The ice cream sandwich conundrum

We've been getting geared up for summer at Generous Servings. First, we got some furniture for our brand-new patio. We had bought seven wrought-iron patio tables at an auction back in October, which have been living in my back yard, so first we had to rent a truck to move them to Generous Servings. Then we needed some chairs. We heard that there were some for sale at Costco, so I went out there with my boyfriend Matt, intending to buy 28 chairs and then go rent another truck to haul them back. Once we bought the chairs, I felt that it would be much easier to try to stuff them into our cars than to go through the hassle of renting a truck, so we called Jill's boyfriend David to meet us there with another car. Meanwhile, Matt and I worked on wedging the greatest possible number of chairs into my car. By the time David arrived with Jill's car, we had determined that we could fit all the chairs into back seats and passenger seats of the two cars, but now there were three of us, so someone wasn't going to be able to come home, at least not in any comfortable fashion. We discussed the idea of one of us riding in the trunk, and I was the only person who didn't feel claustrophobic at the thought (plus David and Matt were just being helpful, so it was pretty much up to me to sacrifice myself), so I was elected to go home in the trunk. It seemed kind of exciting, actually. But then David discovered that he could somehow fold himself around the chair legs in the back seat and actually sort of sit down, although he would be impaled if the car went around a corner too quickly. So Matt drove my car, I drove Jill's car, David squeezed into the back, and we got all the chairs home in one load.

Here's a picture of our building, with the patio out front and the pear trees in bloom:



A couple of weeks ago we were brainstorming about a fun summertime treat we could offer on the weekends, when there are lots of families walking around the neighborhood, and we came up with the idea to make ice cream sandwiches. We found good recipes for both chocolate and peanut-butter cookies for the outside of the sandwich, and I made a small batch to try out. The first weekend we offered them, we sold out and almost had food riots. So Jill and I went to work trying to figure out an efficient way to make a lot of ice cream sandwiches. This is not as easy as you might think--ice cream sandwiches are the messiest things I have ever made. Somehow we end up with both crumbs and melted ice cream all over the kitchen. But we are perfecting a top-secret method, which we may patent. Here are some cryptic photos of the process:




And then comes the secret part, where we get the ice cream inside the cookies, which we can't show you (actually, we just didn't take a picture of it, because both of us were so sticky). The final results (minus the mini chocolate chips we roll them in once they've had a chance to firm up for a while in the freezer):

Hail the conquering heroes!

I've been storing up things to blog about, but I haven't had a good block of time to type them out in weeks. March was a busy month for us, with more than one private event every week, which meant that whenever I wasn't actually teaching a class or doing an event, I was preparing for the next one. April is much quieter, which is not good in a business sense, but I have to admit it's nice to do silly things like my laundry.

There is much to report. First, you will be pleased to hear that Generous Servings decisively won our court battle against the evil shipping company that dropped our mixer. They didn't show up to the court date. I had to sit in the courtroom (hardly the echoing chamber of justice I was hoping for; the decorating scheme leaned heavily toward wood laminate) for the requisite 20 minutes past our court time to make sure that they weren't going to come late, which I spent in conversation with the only other person who had showed up for his court date (a guy who was being sued for $2800 for knocking over and scratching a bike in a bike shop). There were three cases on the docket, but no plaintiff-defendant pair was present, so there wasn't a lot of drama. The only other people there to witness my great triumph were the judge, who had a really impressive Santa Claus beard, and a court clerk who obviously had years of practice at cutting people off who were about to launch into long stories. When it was my turn, the judge called me up, asked my name, checked that I had the sheriff's affidavit of service (proving that the freight company had been notified about our court date), and told me to tell my story. I kept it to the one-sentence version--the freight company dropped my mixer and now it doesn't work--and since there was no one there to contest it, that was about all there was to do. The judge asked me a few questions about the estimate for repairing the mixer, and then it was over. My very first court victory. Of course, collecting the money is an entirely different matter--the court doesn't help you with that. I followed my dad's very crafty suggestion of allowing the appeal period to elapse before I contacted the company to tell them where to send the check--no point in drawing their attention to the fact that they lost while there's anything they can do about it. Now that it's been more than 15 days, I am ready to resume my usual role of Most Annoying Customer You've Ever Tried To Screw Over. Thank you very much, I'll be here all week.

Around the same time as my legal debut, we also had our first unannounced inspection by the Health Department. The inspector was very nice, and it didn't take long for me to casually mention that I have a Ph.D. in microbiology, after which we really bonded--he had a master's in biology! We had a heart-to-heart conversation about science, including the joys of labeling and handwashing. Jill had to leave the room to keep from laughing. The inspector gave us a clean report, which we have hung up in the bathroom, in case you'd like to see it. He also said he'd stop by for coffee soon, which I think should give us some extra credit, because if the health department inspector is willing to eat in your establishment, that's a very good sign.

Another exciting thing that happened was totally unexpected. A month ago, some people came in who are planning on opening a chain of coffee shops in the area, and they were sampling baked goods from every bakery they could find to determine where to purchase the pastries for their stores. They asked where we bought our pastries, and we told them we baked them all here, and we gave them some pastries to sample. A week later they called and said that our pastries were the best they'd had in Denver. So we set up a meeting to discuss the possibility of wholesaling our pastries to their coffee shops, which I have no idea how to do, but seems like an interesting possibility. That meeting was today, so I've been baking extra all week to stockpile a broad variety of our pastries for them to try. I got a little nervous about the meeting--I feel like I'm jumping into yet another arena in which I am lacking some vital information that would come with experience. I got stressed out about needing to calculate how much it costs us to make each pastry, but when I finally got around to gathering all the ingredient costs and putting my Excel skills to work, I learned some interesting facts about what we sink money into (our most expensive item to make is banana bread--would you ever have guessed that?). Also, it turned out to be fun to realize how many kinds of pastries we actually make (I've never seen them all piled up in one place before), and how proud I am of their quality. I don't know if the wholesaling thing will work out--there are a lot of practical issues (delivery, liability, etc.) that might prove difficult--but it was a good meeting, and we'll keep talking.

We're running a special on class registrations right now--sign up for three classes and get $30 off--so if you've been looking at a few classes (or want to sign up for a class with a couple of friends), now's the time. We've also got $1 lattes in the cafe through tomorrow to celebrate the grand opening of our patio (which is actually closed now because it snowed). That's it for now--I've got to do dishes from the very fun Chicken In Every Pot class that I just finished. I'll leave you with a quote from one of the participants' feedback forms: "I loved this class--I learned so many new recipes and skills that I will be able to use at home. Everything tasted amazing and Mary was a great teacher--very helpful and patient. I want to come back for more classes soon."

Awwwww, I love you guys. Group hug.