A snapshot of me right now

Given that I've pretty much abandoned this space of late, I think I'll just give you a quick snapshot of me right now... Actually, it's more for the me of a future since most of the time I figure that's who I'm writing for anyway.

I've made a small change in my daily eating habits that I feel could have some great long-term benefits and just plain makes me feel better about how I'm treating myself: I'm eating vegetarian lunches which must include a good amount of raw vegetables.  Fish is allowable (and encouraged).

I'm completely ADDICTED to Camelot on CBC.  Have you been watching it? If not, watch the first episode and then don't give up.  Watch the second episode and I guarantee you'll be completely hooked.

I'm getting excited about the plans that Isobel (dearest neighbour) and I have for Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking.  I love that I now have a partner in crime to share the burden and generate ideas with! Also, she rules at decorating cakes while I decidedly do not.

Why is it that it is always the same small group of people in any large group that are always the ones who volunteer?  Church, school, the community... always the same few people.  And we same few people are starting to get tired out!

Yesterday I decided that I'm tired of how our house looks inside.  I'm sick of our wood furniture.  I'm tired of looking at late early 2000s IKEA furniture.  I'm tired of our once-beloved earth tones.  I want some bold colours, some great art and a cool mix of eclectic furniture - American colonial, modern, even Victorian.  With some leather here and there.  I want a bunch of money so I can do all this redesign.

Have you seen this photo?  I'll link to it but I won't post it so that it doesn't show up on people's mobiles or iPads as the photo that introduces this post.  You all know that I'm new to Girl Guides of Canada but I love the organization and what they give girls around the world as though I've been a lifetime Guider.  When I saw this I was disgusted and angry.  Maybe you'll choose to make jokes and take it lightheartedly.  But not me.  I've reached my limit on the sexualization of girlhood in every sphere.  Nothing is left untouched.  This is an organization that goes against every message in this photo and to take it lightheartedly is to miss what this is really doing and to miss the messages that our girls and young women (and we old ones) are being sent by the world around us on a daily basis (just the tip of the iceberg is that we are valued mostly as sexual beings).  We in Girl Guiding (not to mention parents, teachers and many, many others who work with girls on a daily basis) work really hard to combat these messages each time we're with our units because a pillar of the Guiding movement is building strong, independent and confident women who are leaders and feel empowered to make great choices for themselves.  To use the very image of a Girl Guide to send the exact opposite message is disgusting at best and downright offensive at worst.  So laugh.  Make jokes.  Shrug it off.  Say you wouldn't say no to her cookies.  Just don't say it to me.

The Sugarplum Fairy dons a bunny suit

I've decided to branch out of being a one-season Fairy and try my hand wooden spoon at the Easter Season.

I have updated my Sugarplum Fairy blog. If you are in the Ottawa area and are itching for some homebaking (gluten-free available now as well!), please contact me! All my particulars are on The Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking site.

What recipes do you think of when you think of Easter? I find everyone has different opinions on this and I would love to hear about your Easter baking traditions (and possibly glean some ideas from them!).

Featured on SavvyMom Ottawa!

Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking, my other persona, is featured on SavvyMom Ottawa today! Go have a read (and order some baking if you feel so inclined :) ).....

The Sugarplum Fairy bakes again!

I have a dual personality. My other persona is The Sugarplum Fairy. She bakes, she rolls pie crust, she delivers!

You see, I have my own little home-baking business where I do the work and customers eat the rewards. My business is called Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking and I've decided to dive back in this year after taking last year off (since we were living in another city with less than ample kitchen facilities for this kind of thing). However, this year I've decided to make some revisions to how I do things.

First, everything will be delivered frozen. This will allow me to accept orders up to a certain date and then bake for the two or so weeks following that and deliver everything at once. This way I'll actually be able to relax during the week or two before Christmas and really focus on my family. My other change will be how I deliver things. I didn't like the cake boxes I used last time from both an aesthetic and environmental perspective. So this year I'm offering to transfer the goodies into personal containers when I deliver them or to hand them over in Christmas tins or reusable Ziploc bags. I think this will work much better.

I just finished my 2010 Christmas price list. It's up on my Sugarplum Fairy blog right now. So, for anyone in the Ottawa area, if you don't like to bake or just don't have the time.... let me do it for you!

Holy crap, I'm featured on Blogher!

