looked at left their buns unfrosted. I opted to frost mine. Too much sugar is not an option on birthdays.

The final product.

I'm not sure you can see them, but the candles on top are spongebob themed, with cute little pineapples, and underwater flowers, and spongebob himself. Not too over the top. I then piped his name with a bright red buttercream to look like ketchup on top. The fries were made of sugar cookies, and drizzled with more "ketchup."

I printed the red and white paper from my computer to cover the cake board.

And, most importantly, the birthday boy LOVED it.

Gluten free is for (bread) lovers

I'm always up for a challenge, and when a fellow columnist on Talk of the Town suggested I offer up tips on how to eat gluten free when you're a bread lover, I gladly accepted.

Now, believe me, you can google this topic 'til your eyes bleed, and I have. So, I think I'll approach this with my own personal account of the week I began my gluten free eating versus getting all technical about gluten and its potential adverse effects on certain people.

I began eating gluten free because I was following a candida diet, not because I was having any typical celiac or gluten intolerance symptoms. But, this diet required me to cut out wheat (gluten), sugar, dairy, vinegar, fruit and mushrooms among other things. "What's left?" you ask. I wondered the same thing! You'd be surprised!

After following this diet for one week, I added wheat back in, for no other logical reason than because I'm not that bright, and knew immediately that the reaction I was having was a great indication that gluten was an issue for me to address. So, I kept up with the gluten free eating.

As a huge bread/cracker/baked goods fanatic, I didn't quite know what to do with myself at first. I started out eating gluten free grains instead of bread products. Quinoa...brown rice...etc. But, eventually I needed bread. Real. Bread. Buns, sliced loaves, croutons for salads, anyway I could get it. I stopped at the local health food store and found that gluten free products have taken over the world. Anything that was formerly laden with gluten, can now be found gluten free.

My personal favorite is the Sami's Bakery Millet and Flax line of breads. I found hamburger buns, hot dog buns, wraps, and of course sliced bread. It is quite pricey, at over $5 per loaf, so I try to ration it.

One of my favorite ways to use the bread is to cut it into cubes, and toss it into a pan with melted butter (or ghee if you're dairy free) and some seasonings. Garlic powder, Italian seasonings, cracked pepper and salt seem to be best for my taste, but you could do whatever you want. Once the butter and seasonings are well mixed with the bread cubes, place them on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, more or less, depending on how done you want your croutons. Add to any salad and let the crunchy goodness begin.

I do not have a bread machine, and the experience I have had with making breads in my oven has not resulted in anything worth trying again, so if you're looking for that piping hot, fresh from the oven gluten free bread....let me know when you find it! But, seriously, there is a plethora of gluten free resources available, and recipes are getting better and better each day.

Now that gluten is proving to be the culprit in weight gain, gas, achy joints, depression, cramps, headaches, eczema, and other deficiencies, it's no wonder people are starting to think outside the bun...literally.

Good luck on your gluten free adventure. You may just find you like it better!

Half Baked

There's lots going on these days, and I have at least 4 blog posts in the wings ready to be posted, but in the meantime, check out this site. www.talkofthetownwc.com.

I have a guest column where I write about, what else, food! Much of what I talk about there revolves around baking, and eating, and gluten free living. Until I can get around to posting my new blogs about Krabby Patty hamburger cakes, williams sonoma cooking classes, and gluten free bread alternatives, feel free to mosey around my column.

http://www.talkofthetownwc.com/halfbaked/

Enjoy!

Communication overload

Seriously. What is going on with technology? I started a blog a year or so ago, and at first was doing great at posting something every single day. Then, a few months back I joined Facebook, and my posts here dropped significantly. On top of that, I now have a Twitter account! I didn't know I had that many words, let alone the notion that anyone would even care to read them!

I'm going to attempt to figure out how to balance all of those so that I'm more consistently communicating about the business. If anyone has tips on that....send em my way. You can find me on twitter....facebook....here....email....phone. you get the idea.

