Hello on Wednesday.
The freezer is still not working right. The temperature had been going back to normal yesterday, but now it's rising again. The repairman tells me to push the manual defrost. First I need to buy a flashlight so I can see the button. It doesn't work. The repairman tells me the freezer is frozen solid for some reason he will figure out when he comes tomorrow morning. I must empty out and turned off the freezer and leave it with the door open overnight to completely defrost. The freezer is filled with cakes for upcoming cake orders; baklava, biscuits, scones, cinnamon buns and cookies prepped and ready to be baked; cupcakes ready to be decorated, and various other surprises I discover as I empty it, including a beautiful batch of galactoboureko (Greek custard pastries).
We have a backup freezer in the store room which, among other things, currently holds a rather large cake that will be picked up at the end of the day that must be frozen solid to travel. I can't move that cake out to make room for other items until then. The cakes being moved from the big non-working freezer are too soft to stack. We start baking things that have defrosted and can't be refrozen (including the Greek custard pastry). What else can you do?
Meanwhile, the phone is ringing off the hook (a good thing!). I am emailing back and forth with a bride and a mother-of-the-bride about a possible groom's cake. Looking at pictures, designing size, costing out, negotiating price. We love making sculpted cakes and want them to be affordable enough yet not lose money on them. We hope the cake will be a go despite the fact that we already have several large orders for that same weekend. Take orders, then figure out how to complete them, that's our motto!
I have to find out when a cake for this weekend must be delivered where and how long it's going to take to get there. I haven't charged enough for the 55-minute one-way trip. While I'm not paying attention, a baker is cutting and baking cutout cookies but not using the cutters we need for an upcoming order. That means tomorrow we have to make another batch.
One of yesterday's visiting out-of-town customers left behind one box of cookies that now must be shipped. Except that some of the cookies will have to be rebaked because otherwise they won't be fresh enough by the time they get there.
A repeat customer calls to order a cake, and clearly I should know who she is. I recognize her name but cannot conjure up her face. She wants to order another cake just like the last one we made. Of course I can't remember what that was either. I so value very customer and want them to know that. But my failing is that I am TERRIBLE with remembering names and faces. My brain is seemingly incapable of discerning one medium tall blonde woman about my age from another. [After 4 years I still mix up the same two women who to my brain are indistinguishable. Not a good characteristic for a business owner.]
I get out twice: once to drive to the bank drive-thru and once to walk to the post office to ship the aforesaid box of cookies. It is nice to breathe fresh air for a few minutes. I notice that it feels more like fall than spring outside. Back downstairs in the kitchen I try to figure out where the whole day went and what did I accomplish?
I draft a new worksheet for keeping track of cake layers we need baked since it's getting confusing and last Saturday we wound up short one 9-inch vanilla layer. I wonder if every business is a continual work in progress or it's just us?
Tomorrow will be another day . . .and I'm the opener, so I'll be back here in less than 12 hours.
See you then,
Betsy at BaklaJava!