Being a person who generally forgets she even owns a cell phone sometimes bites me in the ass. Like today for example. I forgot to even take my cell phone with me when I left the house this morning. For those of you who have sprained thumbs from all your texting or a bluetooth headset as a permanent part of your ensemble, this is probably downright shocking. Here's the thing: I don't really like cell phones and I sure as heck don't like my cell phone. But, as I said, sometimes it bites me in the ass. Because while I was buzzing around town this morning delivering baking to Andrea, something was happening.

Elana Centor from Blogher was trying to get ahold of me.

No, I have not won an all-expenses paid trip to Blogher '09. But she did want to interview me about starting a new business during a recession. Of course, by the time I checked my messages and called her back it was too late for an interview. She did tell me however that I'm featured in her Blogher story regardless. Holy crap.

I can't say thank you enough to Elana. This is great. Just for the shear coolness of it for a little-old-me like me.

Not a bad way to end a week, I'd say!

More baking, more photos

The last couple of days around here have been a tornado of flour, sugar and butter as I prepared for this morning.

This morning Andrea is taking more food photos for me for my other persona, Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking.

I've spent the last couple of months, baking-wise anyway, recuperating from Christmas and coming up with some ideas for Easter and Mother's Day as well as some year-round offerings for baby and wedding showers. I should have some photos to show you in a couple of days.

For now, if you want a taste of what will be new, see the Sugarplum Fairy blog.

The cake in its final form

I finished the cake, I delivered it without dropping it on the way into the hall, the icing didn't melt (thanks to a walk in fridge in the gigantic - no, really... imagine gigantic and then multiply it by 5 - kitchen in the rental hall). I felt like a real caterer standing in that kitchen with the other caterers building my cake. It was a very cool moment for me.

So, below is the cake. Now, if you're some kind of awesome cake decorator this will seem like a pathetic attempt but for me, the anti-cake decorator, this is a masterpiece. Please don't rain on my parade. In case you can't tell, it's supposed to be building blocks that spell a name: Saurav, the name of the boy whose birthday it was. Of course, if I had to tell you all that, chances are my cake was not much of a success.



I'm VERY thrilled with the cupcakes. The cupcakes are on my roster to stay. I plan to offer these for sale year round in any colour of icing (real buttercream only). I'll offer marble, as these were, banana, carrot and chocolate. No white. Know what? White cake sucks. These marble though? They RULED.


And you know, of course, that these did not come from any mix and that makes them nothing like anything you've ever tasted before unless of course you've tasted homemade cakes before in which case, yes, you've tasted something like them before. But wait... the pretty icing and sprinkles! Only $1.50 each for your next party. What a steal!

I think I need some sleep. And some Nyquil.

Feeling very nervous

So I've got a baking order through my business, Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking, for a birthday cake.  The cake order is for a 1-year old's birthday.  The cake is intended to look like wooden play blocks spelling out the child's name.  

I'm scared.

In general, I've declared that I suck at decorating birthday cakes.  I did very well with the Wilton Dora cake pan but I've had some disasters too.  So, right now, I'm in the middle of a practice cake (I won't be making a lot of money on this order but I will learn a lot so I think it's worth it).  I sure hope it goes well.  Otherwise, I'm in big trouble.

I'm thinking that it might be worth my while to take a course in cake decorating.  I can see a market in this but I want to feel more confident in my abilities.

So, aside from taking care of a sick Emily today, I'll also be working on this cake.  Any tips for successful decorating?  

I'm thinking there may be some liquid courage consumed later to help me through the process.

Bake me up: a search for some new and not-so-new recipes

I'm back at it in the kitchen. The Fairy is looking through her collection for some new and not-so-new recipes to add to my repertoire for Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking for Valentines and Easter.

There are a few specific things that I've learned through my Christmas experience to look for in a new recipe (and ones that I've made for our family as well). They are:

• price of ingredients: I now know by looking through the ingredient list whether the recipe will be costly to sell or not. I'm willing to have a few higher priced items in there but I do like to keep my costs low so that I can sell for a competitive price.
• fussiness: I'm a good baker and I don't mind a few steps to get to the end product but if there is a high element of fussiness, the recipe isn't likely to make the final lineup. I can't spend too much time on single recipes in the kitchen. I just don't have the time as a one-person operation and that alone eats into my profit.
• good looks do matter: to me, at home, taste is everything but the reality when you are selling baking is that looks do matter. I test every recipe for looks. This is particularly important for squares. If I can't cut it and have it look good, I won't sell it. For example, I made a new square the other day, a chocolate marshmallow concoction. It tasted very good but it was uglier than a hedge fence. It will not be seen outside our four walls.
• freezing capability: I have to make things that freeze well. This is for two reasons: the first is so that I can make a pan of 36 squares, sell some fresh and freeze the rest for another order. If I'm not able to do this, I won't make any money and I'll gain a lot of weight eating my leftovers. The second reason is so that customers can freeze the baking until they need it or freeze their leftovers. I've found that people really value this.

