Saturday, October 24, 2009

Generous Servings in the national press!

Well, the secret is out: Generous Servings has been featured in a national publication. Well, you might consider it a former national publication. And we weren't exactly featured. And we have no idea why we were in it. Let me explain.

Several months ago a reporter and photographer from Cookie ("a lifestyle magazine for the modern mother") stopped by Generous Servings, apparently wanting to take a picture of one of our croissants for the magazine. I wasn't there, and when I arrived, I got a hopelessly jumbled message about who these people were and what they wanted--did they want a picture of us baking a croissant, or someone eating it? (This was made more confusing by the fact that everyone told me that a reporter from Cooking magazine had come by, and I know there is no such thing as Cooking magazine because I subscribe to every cooking magazine on the planet). We didn't have any croissants that day (we sell them only on Saturdays), but Travis was in the process of making some croissant dough, and he had told the reporter to come back in the afternoon and maybe we could bake one croissant for them to photograph.

We were really busy in the kitchen that day, so baking a sample croissant for some random reporter who really wanted a picture of a croissant but didn't bother to call ahead to find out what day we had them was not a priority. They did come back, and we didn't have a croissant baked yet, so they waited for a long time, eating some soup and making us feel awkward. We finally baked a single croissant and it came out kind of ugly, but we gave it to them anyway and hoped they would leave. Apparently they decided against an action shot, and they wanted to use one of our plates (and did we have anything a little more attractive than our plain white plates), and our table, and an extension cord for their lights, and then they decided it needed more color so they wanted some jam, and a little knife, and this went on forever. Finally they said they were done, and they tried to give back the croissant (torn in pieces by this time), but we said they could eat it. They looked skeptical and took a tiny little piece that they wouldn't even be able to taste, and then said, "Mmmmm...." like it was actually disgusting and they were just being polite. Travis and I were extremely offended, because a whole croissant just went to waste, pearls before swine.

In all the confusion, no one thought to ask them why they specifically wanted a picture of our croissants, but at least I remembered to find out what magazine they worked for and when the picture was supposed to run. Turns out it was the November issue of Cookie magazine, which was doing a story on fun places to go in Denver, so we've been keeping our eyes open for that issue. In the meantime I heard that Cookie was one of the magazines that Conde Nast was closing (along with the indispensible Elegant Bride, and Gourmet, which I do feel a little sad about), so the November issue was the last one published. Travis got his hands on it, and here we are:



You can see our croissant (the middle of the three little pictures), with the heretical jam (I feel that our croissants do not require embellishment, unless it's chocolate). And how nice of them to compliment the soup that they ate while waiting for us to have the croissant ready. The whole thing is still a mystery to me--why put a picture of a croissant in a parenting magazine? Especially a croissant you haven't even tasted?

Until we hire out our full-time media liaison, if you would like a picture of a specific pastry, you might want to call ahead.