Category: Cafe

I had a weekend with a lot of Life in it

This kind of Life.  Love that show.

Also laundry, and mandolin practice, and poetry and a yummy lamb shoulder at Yianni’s with Katie.  I even ran the dishwasher!

Now I am enjoying the glorious pale blue sky and the steady breeze of the fans… I know it will only be hot for a few short months, but right now when we turn the oven on it gets durned hot in here at the shop.

Only people who have come in today are regulars.  But they love those muffins, that Ham Slap, that soup.  And so they return.

 

I updated my LinkedIn profile, but I think I did it wrong.  We shall see.  I update facebook and twitter every day the cafe is open.

 

Somebody came in who doesn’t speak a lot of English and pointed at the pistachio biscotti in the display.  She took one bite after she left the shop, pivotted on her heel and came back for three more.  It’s things like that which keep me engaged.

 

Such yummy muffins this morning, but everybody wants to know about cheesecake, for some reason.

 

 

roasting beef, baking macadamia biscotti

I’m at the shop (Katie out again WARNING RELATIONSHIP IN PROGRESS) and so far, in the 2 hours I’ve been here I’ve:

  • Run through the morning set up
  • Started baking macadamia nut biscotti (first attempt.  Nut flavour is so mild I added no spices, just vanilla, also thinking of Nora I leave cinnamon out cause she’s allergic to cinnamon).
  • Made myself a chai latte
  • sold muffins and coffee to a couple of people
  • Put beef on to roast
  • Put away a good chunk of the ingredients we got last night at Costco
  • got the bread out of Bertha, which I always forget to do so I’m glad I remembered
  • Taken all the fridge temps (report: we are nominal son)
  • Put my hair back and donned an apron
  • Figured out how to form my lips into a trumpet trill so I can blast through the William Tell Orchestra
  • Blown level 70 in Candy Crush Saga AGAIN.  It is a demonaically hard level.
  • sat up front and watched it droozle out there
  • Thought about awnings for the street fair July 21st.  I want to buy one, mostly because I know that the awning Jeff and I bought four years ago is not going to make it through another year and so when I’m done with it here I’ll just take it home.
  • Thought about the data entry job Tom gave me.  I was supposed to work on it some more last night but the Costco run intervened and then Katie tried to get me to go for a walk, but my sciatica into my right heel is making me limp like hell.
  • Thought about the big pile of cardboard at the back of the shop I need to flatten and recycle.
  • Thought about the very interesting news I got from the landlord’s agent yesterday about what’s going on next door as far as ownership goes.
  • Thought with irritation verging on acting out about the THREE UNLICENSED VEHICLES sitting in the parking lot of OUR CAFE.  The landlord’s agent says I can approach the miscreants responsible and ask them to move the cube van, the stake truck and the not-licensed-since-October-2012 shitbox compact sitting out there.  The Hino is parked crossways, FFS, taking two spots.  What the hell is wrong with these people?  It’s not the antechamber to a scrapyard.  Dayyum.
  • Thought with love and deep sympathy about my dear one Tammy who is burying her father today and will have to deal with that hard on the heels of breaking up with a man she has been trying to partner up with for 3 years.  It was his idea and he won’t stop calling her.  I know he’s not a complete asshole but sheeshkabobbers, folks, take a hint. And her complete and total born bad asshole of an adoptive brother is going to be at the funeral, and I tried to bet with her that he would show up at mom’s drunk, raring to steal money and valuables, but she wouldn’t take the bet.  He’s already been banished but you know how sociopaths press once they perceive an advantage.  Tammy and her mother took the high road and at least let the brother know his dad was gone.

various

Katie came in late to the shop this morning, having spent the night away from home (with notice, all cool) and here I was bouncing around in the shop listening to Gangstagrass (their slide player is a fiercely chopladen woman, w00T!) and attempting my first dough batch of macadamia nut biscotti (adds about five bucks to the cost…. schmurr….) and I got to pull a mocha for a regular. Hopefully I did okay.  This particular regular LOVES OUR MUFFINS. loves loves.

Anyway, here’s something musical, techy, old fashioned and new fashioned for pOp.

Got our facebook page back out of limbo.  Very relieved.  We tweet under KittyKatesCafe and Facebook is Kitty Kate’s Cafe.

Waiting for corrections on signage and then we’ll have the building sides labelled with guidance for drivers as to where to park, which is always useful.  We’ll be putting it up ourselves, with permission from the very cooperative landlord.

Today inventory, menu update, and print out some more business cards.

Bro and I are rewatching Bones from the beginning.  Also Saving Grace.  I LOVE THE RELATIONSHIPS between the female characters in Saving Grace.  Retta and Grace are two of the best best friends evar.

We’re gonna have a street fair on July 21!  They are closing the street.  That will be after we extend our hours.  Katie and I are going to be splitting it down the middle, she gets MTW and I get TFS and we both get Sunday off.

