On the occasion of my thirtieth birthday
Last week I turned 30, a momentous occasion I celebrated by teaching a Sushi class. I'm not really into birthdays--I'm not one of those people who tries to hide which day is her birthday, but I'm also not interested in surprise parties or wearing a Burger King crown all day either. What I've found about my adult birthdays is that they nudge me toward reflection on the current state of my life, the events of the past year and the one ahead, and my general satisfaction. This birthday, being one that was heralded by my health insurance company sending me a letter saying that my premiums were increasing because I was "aging into a new bracket", was one that I thought might be accompanied by a fair amount of angst, but I never really felt that.
Along with me turning thirty, Generous Servings was 6 months old this past week. We're not past the infant mortality threat yet, but it's nice to be over the hump to making it through our first year. Today I was talking with our accountant about quarterly taxes, and he said, "How's the business going? Are you doing as well as you thought you would be?" People ask me this pretty often, and I'm always stumped, because to be honest, I never had a firm idea of where we should be at this point. Sure, I wrote a business plan with lots of projections, but anyone who believes his own projections for a brand-new business is delusional. Heck, five years ago I thought I'd be on my way to a tenure-track professor job at this point in my life, and instead I teach cooking classes, so I certainly don't believe my own projections.
I've definitely learned a lot this past year. There were things about running a business that I knew I'd have to learn, like how to file taxes, but those things are all boring. The more interesting lessons are the ones I had no idea would happen. Here are some that spring to mind:
1) Next time someone I know opens a business, I will show up for them in the first few months. I had no idea how important this would be--just to have warm bodies in your place makes such a huge difference for morale, even if you know they're there because they feel responsible. It's hard to open your doors and have no one come in. We have friends and family in the area who still haven't come in to see Generous Servings, and I'm sure they fully intend to do it at some point, but they've missed the critical window when we really needed them. On the other hand, some people really had a strong showing in those early days, and they will always have a special place in the history of Generous Servings. The family of our dad's cousin Bruce, most of whom live in Pennsylvania, somehow managed to come to both the cafe and cooking classes--with extra friends!--multiple times in the first month we were open, which was really nice.
2) The first two months are the hardest. I assumed that the beginning of the business would be difficult, but I wasn't sure how long it would take us to feel like we were mostly on top of things, and without having any light at the end of the tunnel, this business was feeling a lot like grad school. In hindsight, two months isn't that long, and if I'd known we would be so much more competent at the daily running of the business in just a couple of months, it would have been a lot easier to get through that early period.
3) There really is such a thing as cooking by smell. I often see articles in cooking magazines about using all five senses when you cook, but they always give really stupid examples of how to use hearing (hear bacon sizzle!) and smell. Hearing is still not anywhere near as useful a sense for cooking as sight or touch for me, but smell has really moved up in the ranks. When I'm teaching classes, there are often three or four dishes being made at once, and whatever's in the oven is out of sight, so it's easy to forget about it. However, I've noticed that I can now tell when a baking dish needs to be checked just by catching a whiff of the smell of the finished dish, and I certainly know when someone is burning garlic. It's kind of fun to surprise people by telling them, from across the room, to turn off the heat because their dish is done.
Today we move into a new phase of Generous Servings: it's the first day of our first session of Culinary Camp for Teens. I'm very excited, because teen camps were what got me into this business in the first place. I developed the idea in California, and they were a big hit there. Since we opened here in Denver in December, we've had to wait until now to do our first full-length camp, so it's been a long time in the making. I'm sure there will be lots of great stories, and hopefully I'll remember to take pictures, so stay tuned.
Along with me turning thirty, Generous Servings was 6 months old this past week. We're not past the infant mortality threat yet, but it's nice to be over the hump to making it through our first year. Today I was talking with our accountant about quarterly taxes, and he said, "How's the business going? Are you doing as well as you thought you would be?" People ask me this pretty often, and I'm always stumped, because to be honest, I never had a firm idea of where we should be at this point. Sure, I wrote a business plan with lots of projections, but anyone who believes his own projections for a brand-new business is delusional. Heck, five years ago I thought I'd be on my way to a tenure-track professor job at this point in my life, and instead I teach cooking classes, so I certainly don't believe my own projections.
I've definitely learned a lot this past year. There were things about running a business that I knew I'd have to learn, like how to file taxes, but those things are all boring. The more interesting lessons are the ones I had no idea would happen. Here are some that spring to mind:
1) Next time someone I know opens a business, I will show up for them in the first few months. I had no idea how important this would be--just to have warm bodies in your place makes such a huge difference for morale, even if you know they're there because they feel responsible. It's hard to open your doors and have no one come in. We have friends and family in the area who still haven't come in to see Generous Servings, and I'm sure they fully intend to do it at some point, but they've missed the critical window when we really needed them. On the other hand, some people really had a strong showing in those early days, and they will always have a special place in the history of Generous Servings. The family of our dad's cousin Bruce, most of whom live in Pennsylvania, somehow managed to come to both the cafe and cooking classes--with extra friends!--multiple times in the first month we were open, which was really nice.
2) The first two months are the hardest. I assumed that the beginning of the business would be difficult, but I wasn't sure how long it would take us to feel like we were mostly on top of things, and without having any light at the end of the tunnel, this business was feeling a lot like grad school. In hindsight, two months isn't that long, and if I'd known we would be so much more competent at the daily running of the business in just a couple of months, it would have been a lot easier to get through that early period.
3) There really is such a thing as cooking by smell. I often see articles in cooking magazines about using all five senses when you cook, but they always give really stupid examples of how to use hearing (hear bacon sizzle!) and smell. Hearing is still not anywhere near as useful a sense for cooking as sight or touch for me, but smell has really moved up in the ranks. When I'm teaching classes, there are often three or four dishes being made at once, and whatever's in the oven is out of sight, so it's easy to forget about it. However, I've noticed that I can now tell when a baking dish needs to be checked just by catching a whiff of the smell of the finished dish, and I certainly know when someone is burning garlic. It's kind of fun to surprise people by telling them, from across the room, to turn off the heat because their dish is done.
Today we move into a new phase of Generous Servings: it's the first day of our first session of Culinary Camp for Teens. I'm very excited, because teen camps were what got me into this business in the first place. I developed the idea in California, and they were a big hit there. Since we opened here in Denver in December, we've had to wait until now to do our first full-length camp, so it's been a long time in the making. I'm sure there will be lots of great stories, and hopefully I'll remember to take pictures, so stay tuned.
posted by The Cooking Doctor at
3:38 AM
2 Comments:
Congratulations on the milestone! This was a high quality post.
Speaking of going to new places in their infancy, you should stop by a new cake store in my 'hood called "Cake" - on Tennyson and 39th ave. After reading your post, I'm definitely dropping by this wknd even if sweets are the last thing I need right now!
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