January 2007 Archives

Note: This blog was actually posted last night, or early this morning, on Digest, UrHo's food blog. I was restless with insomnia when I wrote it, but obviously not awake enough to realize I was posting for the wrong blog. I think of this post as the equivalent of a drunken phone call--something I wish I hadn't done but obviously needed to get off my chest. I feel much better today and I have been reminded to 1)address unfinished business before going to bed so that I don't wake up and dwell on it, and 2) refrain from caffeinated beverages after 12 pm. Enjoy!

It's 1 am. I have to wake up in 3.5 hours but I've just spent the last hour laying awake in bed fretting about numerous details. Then, I started composing a blog in my head. I figured I should just get up and sit in the cold, dark living room rather than driving insane those in my bed who are actually able to sleep. The Acorn is fully operational now, with the exception of a missing credit card terminal which has been the main focus of my insomnia all week. I'm guessing we're losing about half our business right now because inept "merchant service representatives", or one in particular, has taken nearly 4 weeks to set up our account properly. I have to stop trusting my instincts when it comes to people, because I kind of liked/felt sorry for this kid who wanted to sell us our credit card processing system and it's been one nightmare after another. I don't think I could even look at him again, I am so enraged/embarrassed by his ineptitude and the ineptitude he represents. I am more upset about the sleep I am losing than the business, in all honesty. It's really hard for me to function without a full 7 or 8 hours of sleep, especially when I'm waking up at the ungodly hour of 4. Me me me, blah blah blah. We've also hired 3 new people this month, and the management and employment of 10 people is a huge shift, worthy of many, many sleepless nights. I am finally realizing that I need to hire a bookkeeper, but it's tax season so no one is returning my phone calls. It also appears that I have lost the ability to bake a cake: 4 of the 5 cakes (coffee cake, butter cake) have failed in the last week. Surely it's the ovens. Supplying both Half & Half and The Acorn with fresh pastries in the morning and then lunch before 11 (for Acorn) from my commercial kitchen has proven to be a lot harder than it looked on paper. All the driving is depressing on a number of levels, and since we need to be out of the kitchen at noon, I have yet to finish a day in which I've crossed out everything on my list.

I know that all of this stuff will get hammered out within a couple of weeks. We'll have a credit card machine on Thursday, god willing. We'll get a van and someone else, the 11th employee, can be the delivery driver. I will learn how to bake a cake again. In the meantime, I am making some of the best sandwiches of "my career" since we got the commercial kitchen, for both places. And the prohibitive cost of avocados has resulted in an ingeniously resourceful condiment for our vegan BLT--'eda-mole': pureed edamame with garlic, lemon and olive oil. Ok, I now have 3 hours until I have to get up. Maybe I'll just sleep in until 5 and save myself the trouble of destroying another coffee cake. On that note!

The Acorn officially opened at 7:30 am today. We are calling this a "soft" opening. I think the "soft" opening term is usually applied to restaurants that choose to just open their doors quietly; no clowns, no balloons. After a couple of weeks, when potential kinks are smoothed out, the establishment might begin advertising and sending out press releases, maybe even throw a 'grand opening' event. In our case, "soft" translates to "ill-prepared, but in need of revenue." I am amazed that when most places open their doors, they already have business cards and menus written, not to mention coffee cards and utensils. We can't seem to remember to buy a phone.

But the space is beautiful, and I will post pictures at the end of the week. Jeff and I have been working 13 hour days and, being naturally lazy people, our bodies are not used to holding the vertical position for so long. It's messing with our minds, hence, the phone situation. But the space is beautiful. Wait, I already said that. Ok. We're keeping shorter hours (7:30-4:30) until our "soft opening" phase is behind us, probably until the end of the week. Then we'll decide how late to stay open during the week. For the near future, we will be closed on the weekends, until we figure out our rhythm. I know I have more to write, but the couch beckons...