Heard back from the gal who wants to rent. She is going ahead, I’m so happy!!! We may end up making bagels.  Fingers crossed. That dough mixer may come in handy yet.  Which reminds me I need to find a fixer dude.

oh my learning curve

Right now the shop smells like a combination latrine and abattoir (oh, THAT’S attRACtive) because I, like the fool I am, scheduled the grease trap cleaning during hours of operation.  Katie took off to render care for her bff and I am here in a stench that usually precedes the advent of a horde of orcs, or perhaps several large trolls. Or I could say that it smells like what happens when Jeff leaps to his feet and says “Mr Toilet you’ve been very bad.”…. but that would just be wrong, because on the worst day he ever had he never smelled anything like this.

Ha ha, I asked Jeff to forward the instructions so mOm and pOp can watch us on the security cams.  Isn’t that hilarious?  At least we don’t have smellovision yet, because pOp would be bolting for the nearest door, eyes out on stalks, if he came anywhere near this unusual odour.  peeeeeyou.

NEVER BOOK A GREASE TRAP CLEANING DURING OFFICE HOURS.  HOLY F***STICKS.  I’m as far as I can get from it, but I must needs be here until the bitter end because I must needs pay the man.  All this to prevent the City of Burnaby from fining my ass for putting more than a certain ppm of fat down the drain.

Justified

Despite Jeff and I jumping on this show with enthusiasm, I still managed to get in a brief shop, hang around the shop for 4 hours while the temp sensor solution got put in for Bertha, launder many clodes and rugs and fold towels, clean the hell hole under the kitchen sink after scrubbing down the tub and the kitchen cupboards, which looked yucky, and sweep the kitchen floor and cook a tasty dinner (chicken thighs, noodles and fresh green beans).  But I have to say I love love love the character of Raylan Givens, and Boyd Crowder isn’t far behind.  It’s interesting that while the show is violent (the body count is what it is) there’s virtually no swearing and the nudity is in my view not gratuitous.  Although Mr. Olyphant can take his clodes off annnnnytime.

It’s 1:30 in the morning and I am up because of heartburn.  I should probably attempt to go back to sleep.

 

More yumminess

Katie made super fantastic amazing huzzah muffins yesterday, mostly by accidentally putting in too much margarine and not enough milk and oh my gosh they were so amazing.  (Chocochunk Cherry).  Today I am making multiflavours of biscotti for a pick up order tomorrow. Split pea with ham soup for lunch.  Keith and Paul came by for a snack and Keith also dropped by in the evening to catch up on Game of Thrones.  Katie bailed on the shop today so I’m by myself (she’s helping Jessica) but that’s okay, it’s relatively quiet. And I brought Otto in, so I’m working on my Tyrion song (it’s him spouting off about his siblings, his dad, his effed up life….)

Continued yumminess in the form of a show called Justified. I simply didn’t get enough Seth Bullock from Deadwood, so I was thrilled that Graham Yost (Elwy’s offspring) put together Justified, which is based on an Elmore Leonard short story and novels, and is basically Seth Bullock dressed up in modern clo’es and hewing the lawman’s line in Lexington KY.  It is with great joy that I have learned that the two seasons on Netflix are not the only two seasons – it’s actually filming the fifth season this year.  The first four episodes have been amazing.  The music is stellar and Jeff and I just love the song that plays over the credits, which is rap vocals over bluegrass instrumentation (ya don’t knock what works).  At the line “That would be refreshingly linear” I sank back into my seat and smiled with glee.

 

Okay, biscotti are calling for me to attend to them.

 

 

One thing and another

Keith and Paul were in the shop today, which was delightful and brief.  I owe Keith money for the beer he picked up last night.  I suppose it being a long weekend and me going to a party tonight (first one in AGESSSS) I should purchase more.  Ziva died – vacuum leaks, more of them, rad problems, sensor and indication problems.  No can get fixed until Tuesday and candidly I am doubting even then.  Sue is going to give me the name of her auto broker.  Ziva has broken my heart and my wallet long enough, I could have bought two decent cars for what I’ve spent on repairs.  Wayne picked up the 50 biscotti I baked for the Hyack Swim Meet volunteers.  I included promo!  This is an improvement.  Also, we are in the flyer for the event, in two places, so instead of spending a hundred bucks on promo I made cookies.  I like dat.  Katie is going on a date tonight and if I say so much as ONE MORE WORD on the subject she’s gonna jam that broomstick up my nose.  Still haven’t mailed pOp’s biscotti, but Katie is leaving early today so I am going to ask her if I can escape to the Post Office to get it mailed off before she goes.  All the fridges are behaving well.  Katie spilled salt two days running and was yelling v. bad swearz, you know, pin a nun to a wall shit. Split pea with ham soup today.  I need to print more business cards. Started watching The Hour with Ben Whishaw (rowr!), Dominic West (McNulty from the Wire) and the exquisite Romola Garai as Bel Rowley.  It’s a Beeb miniseries set in 1956 Britain and everything about it is wonderful.  Abi Morgan wrote the script, which is uniformly excellent and doesn’t make the assumption that viewers are fecking idiots.  We’re up to episode 8 in Band of Brothers.  Also started watching Aaron McGruder’s Boondocks, which is SO TRANSGRESSIVE.  Jeff and I were killing ourselves laughing.  It is a trip to watch black people commenting about white people (and each other) without having to make concessions to hurting anybody’s feelings.  The grandfather is hilarious.  McGruder is a righteous rude boy and anybody who can call Condoleeza Rice a mass murderer to her face is my kinda guy (John is giving me the spectral thumbs up, I can feel it). My news feed informs me that Rob Ford (Mayor of TO) smokes crack.  Now many times in my life I have wanted to accuse any number of political figures of smoking crack, but jeezly hell my darlings, I wasn’t expecting there to be VIDEO.  The roast beef sandwiches have two new fans.  One of them is a climate change denialist and the other is a very entertaining semi-retired gent who put me onto the idea of starting up a cooperative retirement/nursing home.  I think it’s a fan-fucking-tastic idea.

