Much goings on… er, going on in the last few months.\u00a0 Once more, and to no surprise to anyone, I have sadly not reported any of it here.<\/p>\n
Let’s see.\u00a0 First and foremost, Sweets got laid off from the bakery she was at — who took her on as an extern when she was in culinary school, then hired her to do cakes, couldn’t give her a lot of hours, then realized that they were perfectly happy using the free extern labor from the school instead, and let her go.\u00a0 Tears and curses aside, it was a fantastic learning experience for her and gave us the motivation to…<\/p>\n
… start taking the first steps to get Curious Confections<\/strong><\/a> off the ground.\u00a0 The first serious<\/strong><\/em> steps.\u00a0 We spruced up the site — making it more making it professional in appearance — added a menu, and lightened up some of the ambiguous language about actually making product for sale.<\/p>\n Sweets is going to make Curious Confections a part-time job for the interim, while maintaining a second part-time job at an established business.\u00a0 I will be moonlighting after work hours and on weekends as a CC employee.\u00a0 We’ve started getting a few orders in — some of them steady — and friends and co-workers have rallied to the cause by ordering stuff from us, and pressing our business cards into the palms of everyone they know.\u00a0 The goal is to eventually get enough business to pay Sweets a salary, making CC her full-time job.<\/p>\n We need all the help we can get to make this first step successful, allowing us to grow and evolve to the next level, and then the level after that, ad infinitum.\u00a0 We’re trying to maintain a fine balance between slow, steady growth so we don’t overextend our current reach, and reaching just far enough outside of our current comfort level to force us to evolve.\u00a0 Just as too much water, sun and fertilizer can kill even a healthy plant — we don’t want to die on the vine from too much of a good thing burning us out too early.<\/p>\n Sweets is also taking the role of food blogger<\/strong><\/a> more seriously.\u00a0 There are a few reasons behind this: foremost, she really enjoys writing about the stuff we make (out of pride and great satisfaction), it’ll help direct more traffic and attention to Curious Confections, it’ll bring her and CC to the attention of other food bloggers (many of them local), and she can be a part of a community of like-minded people (which is always a good thing).\u00a0 A fresh audience and new friends can work wonders on so many levels.<\/p>\n All cake, baked goods, and Curious Confections related projects will henceforth be posed over there, and links to said posts will be posted here.\u00a0 I may even pop in and write about the things I have my snobbery badges in: coffee, beer, homebrew, and South Louisiana food.<\/p>\n On the topic of homebrew, we have two batches of beer in bottles ready for consumption by this weekend: the Belgian Devil (a Duvel-like Belgian golden ale), and the Bayou Headsucker (a crisp, clean, refreshing kolsch ale).\u00a0 The Headsucker was specifically brewed for the crawfish season this year, and our first boil is this Saturday.<\/p>\n You may have noticed the unusual beer names.\u00a0 Good for you.\u00a0 We’ve decided to cater to my infantile obsession with zombies and theme all the beers that way.\u00a0 Our “brewery” is named Ol’ Shambler Brewery<\/em>.\u00a0 While making labels for beer that will eventually be drunk, then have the labels stripped right back off again may seem a bit needless, we wanted to have fun with this hobby from start to finish.\u00a0 To that end we have enlisted (entrapped!<\/em>) two of our talented friends, Marty<\/strong><\/a> and Kim<\/strong><\/a>, to help design and color said labels… and they’ve done a hell of a job so far.\u00a0 I’ll post the artwork separately, another time \u2013 gotta\u2019 save some stuff for other posts!<\/p>\n We’ve also started fermenting our first mead — a traditional, sweet-semi-dry variety — using raw, unpasteurized orange blossom honey from a local apiary.\u00a0 It’s coming along nicely, but won’t be ready to drink for till about this time next year.\u00a0 Sadly meads, hard ciders, perrys, and wines of all stripe are not “young” beverages, and require an extended conditioning period ranging from a few months, to well over a year depending on the style.\u00a0 Our patience should be rewarded, and is all the more motivation to have a number of batches going at once.<\/p>\n The downside to home brewing is equipment and supply storage.\u00a0 It takes up some space, man, and it’s a struggle to store everything so that it 1) isn’t underfoot, and B) isn’t unsightly.\u00a0 I don’t want to just plonk it all down in a spare bedroom and shut the door, but I don’t want it to sit in the garage or attic gathering dust and who-knows-what-else.\u00a0 I also want to have access to everything as I need it without having to go dig it out of a storage area.\u00a0 We have plans to, eventually, build cabinetry into the bar — when we build the bar — to store homebrew gear and fermenting batches out of sight, but accessible.<\/p>\n That, my little ones, is all I have to ramble about at this time.\u00a0 Be good to each other, even if it means being naughty.\u00a0 Especially<\/em> if it means being naughty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Much goings on… er, going on in the last few months.\u00a0 Once more, and to no surprise to anyone, I have sadly not reported any of it here. 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