All good things must come to an end. I guess this is how we differentiate the good times from the bad, and the other side of a snow day is the one that follows it. It's still not easy to get around, but you don't really have a choice. For 24 hours you were granted a pass from everything, and it didn't really seem right to spend your new, brief freedom working. You played in the snow and watched season 3 of The Wire and sat in front of this for 10 hours:

And when it was time to go to bed, you knew that in the morning you would be left with nothing but the faint suggestion of freedom wafting from your memory like a trail of smoke in the wind.

It is just this side of ridiculous that we should call off a day on account of 3 inches of snow, but that's how we do. It was an odd day where we weren't expecting any deliveries, and though we knew we'd disappoint the people that stuck it out downtown (sorry, all 6 of you), nobody wanted to tough out a day of no business and a miserable journey home. In the future, when there are two businesses to worry about, I don't think this will be an easy decision. We have to get chains for the Volvo. Wait, we need a delivery van. We need chains for the delivery van. I'll do that this summer, when chains are on sale. In the meantime, I'm still not into driving, especially on the roads around our house, which means I can get to H&H on the bus but I can't bus-it from the commercial kitchen to work with boxes of muffins and pie and sticky buns, so the baking is halted. And now the Acorn opening is pushed back until Wednesday the 24th. Which is just about killing Jeff. I am kind of basking in the last rays of sunlight, only having one business to worry about for the next few moments.

In other news, I want to tell you about a happy little accident, which has resulted in Peanut Butter Pie. Last week, I made a sheet pan of brownies. Now, my success rate with my brownie recipe is not even close to 75%. It's always something--if the oven isn't weird (because every oven is different, and you always have to adjust your recipe to a new oven), then I forget to sift the flour, or I use the wrong kind of flour because I'm out of the right kind, or I forget the vanilla, or the salt. But when the forces align correctly, my brownies are transcendent: very dense, very chocolatey. They give a really good chocolate rush when I make them correctly, which is rarely. So, the other day I made a batch for the first time in over a year. And they looked great. And I let them cool, and cut them up, and tried a 'broken' piece, and they tasted like crap. Had I lost my touch? I went over the recipe in my head. I used the right amounts of chocolate (bitter and unsweetened), I definitely used butter, I could even remember adding the salt and vanilla. And the cocoa...NO!. I had forgotten the cocoa. They tasted ok, you know, for a school bake sale or something, but not Half & Half caliber. But there I was, stuck with a sheet pan of expensive, unsell-able brownies. My options were to 1) take them home, stick them in the freezer, and eat a brownie whenever I can't think of anything better to do 2)throw them away or 3) turn them into something else. I had experimented with a Peanut Butter Pie a few months ago for a friend's birthday. It was a no-baker, classic graham cracker crust, cream cheese, cool-whip recipe which I modified only a bit, and I liked the results. So, without any recipe at all, I turned my sub-par brownies into a chocolate-crumb crust into which I baked a peanut-butter cheesecake, and topped it with whipped cream, ganache and toasted, salted peanuts. I wanted to evoke the Reses Peanut Butter Cup experience. I think it's a nice tribute to the marriage of peanut butter and chocolate, with the right balance of salt and sweet. And I can't seem to make enough of it, so I think it's popular. I'll be making it for as long as it takes me to get rid of these brownies, and probably into the future.

Jeff and I left the house at 5:30 this morning, and the first snow flakes were just starting to fall. I dropped him off at Half & Half and went to the kitchen to bake muffins and raisin-brioche buns. When I went to leave for Half & Half at 7:05, there was already a good inch of dry, powdery snow on the ground. I thought about the drive over the bridge, and getting stuck on the minute slope on which Half & Half rests, and the drive back to the kitchen, and the possibility that all that driving would be for naught if we had no customers. I grew up in New England and went to college in Colorado but twelve years in Portland has turned me into a scared, reactionary, irrational Portland Snow Driver. I don't pretend otherwise. I white-knuckled it back home, took the North Side of Mt. Tabor, just as Jeff was calling off the day he just started at Half & Half. I aplogize to everyone who is hoping to find us open during the "Blizzard of 07". Past experience has taught us that it's not worth the loss of labor and the loss of a good old fashioned snow day. So I am going to take Victor out while Jeff braces himself for a good 3 hour bus ride home.