What I Know...

Now that a new year is about to begin, it's only natural to reflect on the previous year and contemplate what the new year could possibly bring. I've never been a fan of resolutions, in fact I've never really liked New Year's Eve and all the hype that goes with it. Call me a party pooper, but for as long as I can remember, people, myself included, have held New Year's eve as this magical night that will change them forever. It rarely ever does.

There is something to be said about HOPE, however. Hoping the next year isn't as crappy as the last year. Hope that you can finally kick that nasty habit. Hope that you'll finally achieve those goals you've been reaching for. I can dig Hope. It's that we pin it all on one single night that bothers me. I reflect on my personal life on a daily basis and try to tweak things here and there any chance I get. I set goals and reach goals every week. I'm always placing new limits on what I want to achieve, regardless of the date on the calendar.

When we place all those Hopes on one single night...one single hour, we are doomed to be let down. It's similar to starting a fasting diet on Monday and wondering why we can't make it to Tuesday without caving in. We think that if we don't make all those goals and changes on the first day of the new year, well, then the rest of the year is screwed. There's always next year!

What I think I want to do today, is take stock in who I am now. Look at what I want to achieve in the future, and what I think I'd like to work on changing. And try to find peace within. I might not succeed at every single thing on my list, but I might also achieve more goals if I don't put that pressure on myself. But I'm certainly not going to quit trying, just because I fail on the first few days of a new year. I'm going to pick myself back up every single day and keep trying to grow and learn from my past mistakes. I'll get there eventually...with or without the crazy hat or funny noise makers.

Maybe everyone should look at each day as a new day...a new year....and resolve to be the best person that they can possibly be.

Sometimes, this is hard.

I've been enjoying the time "off" that I've had over the last few days. The curious case of strep throat that I got Christmas day sort of forced me to sit down and not move for about 24 hours. Then, a few times, I even consciously CHOSE to just sit down and do nothing except watch the kids play. I've been reminding myself that this time in their life is so very fleeting, and I don't want to regret missing it. I have a tendency to carry around my iPhone and I'm catching myself more and more staring at it and doing work or other random tasks on it, instead of watching my adorable kids.

So, yesterday and Saturday I spent a great deal of time sitting on the sofa watching Joshua play his video game that Santa brought, and then I would switch gears (and seats) and watch Jacob play our home computer. He's only recently taken interest in NickJr.com games, and is surprisingly good at it. It is fun watching how well they adapt and learn these technologies.

However...today is Monday. I have work to do. But they don't understand that, so all morning I have been telling them "No, I can't watch you." and it's breaking my heart....and theirs. They just don't realize what Mommy actually does on a day to day basis. They think I should be allowed to just sit and watch them all day. Hey...why aren't I allowed to just sit and watch them all day? This isn't fair! Waaahhh..

Plus, it's actually kind of frustrating. I have a morning routine, and it's completely off today. I just want to go hide in a closet with my cup of frickin' tea that I should totally not be drinking in the first place. CAFFEINE! DAIRY! SUGAR! But, look, here I go....mmmm. That's some damn fine tea.

And not to mention this weight I've gained. FUN! Blurg. I just need a minute or fifty to relax and recuperate from these FESTIVE HOLIDAYS!!!! Blurg.

Those dancing days...

As I've expressed on here before, I really dig music. And lately I've been inspired to jot down lyrics that at any particular time might ring true, or stand out for some reason. So, yesterday when I was listening to a song that I've heard a hundred times, and a certain verse caught my ear, I knew I had to share it. As I go through new and introspective phases in my life, I turn inward and look at what is going on within myself to see if anything is missing or lacking. These lyrics pretty much sum up my current view.

