2012 Highlights (from the entire Lagusta’s Luscious crew!)

Here’s how my little chocolate business has gone:

In 2003 Jacob and I started making truffles for family gifts, inspired, like all good things are inspired, by an article in Martha Stewart Living. I didn’t know what on earth I was doing.

In 2004 everyone we gave the truffles to in 2003 wanted more of them. And I saw that this was a little hole in the vegan marketplace, so I decided to start selling them on the internet. I made them once a month, in-between cooking for the meal delivery service I ran, and kept a little email mailing list I’d announce the shipment on. People would email me back to order, I would send them a PayPal invoice, and off their chocolates would go.

Things went pretty much like this until 2010. Over the years we got a website, a fancier ordering system, and a bunch more customers (not just friends). I made chocolates once a week, not once a month. It was nice. The chocolate holidays (Christmas, Easter, and, of course, V-day) slammed me, made it difficult to get my cooking work done and difficult to sleep. The chocolate side of things was growing, without me feeding it. (The meal delivery would have been growing too, but it was so exhausting that I kept it to 20 clients or less so I could manage it and have a reasonable life, too.)

In 2010 I decided to shut down the meal delivery service and focus on a sweeter life, with less onions to peel and less pots to scrub.

Here’s the difference, dish-wise, between the two jobs:

• Meal delivery dishes took hours of scrubbing giant pots, leaving you with oniony, wrinkly hands and exhausted arms. 
• Chocolate dishes can go right into the dishwasher with no scrubbing, and make the entire kitchen smell like hot chocolate.

Looking back, the choice was easy.

In 2011 we scraped up our pennies and borrowed pennies from wherever we could and bought the building. It was an 11-month-long odyssey, my friends (buying a building in foreclosure with almost no money—patient persistence is necessary, and since I am the most impatient person in the world, it was constantly tough for me. Thankfully, Jacob is amazing at smooth-talking banks and having patience, so while I was ranting and renting my garments with stress, he was cooly Making It Happen. It’s all detailed here, along with some TMIness about my own internal state at the time.)

Then began the renovation process (detailed rather haphazardly here). The word “renovation” still fills my heart with a cold chill. Oh, the months!

OH, THE MONEY! The delays, the work, the schlepping, the buying, the designing!

It was so much work.

(Was it worth it? Every night when I switch off the lights and lock the door [yes sometimes it's technically morning when that's happening, but still], I take a moment to look at the shop and get the same frisson of pleasure that I got the first day we opened. Opening the shop is my favorite thing I’ve ever done, and I love it every single day.)

We finally opened on June 28, 2011. (Jacob’s birthday! He was on tour in Europe at the time, and I sent him a photo of the shop and told him that instead of any presents [I was a little busy and a lot cash-strapped at the time, OK?], I got him a chocolate shop.)

It was fun from the start.

2012 was our first full year of being open, and it brought lots of changes in our Luscious little world. Here’s a rundown of the biggest ones:

• 2012 was the year we went from being a micro-business to a small business.
• It’s the year I had to learn how to be imperfect in front of other people, too. 

The biggest change in my personal work world was how many more people I work with on a day-to-day basis.

As late as June of this year I was still clawing on to Solitude Sundays (what I always called them in my head) where I worked alone. Alone! It was super tough, yes (every time we had a party of five who all ordered Drinking Chocolates, I’d set a new record for how fast one person can stir ganache into hot almond milk, top it with almond whip, marshies, and cinnamon, pour it into a cup, put a lid on it, and get it to them), but I loved having a day all by myself at the shop, so quiet and still in the back of the house.

I could use all the space, live completely in my head, work on secret formless projects I didn’t have to chat about to anyone until they were more complete, nailed-down, ready to be tasted. Sometimes things like Thyme, Preserved-Lemon and Sea Salt Caramel need a little marinating time in one’s own head before they’re ready to be trotted out for a tasting. I’m like that (I used to be like that?)—I want things to be perfect before anyone sees them.