Our first Synesso is up and running as of this morning! I wish I could give you a more 'eyewitness' account of its first day on the job, but I spent my day baking. I did get a chance to pull a few shots at Courier HQ this weekend, but I am really looking forward to making my favorite drink: 2 shot americano with about 3 oz of hot water, and 1-2 oz half and half. This is, incidentally, the most oft-ordered drink at H&H and I'd wager it is the unofficial drink of Portland. You get all of the crema preserved on top, and beneath that is creamy espresso, only slightly diluted. And it's brief. I don't have time to linger over more than 8 oz of liquid. Wrap it UP! Here's an 'art shot' I was lucky enough to capture:

By Friday, all of our refrigeration had arrived at the Acorn. Then this morning while I was making brioche I got a call from Jeff: someone was at the acorn delivering a freezer. But we had freezer!? Sure enough, I got there, and there was another freezer, identical to the one we ordered and already received. I said "fuck!" really loud, which got the attention of a well dressed woman waiting for the elevator. Note to self: avoid loud swearing at The Acorn. She seemed genuinely concerned for me, rather than afraid for her own safety, though. In our exasperation, Jeff and I both concluded that we mistakenly ordered 2 freezers. But unbelievably, the appliance company sent us an extra one by mistake! Without charging us! I then decided to forgo the free freezer and instead fortify my karmic insurance by calling the company. They seemed pretty confused too. Who knows, maybe they'll decide it's easier if we just keep it....

And lastly, this is the cross-stiched-on-a-pillowcase sign for Courier Coffee that Cyrus Smith made for us. We love you Cyrus!

Justin "Scrappers" Morrison made this amazing A-Board for us a few weeks ago. I have hesitated posting it on the blog because I needed to send in money for a sign permit. Sigh. This city looooves its permits. But now that the check is in the mail, I am so proud to show off this brilliant artwork. Scrappers is so ahead of the curve--Teddy Roosevelt's legacy is going to explode

It was really nice to see a plug for The Acorn in The Willamette Week today, and although we've always eschewed the geographical nickname "indie rock block," and we haven't sold condoms since 2000, unsolicited press is really nice. Makes me wonder what could happen if I ever got it together to do an acutal press release. It's always my intention to use the media for the express benefit of creating buzz, and ultimately, hype. But I rarely get around to acting upon my intentions. Does that guarantee me a place in or out of Hell?

Anyway, there was unofficial talk of opening on the 15th, which became the official word, which is acutally just hearsay. We hope to open a full week after the 15th, the 22nd. We're still waiting for equipment and furniture, and I need that time to shore up the elusive menu. Right now, I am really inspired by ploughman lunches, vegetable terrines and after-school snacks. I'll be keeping the blog updated, and maybe even working on a press release.

This is Hans. He is visiting from Chicago. He had a slice of apple pie, a cup of coffee, and then a mocha for dessert. And then he asked me to write "Teresa" on his arm. For his friend, presumably Teresa. I thought it would be fun to write it on the part of your arm that's hardest to see, but after I did it I realized I should write it upside down, so that Hans can read it himself. And so I did.

All this makes me wonder what is the oddest request I have ever fielded at Half & Half. There are the typical solicitations for money. Once, our old window washer Scott got me to loan him $50, which he actually returned to me later in the day. Another time a guy told me he wanted to buy my lease out so he could turn our space into a hooka shop. I'm still waiting for his offer. I've had someone put a phone in my hand with their mother on the other end, who has an oatmeal raisin cookie that I really need to start making. I'm sure "Teresa" does not top the list, but I am hard pressed to think of something more atypical at just this moment. So, until something else past or future trumps it, "Teresa" wins for oddest request, and hooka shop gets honerable mention.

