What A Day... And It Ain't Over Yet (Long)
Decorating By -Tubbs Updated 7 Jul 2007 , 1:39pm by -Tubbs
Today has been the hottest day of the year in Calgary (yes, it does get hot in Canada sometimes!). Mid 30'sC - don't know what that is in F, but it's pretty hot, in the 90's?. And where was I? In the kitchen with the oven on almost constantly from 9am - 10.30pm baking for my first farmer's market tomorrow. The house is like a furnace - no A/C of course.
I decorated some cookies for cookie bouquets yesterday, and then realised I hated them and needed to start again. At 9.30pm. So now it's midnight and I'm waiting for the first coat of RI to dry enough that I can pretty them up some more before I go to bed, in the hope that they will be dry enough for me to bag by 2pm.
To top it all, I discovered we have a mouse running around in the house. I knew we had some in the garage (not attached), so I guess one's decided he needs to go up in the world. This is NOT what I needed when I am preparing food for sale to the public. I could not catch it and my husband is away so I wasn't able to get out to buy a trap. Fortunately I bought a bunch of big plastic storage bins to transport everything to the market, so I can at least be sure that the mouse won't get into anything that will be sold, but sheesh, I could really do without this...
Thanks for listening. I expect I'll see the funny side once I've got this market over with, caught the rodent and had some sleep!
so sorry to hear you are going through that, how terrible! You will feel so much better after the market tomorrow. Good luck!!
Tubbs, seems like your day was like mine was. I made cookies last night (only need 10) and the batch only gave ten but then two decided to break. My cake came too small for my liking and i offered my other order's cupcakes to make up. So tomorow i have to do a full party with cupcakes, cookie bouquets and the cake and i still have to bake the cup cakes and cookies - and decorate and the big cake seems dry (Madeira marble cake) so if i don't get convinces otherwise i'm doing all of these from scratch and I work until 4. I also worked until 2h00 this morning and got up at 6h00 to get back to work.
Good luck on the mouse. They are so difficult to catch and best of luck with the market. Please show some pics.
Thanks for the supportive words everyone. Finally got the cookies decorated and the mouse chased out of the house - got to bed at 2am. Up at 7.30 to start printing labels, packaging etc. It's now 2.30pm and I'm about to leave for the market and everything is done, but whew! what a lot of work. I hope I can get a bit more organised now I know what's required.
I will return and report.
UPDATE
So, after staying up so late to decorate those beautiful cookies, I sold precisely NONE! Well, the Calgary Stampede stick cookies (cowboys/girls, boots, hats) sold, but the bouquets didn't. At all. Lots of people oohed and ahhed and admired, but nobody wanted to shell out $20. So that was a learning experience, and I know what NOT to make for next week! lol. I gave one of the bouquets to my neighbour who has a home design business. She loved it and immediately said she would give it to a client today, who she needed a gift for, so maybe a blessing in disguise there?! The rest have gone into the freezer for future use.
I actually sold around half of my other kinds of cookies, so I guess I made too much. The remainder I have frozen. I know cookies don't freeze fantastically well, but I thought it was worth a try - I couldn't waste it all. There is also some caramel popcorn which I threw in the freezer too.
A few people were sniffing around for cakes, pies etc, so I thought I might try a few for next week. I've learned my lesson now, though - not to make too much!
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