I’ll never go back to Solitude Sundays, I know that.

That’s a good thing, but it’s a little bittersweet, too. Change is good, Lagusta! Moving forward is good!

Now I work more collaboratively, and it’s one of the most exhilarating processes I’ve ever participated in. I’m continually blown away by the brilliant ideas of the women I work with, how they help me solve problems and come up with amazing new ideas. If I don’t have an idea down perfectly, I know I can bring it to them and they’ll help me make it better.

It’s terrifying not to perfect things before I show them to other people, but I’m getting better at it.

Around August, we ramped up like crazy for the chocolate season ahead. It’s good that we did. We needed every body we could cram in those 1000 square feet. And I LOVE the amazing women we hired. Still, it’s been a major shift for me in the way I always figured the shop would run. It’s so strange to me when an order, or even a Drinking Chocolate, goes to a customer and I didn’t have a hand in any of it—I didn’t make the ganache or fold the boxes or dip the truffles or even ship out the package. (I started doing this thing where I write “Enjoy! XO, L” on all the packages I ship out, like I’m a fancy person, like people should be excited to get packages from the great Lagusta herself!! Oy!)

All this is strange.

I know in the scheme of things we are still a very, very small business, and always will be, no matter how much we grow. But I always thought we’d be a micro business. Just me, with Maresa helping out when she wasn’t making cupcakes and cakes.  And it went like that for a long time—I’ve been unable to get rid of Maresa since the day 5 or so years ago when she showed up at my old kitchen in Rosendale and said she’d work for free. Now I’d pay her anything she asked because she’s not only the sister I never had, but also so essential to the business that I sometimes wake up from nightmares where she went on a short vacation (really though, Reesey, you should take more days off!). We’ve had other people working on the shop since it opened, but never more than 3 of us at a time. From when the Oprah thing came out (keep reading!) in November until we went to Hawaii we were averaging 5 people a day working in the shop, and there were a few days when I looked up and we’d crammed SEVEN PEOPLE, each working with elbows tucked in their little stations, stirring flavorings into ganache or checking the temperature of caramel.

Unbelievable.

• The finishing of the façade.

This article came out about Chocolate in the Hudson Valley in the early part of 2012 in one of our the fine local alt-weeklies.  It mentioned all the chocolate shops in the HV except us. Our customers kept coming in and saying “Why didn’t they mention you???”

Everyone working in the shop was kind of outraged.

Secretly (ok, maybe not so secretly), I was pleased as punch. Do you know what this means? I kept saying to the little crew. We’re still an underground business!! 

The publisher of the magazine, however, happens to be a regular shop customer. One day he came in and apologized profusely about the omission. He didn’t happen to see the article before it went to press, otherwise he would have made sure they covered us. He promised some press to come to make up for the oversight.

I was honored, of course, but also a little rueful.

Being an underground business REALLY pleased me.

If it were up to me, we wouldn’t even have a sign on the door. I had this idea that we’d be a secret around town that you had to know someone to find. You’d open this unmarked, plain teal door and walk into a wild chocolate wonderland. How cool would that be?

As everyone reminded me, banks need mortgage payments in exchange for the building, and utility companies need money in exchange for power to power tempering machines. And student loans from a certain someone with a double major in English and Women’s Studies (oh, and the French minor) still has student loans to pay. So, concessions needed to be made.

Our friend Molly made our amazing sign. I liked it. Most particularly, I liked that it didn’t tell what we sold. Keeping the mystery!

In time though, everyone else got REALLY tired of saying, “We’re a chocolate shop!” to people who popped in just to ask what the crap it was that we sold.

So. Over my objections, we got these fancy letters for the front of the building. I got to pick out the font, and I picked Futura, so we could seem as much like we were living inside a Wes Anderson movie as possible.

Speaking of the chocolate letters:

• I made this really cool banner for the website. 

Maybe it’s not a year highlight to you, but to me, who manages to screw up the website majorly every time she touches it, who has pretty much been taken off website duty by Erin and Jacob, who are constantly tinkering and improving and fixing and perfecting, being able to make and upload the rotating banners on the top of the page was sort of a minor miracle.

