ya gotta be kiddin' me

Been chasin' since my return from California. I came in Monday,Memorial Day, we were closed. Phones rang all morning. We should have been open. I mixed for nearly three hours, used five bags of flour. I had to make all the dough's that sit overnight, feed the levains, and set all the soakers, that were needed for market production on Tuesday. I also missed three days macaron production, so I'm startin' to feel that now. We had a killer macaron day yesterday, sales wise.

I drove to work on Wednesday morning, needing the wipers, to get here. We loaded the trucks in the rain, but by time the market opened, it had stopped. In fact, it was pretty nice, sun was out. Last Saturday morning I got a text message from the GCM. "We're out of brioche, pretzel rolls, rhubarb danish, croissants and scones". It was 10:15 or so. Got another one at 11:20, "We're out". Yesterday morning, we went to load the truck, opened one of the metal boxes we use to transport sheet pans, and there were five pans of danish, still in there from Saturday. These boxes I speak of, are pretty big. they hold maybe eight sheet pans. When they are full of product, they are difficult to handle by onesself. So what that means is, Saturday morning, the truck was loaded, driven to the market. The boxes were taken off the truck. Four market kids walked around the boxes all morning. They told customers over and over, "Sorry we're sold out of Danish pastries". The boxes were put back in the truck, driven back to Evanston, put back in the basement. Taken out of the basement, put back in the truck. The box was opened, four days later, discovered and emptied. Neglect, carelessness, stupidity? How do those things happen? I'm comfortable it happens to every business, regardless of industry. I haven't told my dad. If my mother were alive, that would have killed her. I learned and have resolved to a simple belief, "If I'm not willing to accept what goes on here while I'm away, then I shouldn't leave". I think about what it cost the bakery, finding this ridiculous mistake, my daughter's graduation was worth it. In spite of this gaff, we've been struggling to get enough product to this market. Tuesday night we bought a new van. We've been using two, but the older one has two hundred thousand miles on it, can't be long for this world. With a third vehicle, we're gonna find out just how much we can sell at GCM on Saturday's.

That new, nananutterchoco loaf, came out nice. Really tasty stuff. May have been a little salty. Stands to reason that some peanut butter will be saltier than others. It's no secret, producers around the world want to sell as much salt as possible. We sold it all. I baked it last Thursday, we sold it all over the weekend. Plan on making more today. Nananutter, pound cake and lemon poppy seed loaf, all today.As well as a few mixes of macarons.

Gotta get upstairs, I'd like to get home before the street lights come on. Not only are the Evanston/Wilmette/GCM markets rollin', we start the Glenwood/Rogers Park market on Sunday.