-----
Slow down, please slow down
I need to find peace, anywhere in me
I feel like I'm under water struggling to get air
I feel like I'm lost in this body, trying to get inside my head
I wanna know, what I'm thinking what I'm feeling
What I want my life to be
I wanna know how I like to plan to make things easier
For everyone but me

-Those Dancing Days "Hitten"

And the full video, if you so desire....it's a brilliant song.

Old country for new pretzels

A week or so ago I was called by a DJ for the local country station K105. They wanted to interview me on air for a few minutes on the Tuesday before Christmas and discuss my pretzels. At first I was a bit unsure, and nervous about it, but ultimately decided to go for it. I've been on the radio before with no problems, but this would be the first time I've actually been in the studio. I assumed that would make me that much more insecure and lead to stage fright. But I couldn't say no, this was free advertising after all.



Our power came on Monday night at 6 pm, and we packed up our stuff and moved back into our frigid home, unpacked, got organized, and in bed by 11 pm. I woke up at 6 am the next day to blizzard conditions and really dreaded going to the interview. I went anyway, and got there with no problems. Although I nearly bit it about 5 times walking up to the doors...ice covered parking lot with snow to disguise it...a nice touch.



Once inside, the DJ's made me feel comfortable as I attempted to slice pieces of pretzel using a plastic knife. When this was clearly not going to work, they upgraded me to a butter knife. Not much better, but oh well, they got to taste some, which was the main goal.



It was kind of a weird interview actually. The previous radio spot i did, was full of questions and took about 5 or 10 minutes. This one was different in many ways. To begin with, one of the DJs asked me several questions off air, right away. I answered them. Then, once on air, he asked me those same exact questions. I assume it was so that I would relax knowing that I had the answer on the tip of my tongue, but seemed a little unusual.



Also, they asked me questions in between commercial spots and songs, so my on air time was fairly small. We did a give away of one of my gift boxes, and that was that. They said they loved the pretzels, and I got a lot of traffic from K105 to my site, but no orders. I hope it's because I mentioned that people should go to Hallmark or Espresso Gallery for a quicker turn around, and not because they didn't think they were worth it, but I might not ever know.



Ultimately I left feeling pretty good about it, and with a huge stash of tshirts, cds and dvds...it was well worth the frosty drive.

procrastination

i have pretzels to make. i have strep throat. i have one child getting over strep throat. i have a messy house, and lots of laundry to do. i have a christmas luncheon to prepare for that was postponed due to said strep throat. i don't want to do anything.

sometimes i miss being a kid...

Powerless

A week ago, Friday, the power went out at our house, as it did in thousands of homes across our county and surrounding areas. I didn't think too much about it at first, because we've lost power lots of times over the years for various reasons, and never went more than a few hours before it came back on.

This time was different. The cause of the power outages was due to a layer of heavy ice that had coated the wintry trees, allowing them to all crack under pressure and cave into homes and onto power lines. We awoke to a huge *bang* Friday morning, and found a very ginormous limb of one of our maple trees lying just perfectly across our garage roof, and down onto our deck in the back yard. First appearances indicated no real damage to our home, except that it made for quite the obstacle course for getting our golden retriever out to potty. She's lazy though, so it was a good change of pace for her. (although the next day, as Joshua was looking into our garage and saying, "Look! A tree branch!" we realized another limb had found its way through the roof on the other side of the garage...)

As evening approached i was hearing rumblings that power wouldn't be back on in some parts of the city until Christmas Eve. I still didn't worry...that wouldn't be us. But, at this point, most of our friends and relatives were also out of power, and the prospects of it being on by morning were looking dim. So, we took the high road and went to New Haven to stay with Mark's aunt and uncle. We packed enough for one night.

The following day didn't bring much better news. Three fourths of the city was without power, and the trees were continuing to shed limbs onto recently repaired lines, delaying the efforts even more.

