As the Beach Boys tell us, Christmas comes this time each year
For the past month, I've had the strange experience of being immersed in holiday baking despite the fact that the weather is still on the fence between summer and fall. Generous Servings will be selling holiday pies, cookies, and other festive breads and pastries this holiday season, and we spent weeks baking all the different recipes so we could take pictures of everything to make a brochure and website. My sense of seasons is so affected by food that the smell of spice cookies immediately starts me singing "Good King Wenceslas", which means that by the time Christmas actually rolls around, I will have been humming carols for four months. Good thing I know all the words, or I might get bored.
Before embarking on the cookie marathon, we hired two assistant bakers/baristas, who plunged (at least up to their elbows) into making doughs and icing. Between the four of us, we made dozens of types of cookies, pies, and my masterpiece, the Buche de Noel (Yule Log cake):
Ooooooh, don't you want one of those for your holiday centerpiece? (Meringue mushrooms included!) To see lots more pictures of yummy stuff, check out http://www.GenerousServings.com/pastries.html. And if you want a Thanksgiving pie or a cute cookie assortment for a holiday party, please PLEASE pre-order them, so we can hire enough elves to bake everything.
We also rolled out a brand-new soup and salad menu last week. We're making homemade soups each day, with homemade bread (seriously), plus some great salads. In our ongoing process of getting a clue about marketing, we had the great idea to put some signs on our windows about our new menu, and they are having the predictable effect of increasing traffic in the cafe. Honestly, we are the worst marketers in the world--how can it have taken a year for us to realize we should put signs in the windows? Here's a picture showing the decals that we put up, which we think look pretty sharp:
Along with the great customers we've been seeing lots of recently, a really strange man came in and gave Jill a "present" that he had found on the ground outside. Here she is modeling it:
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Before embarking on the cookie marathon, we hired two assistant bakers/baristas, who plunged (at least up to their elbows) into making doughs and icing. Between the four of us, we made dozens of types of cookies, pies, and my masterpiece, the Buche de Noel (Yule Log cake):
Ooooooh, don't you want one of those for your holiday centerpiece? (Meringue mushrooms included!) To see lots more pictures of yummy stuff, check out http://www.GenerousServings.com/pastries.html. And if you want a Thanksgiving pie or a cute cookie assortment for a holiday party, please PLEASE pre-order them, so we can hire enough elves to bake everything.
We also rolled out a brand-new soup and salad menu last week. We're making homemade soups each day, with homemade bread (seriously), plus some great salads. In our ongoing process of getting a clue about marketing, we had the great idea to put some signs on our windows about our new menu, and they are having the predictable effect of increasing traffic in the cafe. Honestly, we are the worst marketers in the world--how can it have taken a year for us to realize we should put signs in the windows? Here's a picture showing the decals that we put up, which we think look pretty sharp:
Along with the great customers we've been seeing lots of recently, a really strange man came in and gave Jill a "present" that he had found on the ground outside. Here she is modeling it:
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posted by Mary at
9:59 PM
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