Southern Scratch: One Year!

Every Sunday morning before church Reid cooks grits (and sometimes eggs & bacon) for us and we get a chance to really catch up on everything.  It is easily my favorite time during the whole week.  On Friday nights when I know I'm down to my last ounce of energy, I can just think of Sunday mornings and know that everything is going to be fine.  My husband, good food, good coffee, our quiet farm, our conversation and knowing that God is to thank for it all make for complete, utter peace for me. 

Well this morning we talked about Southern Scratch.  It is probably one of the things we talk about most anyway, but today we kind of reflected a little on how much things have changed with our little business-what we've done well with, what was just a disaster (the kind you can laugh about now but probably had me in tears saying I just wanted to have a normal job and buy a TV and get our house painted instead of buying cases of butter at the time), what we should keep doing, stop doing and what we should start doing (like get better at taking/posting pictures).  We also talked about how Reid makes the most perfect grits and how lucky I am that he married me which is pretty much a direct quote of myself as soon as I have the first bite of breakfast every Sunday.  Food will do it for me every time.

So here are the best things that have come out of the past year:

1.)  Our faith.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am not an uber-organized or really business-savy person at all.  Reid and I love each other, we love good food and we like feeding people.  As far as any kind of overall business plan, that is about all we know.  So I know for certain that if I was trying to pull all this together on my own I would definitely not be writing about celebrating a year of being in business.  Constant prayer has easily turned out to be the best business plan ever.  (I'm usually starting with "Dear Lord, I really don't know what I'm doing but I know that you do....")
We know that in the whole scheme of things, this little business is not really all that important because at the end of the day it is still temporal. What is important is that we make decisions that are in line with Christ; decisions that strengthen our marriage rather than separate us and that we don't lose sight of this bigger truth in life because we are caught up in the immediacy of filling cinnamon roll orders.  (Not to underestimate the importance of a really good cinnamon roll of course...). 
I had a biology professor who would say "Pray like it's up to God, but study like it's up to you."  If you switch out "work" for "study" then you've got a pretty accurate description of what we've done the past year!

2.)  Our relationship with each other.  Things can still get a little tense but working long hours in close quarters together has definitely taught Reid and I a ton.  For my part, I've much better learned how to communicate what I need and to trust that Reid will do it without becoming a crazy, nagging wife covered in flour and butter who clearly has "snapped."  (Which may have happened a couple few, oh say half dozen times on a late Friday night...). 
Not only have we gotten to work together the stressful, long hours of starting a business but we've also gotten to celebrate it together.  The very first market I texted Reid around 8:45 saying "Darling-I've already sold $8!!!".  I was super excited about telling him and even now we always wait until we have time together to see what we sold at the market.  I tell him about every single order and he tells me how much fun it is to hear customers ask for "Better Than's" by name since he came up with it.  We're in it together and I can't imagine sharing the experience with anyone else.

3.)  Our social life.  Part of wanting to sell a few things down at the farmer's market was to get out and meet people.  I was new in town, living out in the country with no really close friends or family within a hundred miles.  I had met some great people already in Washington through showers and visiting but still felt pretty isolated out here.   Starting this business (which we didn't really know we were starting at the time) has opened the doors to so many incredible people.  Our friends Pat and John who own Buona Caffe have a logo that says "Good things happen over good coffee."  We couldn't agree more.  Yesterday, when my brother and sister-in-law were helping us in Augusta they mentioned how warm and nice everyone seemed to be.  There is always a bond that forms when people share good food and drink together. 
I'm not sure how but we have the best customers ever.  I feel like nearly every person I've sold something to I could call if I needed help.  When I don't see someone at the market Saturday morning, it's like a good friend who couldn't make it to dinner so you can't wait to catch up with them the next week.  Even though the Augusta and Athens markets are online, I've gotten to know them through email, Facebook and occassionally getting to deliver on drop off day.    I feel so blessed to know so many amazing, interesting, vibrant people who seem to like food just as much as I do.
Not only are our customers amazing, I have gotten to work with all these incredible growers and producers of food.  Spending time at the farm where you buy all your beef, knowing every family member who grows your vegetables and hanging out every Saturday morning with the people you buy jelly, tamales, pita bread, flour, eggs, and produce from is one of the best social networks to be in!

4.)  Our food.  This morning for breakfast we knew where each and every bit of our food came from and had personally met all the people who grew it.  We had grits from Freeman Mill, bacon from Savannah River Farms, eggs from our neighbor and coffee from Buona Caffe with cream from Southern Swiss Dairy.  For lunch we made sandwiches from Tink's Grass Fed Beef sirloin on Lily Bakery and Cafe sourdough with radishes and lettuce from Harvest Moon Garden farm.  Every bit of it was so good.  And even though it was just me and Reid eating, I still felt a connection with all of the people I just mentioned because when you know who grew/raised/roasted your food, you can't help but think of them. 
And also with food...practice makes perfect.  I will say if we hadn't made chocolate chip cookies several times a week or started roasting 20 pounds of chicken at a time, we couldn't have gotten our recipes to where they are.  We are always tweaking and trying to improve upon items...and one day I'll convert all my handwritten and mental notes to paper...

5.)  Our house.  Umm..we painted the hallway and Reid is putting new lights in the soon to be nursery?  Haha-one day we'll get around to really working on the house...

Wow...it still doesn't seem possible that we've had a business for a year now.   Maybe it's because we still don't really think of ourselves as "business owners" since there isn't too much pomp and circumstance around baking all night long or washing dishes.  Or because the whole thing has really been a lot of fun (until it's really hard then we get some sleep and Sunday comes and everything is fun again). 

Late last fall when we officially moved the kitchen into the Tignall house, one of my first ideas was to have a great party out there for all the incredible people we have gotten to meet (and feed!) on our "Southern Scratch 1st Anniversary."  My plan was to host this on Saturday night, which would have been last night, on the eve of our "one year" and exactly 52 weeks from our first market.  Instead of a party we were both passed out asleep from an incredibly fun but busy day at the Riverwood Localfest in Evans, GA.  And the Tignall house (or our farm/house) isn't even ready anyway.  So here's to aiming for a 2 year anniversary party?  When we have an 8 month old?

In the meantime, we are going to have to come up with something fun to celebrate all around.  Or maybe move our "1 year" to mean the day we actually decided that we should maybe "go for it" or the day we filed as an LLC or the day we moved from baking in our somewhat renovated basement to a bonafied commercial kitchen that wasn't attached to our house.  Regardless, I love a party and so one day we'll have one! 

THANK YOU for helping us reach this milestone!!!

Love,
Reid & Kathryn