And so, right after this I'll be back upstairs trying out something new. There will be new photos to follow as well and I hope a new logo and, at some point, a proper website. For now though, I'll be focusing on some great spring recipes that will take us through to the fall. I talk about some of them on the website. Should you want to place any orders in advance, just drop me an email (contact info is on the Sugarplum website).

A couple of unrelated updates:

I went and talked to my neighbour about the cat/bird problem. She was really good about it and sympathetic to the birds. Her problem is that one of her cats, the one Emily has named Mr. Sylvester, won't use a litter box and so scratches at the door to do his thing outside. She's tried collars with bells but the cats get them off somehow. She's going to talk to her vet and try to limit their time outside during the birds' feeding time. Summer won't be an issue since I won't have feeders up then. For me it is a winter thing.

It seems Emily has a couple of admirers in her class. Apparently one little boy, Karim, brought flowers to school for her. Emily, being Emily, said she couldn't take them until she asked her mummy if it was okay. When she asked me I tried to get a sense of what was going on here (I mean she's getting flowers in JK?! Maybe they were crayon on paper) but made the assumption that this was all typical cute 4-year old stuff. She assured me the flowers were real and he'd bring them back the next day so she could get them. I told her they'd probably be dead by then. She insisted they'd be fine (Emily knows everything or didn't you know that?). When I asked her why she didn't take them the first time she said that Mrs. B has told them that they shouldn't give away their things to the other kids because then they wouldn't have anything of their own (JK kids are very generous I've noticed. Sometimes.). And Emily is stickler for the rules. Remember her "sense of justice"?

Today I found out more of the story from my neighbour, Selma, who is Emily's best friend Mohammed's mum. She said that Mohammed wants to bring Emily a gift because Karim did and now Mohammed is all put out because Emily sat with Karim on the bus one day and not Mohammed (as is the general practice). Good Lord Almighty, did I suddenly drop into a Sweet Valley High novel?

I found this all hilarious, as did Selma, if not a little odd for JK... I mean I expected this in a few years but not quite yet. What is so funny for me is that I know that Emily is completely and wonderfully oblivious to all of this, to Mohammed being perturbed or even why he would be. I know she would say that "it's nice to sit with different people" or "I like to be friends with everyone." I love that about her. I love that she doesn't get caught up in stuff like this so far. I hope that doesn't change. And she is generally unaware of her own appeal so that she would have no idea that kids would be apt to challenge each other over her attention.

And lastly, the toilet training is on hold. Hope is so far from ready and I promised myself not to relive the showdowns I had with Emily. I'll wait a couple of more weeks and give it another try and then just keep trying that to see how it goes.

It seems that I've significantly eaten into my baking time. It looks like I might have to have a junior assistant at my side today, after she gets off the bus, that is.

A couple of important notes noted from away

First, I can't let the news develop any longer without commenting, knowing as you do what a political junkie I tend to be (although I don't mention it or discuss it here very often). The stuff going on on the federal political scene is (a) inspiring (b) a long time in coming (c) scares the shite out of me because I'm afraid, deftly afraid, that the Conservatives will pull the stuff we've become accustomed to and prorogue Parliament simply because they are unwilling to allow the will of the people to become reality. For those of you who will argue that a coalition government made up of the Liberals and NDP with the support of the Bloc that declares that Parliament no longer has confidence in the government is not the will of the people or democratic let me say this: about 54% of Canadians voted in the election of October 14. More than half of those people voted for a party other than the Conservative Party, proven by the fact that the Conservatives have a minority.

And yet a number of callers, commenters, pundits and Conservative Party members call this move by the new coalition and those who support them undemocratic.

Really, it is the most democratic move I've seen in Canadian politics in years.