So, we trekked back home to check on things, and gather more goods to bring back with us to our temporary home. It was dark and cold and ominous there, and it honestly felt a little like the end of the world. Our street was lined with cold, icy trees, and cold, icy cars. There were no sounds, no lights, and no people. The only sound I detected was our neighbors generator. Other than that, it was a very creepy stillness. It actually reminded me of that Spongebob episode where Squidward goes into the future and everything is spray painted chrome, except in this case everything is spray painted with heavy ice that puts major kinks in holiday plans.

By Sunday, we were still without power, and had no idea when it might come back on. Lots of people bought generators and kerosene heaters and melted snow over gas burners to wash dishes, and roughed it like true survivalists. We, on the other hand, were living the high life. A flat screen tv in literally every room, a real live pac man video arcade game, a pool table, and food and beverages out the wazoo. Nice, friendly hosts who catered to our every whim. It was like we were on vacation. Except that I had this nagging feeling that didn't allow me to relax. I felt just a little off. Perhaps it was because we weren't in our own home. Perhaps it was because we were invading someone's routine unexpectedly. Perhaps it was because I felt like we weren't capable of taking care of ourselves. It was like we packed up and mooched off of someone else and didn't even try to figure out how to survive on our own. I know we have two small kids, but still. It would have felt great knowing we could conquer anything as a family, without the help from anyone else. Perhaps that's my type A personality talking. Who knows.

As it turns out, Joshua became ill with Strep throat and it was quite the blessing to have a nice warm home for him to recuperate in. I am very grateful for that. Luckily, too, my orders had all been completed and shipped out on Thursday just before Armageddon hit, so at least my business didn't suffer any. And, power finally came back on Monday night, so i spent Tuesday putting our house back together, and Wednesday wrapping presents and prepping for Christmas like a mad woman. Only to get strep throat myself come Christmas morning...a day spent in bed, ahhh the memories.

So, what lesson to learn from all of this? I don't know. Maybe take stock in what kind of emergency preparedness plans we should have lined up for such an occurrence in the future. Maybe just be freaking glad we have amazing relatives who don't mind a crazy family dropping in on them for 4 days. Maybe just be thankful our power is finally on, as many across the area still do not have any, not to mention the thousands of people across the world without a home at all.

The true meaning of Christmas, perhaps.

Feeling Good

Over the last few weeks I've received orders from a variety of sources. Local customers who might have seen our pretzels around town, wholesale customers who order year round, and internet customers who happen to stumble upon us.

But it's always fascinating to me that anyone feels like my little old pretzels are gift worthy. I had a lady order a gift box a few days ago, and the gift tag read "Enjoy these sweet treats made right here in Fort Wayne!" It gave me a little tingle to know that a grandmother wanted to send my product to her grandchildren, and that she made a point to say they were locally made.

And, yesterday, when I dropped off some pretzels to the Anchor Room, a lady who saw me placing the pretzels in their basket, said, "Do you make those?" And after I told her that I did, she responded, "Oh, those are just wonderful. Weren't you in the mall too?" And that led to my discussion with a complete stranger about my tiny business and our retail adventures. Her comment left me feeling warm and fuzzy though. When people mention they remember us from the mall, I know we made an impression on them, which makes that whole crazy experience worth it.

In a weird way, it's like I'm making lives just a tiny bit better by having created this little business called DipSticks. All across the country (I've shipped to california, florida, las vegas, missouri, utah, arizona, kansas, alabama, new york, & north carolina just in the last week!) people are opening shipping boxes to reveal a nice little chocolate gift that a loved one sent, or that they ordered for themselves, and this all happened because I developed a few crazy pretzel flavors.

I'm not saying that life wouldn't go on without them, or that I'm eliminating global warming or something, but it is pretty cool anyway.

Tis the season!

Wow. I can't believe how fast this holiday has flown by. It seems like every year I am surprised by this business and what all it entails.

This year, given the economic uncertainty, I really wasn't sure what to expect. I assumed sales would be down, and had kind of relaxed a bit. But it didn't really work out that way.