not a lot of money, but a really good day anyway

Katie is increasingly stoked about her camping trip.  Wish I could say where but we don’t want uninvited guests now do we…

The shop SMELLS OF BACON.

We experimented with a new soup recipe and it’s so simple and so tasty Katie and I are both doing the Snoopy happy dance.  We can haz cheezy broccoli soup!

It’s raining, and we don’t mind.  Only one more hour to go, and then I pick up Ziva (again) and we go to Costco (our home away from home) and then… ep 4 Band of Brothers with Jeff, since we are rewatching it.  SUCH A GOOD SHOW.

Gotye’s Heart’s a  Mess is playing on the shop sound system.

Yeah, so not so much revenue, but a good day anyway.  Regulars came by, newbies came by, I got my CRA letter off to the post box, all the fridges are behaving, I organized a bunch of receipts, wrote down the new recipe… and Katie’s crush forked over his phone number.  I can now let my breath out after a month.

I light a candle for a close family friend who just lost a baby.  I sucked in my breath when I heard she was expecting… she’s multi-risk.  And now she knows why women don’t announce pregnancies until they quicken.  It’s horrible, it’s sad, it’s completely messed up, and it is life in it’s glorypain.  She and her husband are going to lie low for a couple of days.  Hell of a thing to happen on Mother’s Day, god help us all.

 

 

A great start to the day

Jeff is too tender hearted to deal with the wasp nest at the front door, so I dealt with it as the sun was coming up. I kinda had to as the pizza delivery guy was Freaking Out.

It was another quiet week at the shop. We are starting to get regulars, we are wasting much less food, and we need to start focussing on catering.

All the treasurer stuff is handed over and I need to finish up some secretary stuff.  Relief is unbelievable.

Ziva goes back into the shop. Perform-x got her through Aircare but now the idle is around 500 rpm and she just keeps stalling in intersections which is frickin dangerous.  If I put an additional load on like a fan it’s manageable but I can’t sell her like this.

Katie’s taking the day off

I am alone in the shop, sitting up front and wondering where the heck the sun went to.

Some ratfucker called and said that the woman who used to own this place ran a brothel out of here. Uh, no, she didn’t.  She had customers drop by late to pick up arepas.  I suppose it’s POSSIBLE that a devout Jehovah’s Witness could sell poon on the side, but given my interactions with her, I would say that possibility is what you might call out by Neptune remote.  I so wanted to tell the guy that unless he paid for it himself he should shut up.  Instead I left my dreadful Moral Qualms aside and ran through the menu and invited him to be a customer.  Go me.

Scammer came in yesterday and I sent him on his way with a “You let me know when you come up with $34 dollars to get that shipment of maple syrup out of hock!  I just want you to know that I can’t give you money for something I can’t see or taste.”  He seemed very downcast, and I’m sorry, but I would at least shave, shower, change my clothes and pare my nails before I tried something like that.  The hell is wrong with people, I dunno….

Bought insurance for Ziva and promptly lost the tags.  Go me.  Now to file a police report.

I put up a sign advertising Maple Bacon Muffins and just as fast took it down, as one of our regulars cleaned us out of the day-olds.  He said, “I love you guys’ muffins and soups!”  This is especially gratifying because he used to be a hotel chef (he fixes bikes now, talk about yer right livelihood) and he sure knows from food.

Hey pOp everytime I try to get your biscotti off to you something else screws up in my car or I can’t find an appropriate box.  Promise I’ll get it out before the end of the week.

And in other news Jeff and I are almost through Third Watch.  My fave character is still Sully, but Bosco and Yokas are running neck and neck for second.  Jeff and Katie and I have started a rewatch of the Wire when we’re in the same place at the same time.