Second, Andrea at A Peek Inside the Fishbowl posted a review of my package Christmas Done For You that is for sale through my business Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking. Go check it out!

She makes me look so good

Today I had the thrill of meeting live and in person Andrea of A Peek inside the Fishbowl. First of all, she's as nice as all get out and we had a great chat over some good coffee.

This wasn't a chance meet-up however. Andrea contacted me about a week ago and asked if I would be interested in a barter of sorts: baking from me for food photography from her. My answer was:

Um, yeah. In a heartbeat.

Andrea blew away my expectations. She is truly an artiste with a camera. She took many, many beautiful photos. I'm just giving you a taste of them below.

I'm not going to introduce each one. I'll just let them speak for themselves in regards to her skill as a photographer and the baking that I'm offering through my new business, Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking. All of this could be yours! My price list and list of recipes is on the site.

Thanks, Andrea!

All photos by Andrea Tomkins

The ups and downs of starting your own business

You know, the romance of starting your own business dies after your fourth or fifth night of being up until midnight designing business cards, searching for inexpensive business labels, costing out recipes, and developing price lists and packages.

So far, I really love the creative process of this. I am also excited by the responses I'm getting from people. I'm also feeling a bit overwhelmed by the realization that, damn, I'm going to be doing a lot of baking between now and Christmas. I had grand plans to adopt Andrea's Christmas Challenge and bake our own gingerbread house (rather than buying a pre-baked version from Loblaws) but I'm thinking that those things, particularly the gingerbread house baking, aren't going to happen. I still want the lead-up to Christmas to be really special for the girls and not be dominated by a mother who is covered in flour and frazzled nerves barking demands for "more baking soda, damn it! Stat!"

This weekend we're heading to Toronto and Kitchener and I'm really looking forward to a few days away to mull everything over, make some mental lists and get my head around the way I'm going to organize my time to manage this well and still be a really good mère Noel, as my friend Julie says.

And for tonight, as the first batch of shortbread bakes, I've promised myself a good veg in front of the tv before I head to bed exactly at 10:00 and no later.

Welcome to Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking... now with prices and products and stuff!

I'm all set. I feel like I should cut a ribbon or bust open a bottle of champagne or do something other than sit alone in front of my computer. Alas, tis the life of a new entrepreneur.

So, without further ado, I now officially declare Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking open for business!

Is that the phone I hear ringing and people knocking at my door? Oh, nope. Just the t.v.

Seriously, please do go over to the website of Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking and check out what I have to offer, the prices and descriptions of recipes. And, if you're in the Ottawa area, I'd love to do some holiday baking for you!

Prices are done!

And people out there are going to get a good deal, I think. In then end, in the Christmas Sampler, people would get 9 dozen cookies (that's about 108) for $50. That's less than .50 per cookie and there is a great variety, lots of decadence, all yummy, lots of chocolate. I think people would be really happy with this.

I'll post full prices sometime tomorrow with the whole lay out and seriously start my marketing campaign.

Yahoo!

Almost there

I'm almost done figuring out my prices for Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking. Wow, it takes more time than you'd think. But thanks to my sweet friend, Mathieu, chef extraordinaire, I'm almost done. Chefs have formulas and spread sheets that we lay people don't have. Thank goodness he likes me enough to share with me! Thanks, Mathieu!

So, in a day or so I'll have the price list up and start getting word out to friends, ex-co-workers etc. Exciting!

And tiring.

New business venture!

Hey ho, I just decided to open my own little business! Maybe nothing will come of it but if something does then I at least added a bit to our meagre coffers.

My business' name is Sugarplum Fairy Homebaking. For people out there who either don't like to bake or just don't have the time this Christmas/Holiday Season, I will do it for you. I have great recipes that are tested and loved, I'm a darn good baker, and I love to do it, so I figured, why not offer my services to others (for the right amount of money of course).

If all goes well, I'll continue past December and do as my mum did with her baking business and cater for whatever people would need me for.

I'll deliver to your door, through December and New Years if you're in the Ottawa area.

I've set up a little blog to give people more information. I hope this works. I have no idea what to expect but if you're in Ottawa and you need some baking, please forego Loblaws and contact me. My email is on the right or check out my new blog at www.sugarplumfairyhomebaking.blogspot.com.

So, if you were doing this, how would you get word out? I have some ideas but I'd love to hear yours!