I usually get a huge influx of wholesale orders a few weeks after Thanksgiving, and then again just before Christmas. And every single time I feel like I'm not capable of doing it all, but somehow we manage to get by unscathed. And then, just when I least expect it, come the internet orders!

I don't actively market my web site for various reasons. First of all, I am a one man band for the most part, and keeping track of multiple internet orders is more time consuming and stressful than just one or two wholesale clients. And, secondly, I do my website myself, which limits some of the options that most retails sites have. So, until I have someone more capable managing my site, I will always downplay it a little.

Inevitably though, each Christmas, the masses find me despite my lack of marketing. On Monday I received 6 nice sized web orders, and Tuesday had several orders as well. These are usually very welcome orders, as they are retail, meaning full price, so we do make more profit on those orders. But, they are also the more time consuming orders too. Some people place orders for 1 each of several different flavors, which can take as long as doing 100 of one flavor. Some expect immediate turn around, not realizing they are dealing with a mom and pop shop. And, of course, I do my best to fit what they need, because the last thing I want is for any customers to be upset at our customer service.

I'm not even remotely looking this gift horse in the mouth though. I actually look forward to a day when I can handle hundreds of online orders with no stress at all.

Perhaps when my youngest son is in Kindergarten I can donate more of my time and energy to that, but for now I'm okay with the way things are going.

We'll be on a local radio station in a few days too, which is going to be fun and a little nerve wracking at the same time. I always get nervous, but things tend to work out just fine. It's been a great year, and I look forward to what 2009 brings.

Happy Holidays to you all, and have a blessed New Year!

New flavors and spinners at Hallmark!

Hey! Good news. We have been upgraded to the new spinners at Hallmark stores. The black counter top display units that we use at Espresso Gallery are now being used at the 4 local hallmarks as well.

This is great news because the old baskets we used just weren't as appealing. Often, I'd pop in to check on the stash, and find several pretzels just tossed randomly into the basket, with the hang tags bent, or the bows undone. Not appealing.

Not only will this give us a more prominent position in the stores, but it will also clean up the look.

In addition to these new spinners, we also just dropped off several of our holiday and seasonal flavors. Candy Cane, Gingerbread Man, Snow Bunny, Snowman, Christmas Cookie, Hot Cocoa, and others.

I can't wait to see what these new displays do for our sales at Hallmark, we may just be switching all of our stores to these spinners.

Blame Facebook

I've been severely neglectful of this blog for too long! I've signed up for Facebook and have been addicted ever since. And on occasion I fit in a few hundred pretzels too...oh and those pesky kids do need some care, but only every 5 minutes or so.

I hope to soon update this blog with news from pretzel land, but until then...come find me on facebook!

History Lesson: Snow Bunny & Snowman

These two flavors came about in an unusual way. Typically I like to think of inspiration for a pretzel first, like an ice cream flavor, or candy bar. Then, I figure out what it is about that particular item that makes it good, and try to recreate it.

For example, the Gone Bananas flavor is created around the Chunky Monkey Ben and Jerry's ice cream. I took banana flavored caramel and rolled it in walnuts and then dipped it in dark chocolate. It reminded me of that ice cream, and tasted great, so it was a keeper.

But this one was created bass akwards. My friend Lesley and I were playing around with flavors one day a few years ago, and she said, "I wonder what coconut and marshmallow would taste like on a pretzel?"

I froze for a few seconds, thinking, "But that's all wrong! What would we call it? What chocolate would we dip it in?" I had never tried just combining random flavors first and then figuring out the rest of the details.

So, after what seemed like milliseconds, I said, "We could dip it in white chocolate and call it Snow Bunny!" After tasting this final product, we both loved it and a new pretzel flavor was born.

It wasn't long after that, the Snowman pretzel was born, to give customers a coconut free option.

