How will they sell: Part 2

We did get to Santa Barbara finally about 3pm. We had a bit of a late start and then the Mazda's clutch went out on the way.
Once I had all of my ingredients I did bake 186 crunchy cookies and 150 chewy cookies, about 2 plain to 1 chocolate chip.
Today is the Carpentria farmers market so we will see how they sell.

Moving right along

There was a farmer's market in Goleta that sells well and we had our cookies there. Nate has someone who works that market for him so I haven't heard how the cookies sold. Nate did say that at Friday's market the plain sold 2 to 1 over the chocolate chip.
Today we will go to Santa Barbara and I'll bake for this week, a few more plain than chocolate chip. I think I'll double the amount made last Tues. But then we can take some along for our grand kids camping trip.
Steve, the web page designer, wrote last night and we have started seriously thinking about the web page to sell the cookies. This endeavor is moving along.

Cookies are selling 2

Thursday was a really incredible day for me. I worked the farmer’s market and was able to sell cookies that I’d made to absolute strangers. I was more than a little nervous before the market just because I was concerned that people would not really like the cookies.

Now I know that I shouldn’t have my ego tied up in the cookies, but I’ve developed these cookies after investing lots of long hours. So my ego was on the edge a bit when I started giving out samples of cookies.

People really liked the cookies. I would handle samples of the cookies out and could see that they really liked them. I brought ½ of the cookies I’d baked on Tuesday which amounted to about 25 packages of cookies containing 4 cookies in each. I sold all of the packages except for 2, one of which I traded for a bottle of olive oil and the last one I gave to the lady next to me.

It was amazing to me to see that people really liked something that I’d developed and would like it enough to open their wallet.

Nate sold a bunch on Friday and I actually baked more as he can see more on Sunday. This is so exciting.

Accidents in the kitchen

On Tuesday Nate had the kitchen all day. I didn’t make it over there until afternoon because Dale and I were cleaning the apartment kitchen for Nate and Bekki.

We made it to the kitchen but after I started mixing the cookies found that we did not have enough sugar. Since Dale was helping me he was off to buy the organic sugar that we use. While he was gone I started mixing what I had and then the large mixer hit my wood handle spatula knocking it into the bowl and breaking it. The spoon broke in half. I threw away the butter/sugar as I was afraid of wood splinters being in the dough. I remembered a claim when someone bit into a piece of wood in a chicken sandwich then sued the vendor. No more wood handled implements for my kitchen.

Baking Day tomorrow

Tomorrow is going to be a huge baking day. When we went over what we would need for the farmer's markets yesterday I was thinking 2 x the recipe of last week, but then rethinking I need 3 or 4 x the amount. I promised to send some to my nephew Michael and someone wants to order some.

Tomorrow is exciting in that I'll roll out the bars that I started with originally. I had this idea of some bars I'd made based on a recipe my friend Aletha had sent me while in Africa. I made something similar in consistency. Everyone liked the bars but then I focused on the cookies.

I'll try the bars tomorrow.

A long day

What a long day. We left at 6am for Santa Clarita to work the farmer’s market. We’d baked so many cookies only to find out when we arrived in S.C. that we were not yet approved to sell them. Seems that Nate forgot to tell me that he didn’t get all of the info into the market manager.

People actually came and asked for the cookies, one guy was specifically told by his daughter to pick up some. So we gave out cookies as samples building some good will I hope.

We came on to Santa Barbara where we will mostly be for the week. Grandkids have summer camp starting tomorrow at UCSB. They will have activities in the a.m. and then do a kayak/surfing camp in the afternoon. They are quite excited.

Cookies are selling

Got a call from Bekki tonight. Nate sold all of the cookies I made on Tuesday night between yesterday and today’s farmers markets. That was 4 recipes of each the chewy and the crunchy. There are no cookies for the Sunday market in Goleta. Guess its back to baking.

Oven is dying and I want to help

Since all of the cookies were left in Santa Barbara for the S.B. and the Montecito markets I had to bake more for the Sunday market in Santa Clarita. I’d promised some to several neighbors so thought that I’d make a couple of double recipes. Now one single recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies so I was hoping to make one double recipe of the crunchy and one double recipe of chewy.

When I was finally able to start baking it was already about 2 pm. As I started to bake I found that cookies were talking lots longer than they did when Dolly and I were experimenting with this recipe. The oven didn’t even seem hot at all. I have had problems with this oven; it is about 20 years old and not the highest quality.

I told Dale that I refuse to do any repairs on the oven because it is old. I’m determine to get my Viking.