Other than that...

[snousle]

The past few weeks have been strangely blurred; I feel quite busy, but there hasn't been a lot of progress on anything other than daily tasks, and I can't really account for much of where the past week went. Maybe I've had too much whackawhacka for my own good.

One thing on the agenda is product development. I got a request for vegan ravioli from a disabled woman who is hosting a houseguest of that gastronomic persuasion, and she didn't know WHAT to feed her. I figure that if a request comes up once, it will probably come up again, so I figured, hey, why not sell out early and launch a line of frozen food products? The tests have gone well - roasted eggplant with saffron pasta, and squash with whole wheat pasta, frozen and vacuum sealed. They're gorgeous little things! I'm still working on some vegan sauces to go with them. Today, when I get off my butt, I will make four pounds of each, and see exactly how long it takes. Crappy looking organic chicken potstickers at the natural foods market go for $8 a pound ($4 for measly 8 ounce packages) so if I can make it at a rate of about 4 or 5 pounds an hour it would be economically viable to take orders. It can also be part of the "instant dinner party" I'm developing.

The elephant in the room is the web page. Still not ready. Being truly ready to launch a business is a daunting thing, and I'm grateful I don't have to rush it. Winter is still offering surprises - like a frozen water line - and I'm not sure if I can offer sufficiently reliable service in January. Also, a cornerstone of my cuisine is precise food handling, which means no hot transport, and unfortunately testing has put a big FAIL on the method I'd anticipated using for reheating cold products (reheating in the chafing dish). Too many foods have thermal conductivity that is too low for heating the top surface, even when I insulate the lid. So on Monday, before I pick up my mother at the airport, I'm going to scour SF's chinatown for a steaming system I can use on-site for rapid heating. That, plus a low-profile propane burner I have my eyes on in Santa Rosa, and I should be able to put up a hot buffet anywhere.

Other than that... a lot of puttering. I suppose it's of value. For sure, I am never bored, even for an instant. I can go for a week without leaving the mountain and it goes by with breathtaking speed. Kind of alarming, actually.

I finally watched a film low_fat_muffin suggested, How To Cook Your Life. I liked it... in some ways. I'm already a big fan of the Tenzo Kyokun so I was pleased to find that this text was a central part of the film. But man, I do not want to end up being Edward Espe Brown. I mean, he seems like a great fellow, I totally groove on his philosophy of cooking, and we'd probably get along like a house on fire. But let's just say he's helped clarify what I really care about in life. When I'm his age, I want to drink lots of whiskey, smoke lots of weed, pork a lot of hot guys, eat lots of red meat, and periodically smash things to bits in angry rages. Zen (or, for the purist, "what is called Zen in the West") has interested me for a lot of different reasons, but if it's not compatible with that I'll just take the food, flower arrangements, and interior design, and pass on the rest, thanks!

But... the film does put me in a better state of mind. I have to keep reminding myself that it's OK to slow down a little, it's not as if I'm being idle. Not having a 9-5 is liberating but also sort of panic-inducing. I read somewhere that it's great being your own boss, but being your own employee is a pain in the ass! The real challenge for me is to eliminate monkey-mind, the habit of constantly flitting from one concern to another. Chris Kimball, in another of his stern editorials about the character-building terrors of Vermont country life, related the principle of "do the work that is in front of you". Not bad advice.

Comments

[bbearseviltwin.livejournal.com]

Got a slightly off topic question for you which I hope you don't mind me asking. What is the difference between Vegan and Vegetarian cooking? I see references in various places that they are different but never what the differences are.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Vegan cooking contains no animal products at all. No milk, butter, eggs, that sort of thing.

Vegetarians go for dairy, and often accept incidental meat products like fish sauce or rennet in cheese, though I have to follow the strictest interpretations when cooking for others.

(Although I'm not so sure about rennet, only the extra-picky vegetarians care, and eliminating cheese from the menu is kind of a drag.)

[bbearseviltwin.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember there being an vegetable version of rennet but I could be wrong on that, even if there is I suspect that finding cheese made with it would be close to impossible.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

My experience is that vegetarians will sometimes accept something like a fish sauce if they know it's there in advance. What tends to piss off the vegetarians I know is eating something they think has no animal flesh, and then finding out it did.

I'm an atypical vegetarian to be sure - but I don't care about rennet. Besides, it winds up being such a tiny, tiny trace in the cheese... objecting to it seems silly to me - and you KNOW how fussy I am about food!

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

Sounds like fantastic product development. Hope things work out in the reheating department.