Here's an overview of the first week of 2007:

We sent out our name registration and restaurant application for The Acorn on the second, and we wait to hear from Multnomah County Health Department. They will come and inspect the space to make sure everything is up to code, and give us the necessary recommendations so that we may open. Hopefully we will get an appointment next week. We purchased most of our refrigeration online and it's all expected next week as well.

Jeff and Joel picked up our new espresso machine last Wednesday. We splurged on a Synesso. For those of you who haven't been following the latest developments in American Espresso Machine Manufacturing, Synesso is a Seattle company founded by former La Marzocco technicians. La Marzoccos have enjoyed a reputation of being the preeminent semi-automatic espresso machine, the gold standard in professional circles. But lo, here comes a couple of fellows who believe they can improve upon a great idea with individual boilers for each head. And electronic temperature calibration. And relatively simple construction for easy repair. Basically, they're new & cool and relatively locally produced, and we wanted to knock ourselves out. So much so, that we also purchased one for Half & Half. We've set up one of our machines at Courier Coffee HQ for training purposes, and it will arrive at Half & Half within the next two weeks.

So, now all we have left to do is everything else, including purchasing furniture and china and more equipment; setting up accounts with vendors, design coffee board and business cards; set up phones and credit card machine; figure out who's working where and how many people we need to hire; take the menu from the back of my head at select moments of the day and write it down; teach myself how to use Adobe Illustrator; come up with the necessary marketing ideas that will result in the success of our new venture. Oh, and finish up 2006's accounting and figure out how I'm going to set up The Acorn's books. I'm sure I'm forgetting something else.

You know it's bad when your mother wants to know why you're not blogging. And you have no good excuse since "the holidays" and are now so last year. It feels like the entire month of December happened over the course of a weekend, and I was still recovering from Thanksgiving. 2006 in general moved briskly, and I think that if there were one stand-out event for me, it would be the inception of this blog. My recent habits would suggest otherwise, but I've been yearning for an excuse to write since I gave over my life to a cafe six years ago, and I am eternally grateful to Urban Honking for giving me the push and the platform.

2006 was memorable for many reasons. Our staff grew to seven people, including Jeff and myself. We changed our coffee service and could not be happier with Courier Coffee Roasters. We decieded to open up another cafe. Wait! What?

Yes, it's true. Half & Half will soon have a new little sister, The Acorn Cafe. It is located at 539 NW 13th Ave, between Hoyt and Glisan. It's smack dab in the middle of The Pearl (district), which will be an interesting cultural study. It's an itty bitty space, smaller than the Half & Half (which seems impossible). It is not going to be a mini Half & Half but rather a micro deli with it's very own identity, and we're very excited to see what kind of place it grows up to be. Right now, however, we are in "business opening mode" which means we're crazed with an overwhelming amount of work to get done in a very short period of time. As in two weeks. I haven't mentioned The Acorn on the blog until now because 1) it actually happened suddenly and 2) I've been in denial that it is actually happening in real time. But now that it's officially 2007, we're officially under the gun.

Every year, I try to come up with a motto for the next 365 days. It started a while back with "No Rules 1999" and I've enjoyed others like 2002's "Are You Fucking My Face?" (that year, we can all remember, started out kind of rough), but honestly I can't even recall last year's, because I didn't live it. This year, my one resolution is to live my annual motto. Over Christmas weekend I came up with "2007: Best Year Ever!" and I thought I liked it until I discussed it with a friend last night at a New Year's Party. His goal is to shore up some larger unfinished projects, the kind that you can keep open for so long they eventually become a joke to you. He needs to Wrap It Up. It suddenly spoke to me: a couple finger snaps, a move-along hand signal, "Wrap It Up." Get it done. Move on to what's important. I think "2007: Wrap it Up (with hand gestures)" is what I need on repeat in my head through the next year. I guess I have to decide on this soon.