Our Kitchen Evolution: Part 2

So the very first market we baked everything in our home kitchen with the dented oven.  The first batch of cookies I made in it burned, which I think is some kind of universal law of using a new or unfamiliar oven.  I still so clearly remember that very first morning.  I was going by myself to the market because Reid was going to stay here for the yard sale (i.e. combining 2 houses into one, so pick the better one of each and sell the other sale.  Conveniently most of my stuff was still in boxes and not sold.)  I had only been down to the Washington market once the previous summer before the 4th of July party and wasn't completely sure what to expect.  I also wasn't completely sure what time it opened so I thought my 6:30 am leave time from the house was really late for a Farmer's Market.

We still had basically the same kitchen set up for the next market except by this time our new oven had arrived.  By then I knew the market didn't officially start until 9am and Reid went with me which was way more fun than being there alone.  I had more ingredients than I normally would have on hand in my own kitchen but everything still fit just fine in the pantry (which was another big clean out-repaint-repurpose back to pantry from closet project).  After the second market, Reid and I realized the big thing we were missing down there was hot coffee.  (Well, we missed not being able to sip on coffee Saturday morning so we figured everyone else must feel the same way!)

So after the second market we went on our first "Southern Scratch" shopping trip to Sam's.  As a card carrying big box club shopping member since high school (on my parent's membership) to being single with my own card (justifying it because of organic spring mix and individual portion size containers of half and half), I was super excited to finally be shopping for a kind-of-sort-of-almost real "small business."

Oh what fun was to be had. All the commercial boxes of things like 3,000 feet of aluminum foil and 1,000 count sheets of wax paper were finally something I would feasibly need for the market.  I threw some more half sheet baking pans in the cart along with a box of a hundred or more coffee cups and I think a box of 500 coffee lids.  The trip was even more fun when our joint fascination with people watching was indulged over a piece of pizza and big 32 oz. cokes analyzing (judging) the contents of shopping carts.  (Kind of hypocrital but we called it "food anthropology research" on what was really "date night" instead.) 

I tried making space for the boxes in the pantry but then it made it harder to fit all the bags of flour and half gallon of baking powder on the shelves too.  I also had pulled out extra pink tulle ribbon, glassine bags & labels leftover from our wedding to the dining room table for packaging up treats.  Pretty quickly the entire upstairs had a little Southern Scratch on it. 

So I went to Fred's and was super excited to find big plastic totes in turquoise.  Ah-ha!  These would be perfect.  I bought five of them and then ran home to label them (so organized, right?) by category of all the things we needed to bake/set-up for the market.  The boxes were labeled:

1.) Ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder, etc.)
2.) Coffee cups & lids
3.) Cake plates
4.) Gift packaging (ribbon, bags, scissors, etc.)
5.) Tablecloths, spatulas, etc.

My plan was to keep everything in the boxes stacked up neatly at the foot of the stairs and then bring them upstairs on Thursday or Friday when I started baking for the market.  Then after the market Saturday I would make sure everything was in it's right box and it would be out sight again. 

Well, remember what I said in the last post about organizing things then not following the organization system? Case in point here.  It ended up that I did manage to get things back in their boxes, but the boxes always stayed upstairs.  And the gift packaging supplies moved to our guest bedroom where I had set up a desk and my printer after another order from Nashville Wraps and Sam Flax.  And our dining room table (thank goodness for those thick mat things that go over them) was constantly overrun by flour bags and things like 3,000 foot aluminum foil rolls. 

At this point Reid put up with so much from me. (He still does).  Here he had married this girl who had said she was going to take a little while off work "to get the house set up so we could live happily ever after with home cooked meals and clean laundry" and now he is coming home to the inside of a bakery/office upstairs and his man basement covered in this girl's furniture and moving boxes.  To top it off, I'm asking him to do things like wrap brownies up individually or put pink labels on pound cakes and stay up all hours baking on Friday nights instead of him relaxing after a long week at work.  Oh, and the amazing number of dishes he has washed for me instead of going fishing.

We both knew we couldn't cook from our house forever but also knew we didn't want to take a huge risk and open up any kind of storefront until we a) knew where we were headed and b.) knew where we were headed.  Still, living inside my biggest project yet was overwhelming.  Even though the "facilities" were adequate to do the comparatively small amount of baking and cooking we were doing, it invaded our living area.  We slowly started to realize we might really be able to build up a little business if we stuck with it, but we had to find somewhere else to do our little business.

In mid July was when I think we reached our peak of craziness. 

Reid's "second mama" Angie was putting together a benefit which included selling tickets for meal plates.  We were so excited to be a part of it and get to make the plates up which included from scratch lasagna (noodles, sauce from locally grown tomatoes, etc.), salad with homemade dressing, yeast rolls and brownies.  The benefit plates were for Saturday afternoon so we planned to do a small market in the morning then head over to the benefit. 