The Snow Bunny is sprinkled with coconut and cute little edible snowflake confetti, and the Snowman is sprinkled with tiny white balls. I really wanted to find edible carrot, and black top hat confetti, and sprinkle black nonpareils on it to create a Frosty the Snowman look, but for some odd reason there are carrots, but no hat tops! Come on people...weddings!?

So, check out your neighborhood hallmark stores (in Fort Wayne that is) and you'll be seeing these and other Holiday Flavors soon...

Turkey Day desserts at Williams Sonoma

So, I've attended three cooking classes in the last three weeks, and am just now finding one worthy of blogging about. The first class was about my beloved French cuisine, but the only great thing to come from the class was the Wild Mushroom Tartlet (Poached Pears in spiced Red Wine...uh. No.)

Then the next week was hors d'oeuvres. The class I signed up for and the class I ended up with were two different things. There were four recipes, or so I thought, but we ended up doing almost 8. We ran out of time..actually we went into double overtime, and had to omit one.

My favorite from that class was the Quick Fried Shrimp with Sweet Toasty Garlic, and the Fried Green Olives. Sounds disgusting, I know. Even for an avid olive lover like myself, I was skeptical, but they were so good it nearly made me want to plunk down the $150 for the deep fryer. But, seriously, people. I do not need a deep fryer. No good can come of that. Before you know it I'd be dipping my pretzels in there, ala deep fried snickers, and/or burning the house down.

The other two mildly passable hors d'oeuvres were two nut mixes. One being a curry based salty mix, and another having candied bacon in it. Um..if it's got candied bacon, I'm there. It was a sweet mix, with dried cherries in it, and pralined pecans too. Yep, it's going to be a good one for the holidays.

But finally, the Thanksgiving Desserts class. On the schedule was, in the order I was most looking forward to, Cranberry Cheesecake with Chocolate Cinnamon Crust, Bourbon Pecan Pie with Buttermilk whipped cream, Spiced Pumpkin layer cake with Cream Cheese frosting, and Molasses Gingerbread cake with Cinnamon whipped cream.

The first dish we sampled was the pumpkin layer cake. The cream cheese frosting also had pumpkin puree in it, which I've never seen done before. It was very moist and flavorful. I'll definitely make it someday.

The next one she made in class was the Bourbon Pecan Pie. First sign of doom was that they couldn't put bourbon in it because they don't have a liquor license. Um, dumb question....why the bejeesus put that on the menu then? That was the whole reason to get excited about it. Everybody knows what a regular old pecan pie tastes like. Then, the final blow was that, even 35 minutes after class was technically over, the pie wasn't done. I didn't even get to taste the non bourbon pecan pie. I guess it's lucky it didn't have bourbon, or I'd have camped out waiting for that beyotch to be done!

Next up to taste was the one I was most looking forward to. You know my current obsession with cheesecakes..so it's not a surprise that it was the cranberry cheesecake with chocolate cinnamon crust. However, the chef decided to do these in the mini, mini form. They were very dried out and the crust to filling ratio was way off, and so the bottom of the cake was hard as a rock. I could not even detect the slightest bit of cinnamon either. And the cranberry sauce just didn't do anything for me. Sounds like I'm being picky. I am. You expect a lot out of these cooking classes when you're paying $40, and I was a little bummed.

But, the saving grace was, ironically, the one recipe I wasn't excited about. That'll teach me! It was the Molasses Gingerbread cake with cinnamon whipped cream. They baked it in a nice bundt pan that was shaped almost like the Swiss Alps. The edges were just a bit chewy, like the edges of brownies, and the center was the most ridonculously moist cake ever. Huge taste of gingerbread and cloves and cinnamon. The molasses wasn't overwhelming at all. I will be making this cake for Christmas too.

It was a very fun class though, and I met some nice people. Foodies are usually fun people and love to talk, so we all got to gabbing about favorite recipes and food tips. I love these classes, and can't wait until the next batch comes closer to Christmas. If you ever get the chance...novice or professional, I highly recommend these classes.