First Farmers' Market

So after all the talking and planning and worrying, I finally did it. The last market of the season (the small one just three miles down the road from us, in Hartland). It runs from May through October, and I decided the last weekend of October was a good one to try. There I was, along with a turnout of roughly half the usual vendors, huddling in the cold wind and sheltering from rain and sleet. And using a neighboring vendor's bratwurst grill to warm up our hands. The market master said I picked a terrible Saturday to debut.

But I did it. I figured out how to make ingredient labels with both Open Office and MS Word (Word on Tim's computer is a little easier). Tim made a 'chalkboard' sign for me out of a piece of plywood and chalkboard paint. I decided what items I wanted to bake, and got it all done, although it was in the wee hours of the Saturday morning of the sale. Nephew Evan's football game (Lumen Christi vs, Howell) was the night of October 26th, and that had been planned for a while. Despite the fact that I barely perceive what is going on in football, and it was frightfully cold and windy, we wouldn't have missed that for the world. Evan is always so sweetly grateful to us for turning out for his performances, whether it be drama productions or sporting events.  So I still needed to shape my pretzels and make the scones when we got back around 10pm that night. I think I took the last pan of pretzels out of the oven around 0130. I shut off the oven and the lights and crawled into bed. Only to crawl back out of it again around 6am so I could package and label everything and box it up. Tim got up and helped me with that, too. And went with me to the market to help me set up the E-Z up shelter, but the wind nixed that plan.

The huge thing I can't forgive myself for is forgetting the salt in the sourdough bread. Oh. My God. And two people bought these loaves. I realized this about a day later, after I tasted a loaf I had left over. Why on earth does this taste so flat and wooden? Bread without salt is pretty damned untasty. So I craftily wrote 'low salt' on the label when I brought the leftovers to work to sell. Still had two loaves left over. Oh well. We ate them and just added salt to the butter, or used highly flavored sandwich fillings. But it's another lesson in focusing on what you are doing. I shudder to think of what may have been overlooked if I hadn't taken two days off work to do this.

And that was the big lesson of this year. I need to take days off work to do these markets (or any other big baking project). I've found myself caught off guard more and more the last couple years by thinking I could simply do something, only to see the very obvious facts later that I don't have the time and energy to do it, let alone do it well. My persistent problem is underestimating what it takes to get things done.

And that makes me wonder: why does that happen? Did I reach my peak in life and now am on the long, slow downhill grade to the grave? Is my ambition greater than my wisdom? Do I need to focus more on self-preservation? Am I just a crappy planner?

I can use the winter months to think about what I can do better (like make sure my sourdough starter is nice and tangy, because it really wasn't). A guy asked me if the bread had a good sour taste, and I said 'I think so'. The starter may have gotten out of whack from being left unfed for so long during our Alaska trip. I can look at the weekends next summer and plan for specific dates. I can think about simple, rustic packaging ideas. I've decided I like sticking with my pinking shears to cut labels out of brown packing tape, and hand writing. I really don't need fancy printed labels for that.

Inexplicably, mom has wanted to jump in and 'help' with this endeavor. I'm not sure why. I think because there is a generational hand-down of cooking/baking skills. Yes, I've gotten the basic ideas from her, but I've taken off and run with certain things and gone to troubles that she never would have dreamed of. But mostly I think it's the socializing opportunity. With me, yes, but more so with the public. At first I was mightily irritated when months ago she insisted I let her 'help' when I finally came out and announced I was doing this. I knew full well she would be no assistance whatsoever with the things I REALLY needed help with: how to make labels. How to get my Cottage Food Law class downloaded and passed. How to figure out all the logistics, cleaning, sanitation. How to figure out a production schedule. Doing all the algebra problems to figure out ingredient costs, and costs per item, not to mention filling out an Excel spreadsheet with all this information. How to set the E-Z up shelter. This was, and still is, part of my own personal journey to figuring out how to best manage the remaining half of my life and figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I resent the idea of someone willing to let me sweat all the details and hard work of a project, and then just show up when it's done, and it's time for the fun part.

But when she showed up after driving all the way down from Saginaw after seeing my Facebook post announcing I was at the Hartland Farmers' Market, all that sort of disappeared. Yes, she talked non-stop and schmoozed like there was no tomorrow, but she kept me company for the last two hours of the market, and then took Tim and me out to lunch. How is any of that a horrendous affront to my soul?

I couldn't sell the chocolate sweet rolls. What I think is an awesome, delicious product is not so obvious to the public. And it turns out my costs to make those are relatively high. Cinnamon rolls, on the other hand...these flew off the table. I could have only concentrated on one or two items, those being one of them.

My coworkers could be counted on to buy up the leftovers. I marked most things down to half price and just left a box full of stuff in the break room and a money envelope and the goods magically turned into cash. I got high praise for the scones later. They were probably the easiest and one of the cheapest items to make, too. I suspect the third shift histo tech was a bit miffed that I wasn't bringing in free food like I've done so often in the past (and continue to do). His radar pinged when I carried in the big box, and he asked what it was. I said 'Farmers' Market leftovers'. 'Oh, wow, that's great', he says. 'If it's free...' I clarified: 'It's not free. This is the stuff I didn't sell at the Farmers' Market'.

 Silence.

What's extra amusing that this is someone who NEVER brings anything in when we have lab pot lucks. He says he's going to bring something in and 'forgets'. He spends literally hours lounging in that break room every night, and is usually the first one to help himself to whatever food people have brought in. And I have heard high praises for nearly 20 years from this guy for my cooking and baking. What a great 'chef' I am.

Well, time to pony up, dude. I've gone pro.