I did the brownies and made up ranch dressing on Thursday.  Friday I started on the lasagna.  Anyone who has roasted forty or fifty pounds of tomatoes, then made sauce from them knows you are bound to get some everywhere.  And with the flour of rolling out noodles and mixing up big bowls of ricotta cheese, organic spinach and cage free eggs, we had quite an operation going on.  We set up all of our folding tables plus a baking rack (that we had traded for meals) in the kitchen with the sofa pushed back against the organ.  (Because everyone has an antique organ in their kitchen, right?)  So once the lasagnas were completely assembled we brought those, the salad fixings, and the brownies over to Lori's house close to where the benefit would end.  They would be out of town and had a great big refrigerator so we could fit all the pans, etc. in them.  (We still just had our one fridge and otherwise would have had to skip the market and just make lasagna all morning...which it's always better anyway if you let the flavors kind of ripen together first so it worked out perfectly). 

That morning we went to the market with cinnamon rolls, orange rolls, scones, cakes and other goodies we had baked in the midnight to 8am time frame from dropping off lasagna and start of time to set up for market. I left early around 10ish to head back to our house and make yeast rolls for the plates.  We had the rack still set up (tables were at the market) and all the sitting furniture pushed up against this organ save for one chair that swivvles that someone could turn and squeeze into.  The oriental rug (which never even had a chance in this house before I sent it back to my mother's house after having a year long love affair with it in my little cottage) was still rolled up against the wall too.  Laundry was left in a forlorn pile in front of the door to the laundry room.  Dishes that didn't make the Friday night cut-off to get washed were (somewhat) neatly stacked in those plastic dish bussing tubs closer to the other side of the room.   The dining table was covered in cellophane, tulle,a stack of receipts and display containers that didn't make it to the market.  If they didn't know better I'm sure a passerby would have probably called the police and reported a break-in. 

So by 12:30 I was deep in yeast dough with some dough resting, some rising, some baking and some still letting the yeast mix with warm milk and sugar first.  One thing I learned working at the donut shop in college was that you shouldn't be stingy with your floured surface when working with yeast dough. So stingy I wasn't and thus had flour covering my stainless table and the floor around my stainless table which fell off when you rolled out dough.  On one hand I felt like a half crazy housewife who had gotten herself in way too deep, but on the other hand I felt kind of like an accomplished baker who could make fifteen dozen yeast rolls at once.

Watching the clock I thought "Wow-we are really going to be able to pull this off!  After I get home and get a nap I'm going to spend the next few days getting my kitchen back to normal and maybe then we could invite some friends or neighbors over." 

Well, as if she had been somehow psychic summoned with my wish to have company over eventually, my neighbor showed up.  And not the ones from next door who had been in and out of our house and loved us anyway.  But our neighbor from a few houses down on an adjacent street who I had only met a couple times pre-wedding when she helped us do our registry in town at Bee Southern.  I heard the car pull up, realized it wasn't Reid, and froze.  Then the knock on the door.  I quickly calculated that it was too late to just duck down and hide and thought "Well, to heck with it."  I opened the door and just said "Hey, welcome to our craziness!" 

Pam re-introduced herself, gave me a hug even in my flour covered clothes and asked if I needed any help, darlin?  She had heard I was doing the benefit plates and also wanted to do a donation.  Since she just lived around the corner she came over to put in her order and just check on us.  I didn't need any help at the moment (and wasn't bold enough to put her to work washing dishes!)  so just invited her to come sit for a while, apologizing profusely for the house.  She found the only chair, made herself at home, and made me feel a million times better about the whole state of affairs going on.  She actually made me feel more comfortable in my own home and for that immediately endeared herself to me.  It was like my own mom telling me "everything would be fine and that it takes years to set up your house the way you want it."  (A month later her husband would teach me how to fry onion rings properly and endear himself to me too! Pam still gets the award for being in our house at "peak crazy time," and like our other neighbors Opie & Michelle, I think she still loves us anyway!)

Late that afternoon, across town, Reid and I ended up getting all the plates ready on time with piping hot lasagna, fresh yeast rolls and even some homegrown veggies from the market that morning with the salad.  Although we were pretty exhuasted, Reid and I kept saying to each other "We did it.  Now we know the two of us can make 120 lasagna plates from scratch.  We did it!!"  It was definitely a fun moment and great learning experience for us.  And one thing we learned was that we had to get Southern Scratch out of our kitchen/living room/dining room as soon as possible!

After getting some rest we got the kitchen cleaned up but left the furniture as it was.  On Monday we started ripping things off the wall in the basement for our new dedicated Southern Scratch kitchen...

Next:  Priming cinder blocks, August humidity & more stainless kitchen equipment...