Saturday, January 2, 2010

the coffee here has great power

I think the colour has come back in my face. It was an incredibly successful Christmas season. The weather played out perfect. December '08, the weather wasn't so kind. So the increase we felt, was a little false. But none the less.

Not much left. A couple of house kits, twelve to fifteen pounds of cookies that never got packed. Pretty much, whatever we had left, was left because it got lost. The bakery was so full of stuff, I can understand how it happens.

First time we ever baked stollen for New Year's. Sold it all. All but the one we cut. Gotta say, pretty incredible stuff. No wonder we sold so much of it. I plan on baking more. I think we will sell it thru the Epiphany. New Years' Eve was very busy as well. We could've sold another fifty baguettes and a boat load of ciabatta. Sold a lot of cakes, as well. French silk pies, chocolate leaf tortes, and of course, red velvet cakes.

So, it wasn't all pristine here either. On the night of the 18th, I had a fever, like never before. No chance to take any sleep aiding drugs. Working the twenty on and four off schedule, it's tough to beat a virus. I coughed, and my chest rattled for eight days. It went thru the bakery, bad. My wife and son were very, very sick. But we played hurt. Lots of tea, Sudafed, and Z-Pac. We were closed for two days, the 25th and 26th. I woke up on the 26th, my back was killing me. I couldn't stand up straight. I came down to the bakery to get things mixed for that night, rememeber the artisan process thing? Levains' need to be fed. poolish and ciabatta need to be mixed. I made a pot of coffee, carried a couple of bags of flour up the stairs, and instantly felt better. Guess I needed some flour in my lungs.

The morning of the 24th, about 6:15am, pos computers crashed. Matt was here, got 'em back right away, except he had to "Relocate the server". We've been getting by. We're having to retrieve data in a roundabout way. New server will be here on Monday. I guess we are going to a remote server. One that there will be no access to. I just try to make sure there is salt and yeast in all of our doughs'.

Well, gonna get upstairs. Last week I told Patti, "I can't remember how we spend our days here, if we are not making Christmas goods". Gonna take a few days before I remember. Our 2010 farmer's market application is due, here in Evanston, on Monday.

Happy New Year.

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