1ca·pac·i·ty
a : an individual's mental or physical ability : aptitude, skill b : the faculty or potential for treating, experiencing, or appreciating <capacity for love>from http://www.merriam-webster.com
So I have this horrible habit of thinking I am Superwoman. I take on projects and commitments, forgetting a few key things (sleep? nah. personal life? no biggie. exercise? get outta town). Then I crash, burn and snivvle with big tears in pathetic meltdowns in the most awkward of places (sniffles teetering toward a full-blown meltdown at 2am in the Hardware aisle at Walmart, anyone?) Luckily, as I get older and questionably wiser, I am starting to recognize my overload sensors more readily than I did in my boundless 20's. Now the threat of meltdown tends to hit my sensors before the tears roll and I am getting more astute at standing up for myself. I am learning when my cup is full and to politely, but firmly say "GEEZ! STOP!" And then I feel guilty. But then I feel sane. Its a cycle and I'm adjusting to it.
So why all the capacity ruminations? I just finished my first full month of operating as a fledgling pop-up bakery and urban homestead shop. In the past 4 weeks I have logged countless hours stressing, over $4,000 (EEEEEE!!!!!!!) in start-up costs, have sweated through baking sprints in a Commercial Kitchen, have had more than 1 killer migraine, have met with bankers to apply for small business loans and have banged my head against the wall when I was rejected for said loans, have told more than 1 friend I regret the decision to do this, have eaten enough muffins to make me not want one ever again and have wondered how the hell I am ever going to get my lawn mowed (let alone my house painted) in the next year. All while working a full time job, not exactly 'on-the-side.' I have also grossed about $700 for these pains- admittedly way more than I initially anticipated. I have learned how to brew a good cup of coffee over a camp stove (the economical way to make coffee without electricity or buying a many-thousand dollar generator) and how to make foolproof iced coffee (recipe is here: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/06/perfect-iced-coffee/comment-page-7/. No link because I want you to finish reading my blog before you go to hers and forget to finish this story. Yes, the Pioneer Lady is silly. And genius. Be sure to check her iced coffee out.) And, I have learned that my personal capacity and the capacity of Lolo Gardens, an Urban Homestead, is limited.
So I initially had these pipe dreams of what being a vendor at the Farmers Market would be like. Regrettably, they were based solely on that embarrasing-to-admit-I-actually-watched-it movie The Backup Plan (J-Lo was in one of her worst roles to date... but her goat-cheese-making, farmers-market boyfriend was to-drool-for.) I also hoped that my life would be filled with a plethora of hyphen-inducing adjectives once I had my booth. I thought I would meet Mr. Organiclly-Farming-Do-Gooder-Wonderful who was looking for his match in a fierce and independent bakerly-wife and we would live on our happy farm with our beautiful organically-fed children and herd our well-groomed goats into the sunset. Enter sappy love song and roll the credits.
So the reality is this:
First- The 'who-the-hell-opens-their-eyes-this-early-in-the-morning' part. I don't do mornings well. At all. Nothing new here. So getting up at 5:30 am to drive 30 miles to set up a booth on my own is no sunshiney way for me to start the day. Especially when I gross $100 for 6 hours of my troubles and I know that my out of pocket costs for that day were probably close to $125. My friend Courtney puts it well- "It's like you're donating to charity... I am just not sure who the charity is supposed to be." That's hard to swallow.
Second- the 'meeting people' part. I've met lots of people, sure. Lots of 'farmers' who fill their booths with produce grown in California, Mexico and who knows where else. Local produce is hard to find at this market, as are like-minded people that appreciate it.
Third- the 'cool image as a superstar baker in an awesome organic-y farmers market I'm-so-hip-I-kill-myself persona' part. There are tiers of markets like there were once tiers of circuses (or so the book 'Water for Elephants' tells me there were). The market that I am a part of (and don't get me wrong... I am happy to have been given a foot in the door of ANY market) is kind of a 3rd tier circus. The vendors all caravan from location to location. So whether in Kailua, Ewa Beach or Waikiki, I'm with the same vendors within the circus group. And in this group, there are no cool-points for being a super rad baker chic who grows lilikoi and raises hens. I'm just the crazy white girl who is alone hauling her crap halfway across the island one or two days a week. There are other tiers of markets hawking their produce in the same cities on different days where I might get some cool-status points. But I am on the waiting lists for these markets, as they are a bit more respected and have a larger applicant pool. So no coolness factor points for me.
So what does my market group look like? Being the level of quality my 3rd tier market is, you see the following vendors on a typical day: Pizza Baker booth, Tupperware Seller booth, Super-cheap Lobster booth (are they fresh? are they imported and frozen? I don't like lobster so I've never asked) Cheap Souvenir Jewelry vendor (complete with "Up to 50% off!" signs), Filipino Bakery #1, Filipino Bakery #2, Filipino Bakery #3, about 4 or 5 "Farmers" selling imported produce, Hawaiian Plate-lunch booth, Filipino Plate-lunch booth, Puerto-Rican plate lunch booth, Thai Plate-lunch booth. Gourmet dried and bagged Pasta made in Colorado booth (I assume its kind of like if I were to sell Italian Pasta sauce from Italy and tout it as a gourmet import?) Lady who bakes sugar-free banana bread and Lilikoi Butter booth. And Me. It's rather like a traveling flea market without the cool antique finds. So who are the people in this group of Food-related (not to be confused with Foodie) Carnies I have met? Nice enough folks, but mostly retirees who are doing this for kicks. I've met one nice guy that I enjoy having a harmless flirtation with. But he's started coming on too strong and I am absolutely not interested in anything more than what we have. Buy me a popsicle and ask me how my day is? Great! Call me (from my business card), use every pickup line in the book in a Rico-suave fashion (but because it seems to be in earnest, he talks too fast and trips over his 'lines' so its just awkward and uncomfortable and leaves me trying to figure out how to end the conversation quickly). Ug. Not great. And he lives with his sister and doesn't have a job other than slinging her Filipino food (again- her business) a few days a week at the markets. And that's it. No cute organic farmers here (they would be Tier 2 or Tier 1 farmers market folks with cool-farmer swagger). No one making artisan goat cheeses. No one extracting their own honey from their own bees. But... if you're looking for a hotdog wrapped in a croissant sold alongside deep fried something and some spinach from Cali, you got it!
