Feeding My Passion

I mention ice cream not only because I love it and it has a lot of nostalgic value for me, but also because we’re going to be carrying ice cream, or at least its Italian cousin, gelato. John and I are hoping Palazollo’s, a great gelato/sorbetto company in Fennville, MI, will work with us to create an exclusive flavor for Tulips.  They already make a ton of flavors, and we used some of Asian-appropriate ones at the Buddha: Chinese green tea, mango, fresh ginger, and toasted coconut. We had a devil of a time dealing with the gelatos at the Buddha, mostly because they have to be stored at a slightly higher temperature than ice cream which calls for a separate freezer to hold them, and our freezers were very temperamental (no pun intended), so we lost entire 3 gallon buckets at a time. Hopefully John will see the necessity to have good and appropriate refrigeration for them.

The caramel ice cream (ok, soup) Read more »

Anyone who’s spent anytime around me over the last couple of years knows I’m already a huge fan of David Lebovitz’s chocolate almond buttercrunch toffee. And when I make it, anyone who’s around me is too. Making it is very easy and very impressive. Anytime you can take a very short list of very simple ingredients – sugar, butter, vanilla, chocolate, and almonds in this case – and turn them into something truly delicious and beautiful, I think it’s as close as it gets to performing magic in the kitchen.

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While it may not seem like a coincidence after such a crazy-ass weekend at the front desk and then working 3 days in a row of the front desk and baking thing, which is exhausting, mostly because it completely screws up my sleep schedule and I start getting a wee bit cranky at the front desk (never a good thing), I gave my 2-week notice early Sunday morning before I went home after baking. Sorry, that was a long sentence, but I don’t think it was a run-on.

Anyway, I wrote 3 nice letters, Read more »

Because one side of the store is a market, I need to think about what we want to carry. The obvious stuff would be products that we need to use for the cafe and at Port 412, which will make the market a commisary for both restaurants. Which is a pretty cool idea since we don’t need as much dry storage if we’re using the retail store shelves for storage and can pull what we need from them. Port 412′s needs are more eclectic, but not as exotic, as Tulips cafe’s needs. The deli deserves a post of its own sometime soon too.

I’d like us to carry a couple of rice cookers, Read more »

When I submitted my resignation letters (3!), all of my supervisors had the day off, one of them was off for 2 days. I really hadn’t planned it that way, I’d rather they knew sooner rather than later. They’ve been encouraging and excited for me, though Jenny wanted me to be sure the cafe would be making the food quickly, which I didn’t really take as a dig on my lack of speed, but Jenny was a close observer and fair judge of my skill, and I was found wanting. I told Jenny I’ve been very honest with John about my experience and my current shortcomings, didn’t oversell myself, and my passion for the food is obvious.

(As a somewhat relevant aside: The tendency for sales people to oversell their products is a detestable practice. You could call someone overselling themselves as confidence, arrogance, or hubris.)

And there are the jealous folks too, but it’s a petty benign form of jealousy, they’re all great, and I think I’ve been pretty good to work with. Read more »

Met with John (my boss), Tom (the Port 412 chef), and Brandon (Port 412′s front-of-the-house guy) today, we went over to Tulips (that’s the name of the new place), looked around at the progress, which has been dramatic in the last 2 weeks.

It went from bare sub-walls and steel framed rooms to finished drywall in less than a week. And less than a week after that, they’ve put in the breaker box and the large hood, which is a beautiful sight to behold. Over the weekend, Brandon will be laying tile in the kitchen so that on Monday, they can install the walk-in on top of it.

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The last couple of weeks have been surreal, I’m being propelled along at the speed of light by something really amazing.

So last year, at about this time, actually exactly this time, I was working to open up a restaurant in New Buffalo, the Happy Buddha Noodle Shop. It seems like almost a lifetime ago, and it was. The Buddha had a very short lifespan. It was born on 1 July and died by mid January, just 6 months later. So sad.

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