But I digress. I'm making it sound hellish. It's not that bad. I did make $700- which is putting me in a good place to start paying off that $4,000 start-up investment. And I have discovered that of the 3 varied market locations that I have participated, the Kailua location is my best audience. Day-wise, it's not the greatest for giving me my personal life back (it's a Saturday night, so I will be booked for something 7 days a week by being at this location), but financially I made over $100 more here in one shot than the other locations. The Kailua market shoppers are a mix of local 'Haole" folks (white folks) with money who will shell out cash for organic/ local produce. They will smell a rat with that California spinach quick though, and I don't expect to see many locals making a 3rd or 4th trip to this market. Once or twice will probably be all they will take. But the other half of the shoppers are mainland vacationers who know Oahu well enough to stay in a B&B on this side of the island (about a half hour outside Waikiki in a residential town. Its where the Obamas stay every Christmas). This makes them generally older, wealthy and giddy to 'buy local'- and because they are only here for a week or two at a time, they will be 1st time market shoppers who haven't discerned the tiers of markets yet. Its perfect for me because I can sell them boxes of muffins and cartons of eggs for tomorrow's breakfast, bags of coffee (that I buy wholesale from the grower on the north shore) for the week and for souvenirs, jars of Lilikoi curd for souvenirs and cocktail-worthy herbs for their vacation imbibing.
So then there's that capacity conundrum. I initially was accepted to the Ewa Beach market. Ewa is 30 miles from my home and in a local community with a smattering of military. I have 3 loyal customers that have come every week for a muffin and a cup of coffee. These ladies are so sweet and tell me how much they look forward to my muffins and coffee every Sunday. If I stop going to the Ewa Beach market I will let them down. But, if I stop going to the Ewa Beach market on Sundays I will be able to sleep in, not put 60 miles on my car and loose money to the charity without a name. And I will disappoint those 3 ladies that appreciate me. As a business decision, it makes no sense to continue driving there at the crack of dawn to lose $5 and 6 hours of my life. As a human decision, its a bit harder. I haven't backed out of this market formally yet. But I know I need to. I haven't decided if I should go this week to tell the 3 ladies I won't be returning. Or if I should just cut the ties abruptly and write a generic apology message on my Facebook page to whoever reads it. I am truly perplexed and sad about this.
And capacity to 'use local produce' in my baking is proving to be much more difficult than I expected. My biggest selling muffin (and hands down taste test winner) is my Kabocha Pumpkin (or Squash. Tomato/ Tamato) muffin. Initially I bought organically-grown local Kabochas for $2.49/ lb at the local food co-op. That makes for a pricey muffin. Then I found a local farm to sell me Kabochas in bulk. They told me they had them year round. I printed their farm name on a bunch of brochures as my provider of Kabocha. Then, when I picked up the first box of them the box suspiciously said "35# Kabocha Squash. Grown in Mexico." Hmmmm.... did they just put their local Kabochas into a reused box? I covered my ears and eyes and said "blah blah blah I see no evil!" all the way to the Certified Kitchen. I rationalized that at least I was supporting a local farm, even if they were wholesaling an imported product. Then I called them up this week to pick up another 35# box and they told me they no longer have Kabocha and don't know when they'll get it again. wtf? They had initially told me they had them year round!!!! So I did what any rational business person would do. I swallowed my only-local produce goal, removed that farm name from my brochures, and bought a 35# box of New Zealand-grown Kabochas at Safeway. They were on sale for $.79/pound. I'll buy local when I can. And I will honestly strive to do that. But I won't let 'buying local' drive my prices up so high that I drive my bakery into the ground. The same goes for butter- I would love to use our one (one!!) on-island dairy for butter, but at $8/ lb it makes no sense. I do, however, only use island-grown eggs (and I mix those in with my own backyard eggs) and will keep building relationships with those farmers at the tier one markets to see what truly local produce can be found and afforded.
And finally, capacity for personal fulfillment. I need to free up some space so that I have room for this important piece of the puzzle. The definition from Webster's Dictionary talks about someone's capacity to love. I need to find that space so that I can focus on loving myself, my crazy chickens, my unmowed backyard, my patient friends and Mr. organic-appreciating-lets-me-be-my-crazy-independent-self-Wonderful when he chooses to enter my life. Right now there's not a whole lot of space for those things. And bottom line... they do matter most.
So, Capacity. Gonna clear out some stuff and make some room. I'll let you know how it goes.
A hui hou,
Shay