How Wes Anderson-y does it look??

• I created the hardest, bestest recipe of all time. 

Oh, Peanut Butter Toffee Crunch Bars! Your butterfingery devils, you. How we love to hate you. 

• Pate de Fruits.

I love these little gems. Finally making them after years of wanting to was so satisfying. The cantaloupe was my favorite, but I loved them all.

• Ice cream. 

I LOVED making ice cream this summer (and milkshakes!). And we’ve got so many fun summery plans for cold treats to come, I can’t wait to share ‘em…

• Ridding the shop of corn syrup

I’m so proud of our Innovation of the Year: homemade organic cane syrup to replace corn syrup!

• Flowers. 

Candied homegrown flower tablets. Sigh. My heart is bursting.

• Molly’s window project

Our resident genius artist, Molly Rausch of Postage Stamp Paintings, painted our windows so beautifully, I don’t think we’ll ever take it down.

• Oprah Magazine + press

I guess I should stop with things that were important in my personal soul and all that and get on to the actual tangible markers of the year.

One of those was that we got some mega press.

We were in a bunch of local magazines and papers, and that 1/4 page mention in Oprah magazine sure raised our profile quite a bit. From when the magazine came out until the end of the year, we were solidly slammed with orders.

• Donations

Not being so terrified that we weren’t going to make mortgage payments every month has meant that we can afford to do more donations!

I knew there was a reason why being a bigger business was good—this is one of the major reasons.

As someone who always figured she’d be a penniless activist for a “living,” doing good is a huge part of our mission at the shop. Nothing feels better than being able to support the groups, people, and work we believe in. Here’s a partial list of donations we did in 2012:

• We donated to the animal shelter my mom volunteers for, CARE.
• We made sure our pal Nicole’s dog Beija got medical care when she desperately needed it.
• We donated a lot to Friends of Animals—when you buy our Rosemary Sea Salt Caramels boxes, $10 of each box goes to FoA’s fine work.
• We continue to give shop-discounts to members of Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary and Catskill Animal Sanctuary. We also do chocolate and cash donations to them whenever we can.
• We made a few hundred dollars for Family of New Paltz, our local food pantry, and so much more.
• We raised over $2000 to the Teal Cat Project in March, through sales of Tabby Toffee chocolates!
• We donated lots of Peach-Tarragon chocolates to Phillies Bridge Farm’s annual Meal in the Field dinner.
• Lots more donations I can’t remember/forgot to enter into my accounting program.

• The wildest Halloween ever.

There were so many sad events in the wider world this year. They’re beyond the scope of this blog post, but it’s crushing to remember them.

Hurricane Sandy was responsible for the cancellation of the Google NYC Halloween party, for which the Google folks had ordered hundreds of chocolates from us. They said we should give the chocolates out to New Paltz trick or treaters, which meant we had the craziest, most fun (in spite of the Sandy sadness living in our hearts) Halloween ever in the shop, which was crammed with people for hours and hours—long after the chocolate ran out, actually. My oh my does word spread fast in this town.

• The dough sheeter!

We bought a dough sheeter, thus ending 10 months of a croissant desert that we (me!) barely survived. Croissants are back forever, woo!

• The launch of the Savory Dinner Series
  

The most fun and the most work I’ve had in a long time (which is saying a lot—I have a lot of fun and work a ton on the regular). I hope it continues forever. We did two dinners last year (you can see millions of photos of ‘em at the link above), this year I’m hoping to do one a month March-October.

• Partnership with Tuthillltown Spirits

Tuthilltown has quickly become a household name in the Hudson Valley as well as the country (the world, maybe?) for well-crafted whiskies and more. We were honored when they asked if we wanted to partner up on a special chocolate to be sold in their distillery shop. Our Four-Grain Bourbon Caramel Chile Bars are one of our best-sellers, and it’s always so nice to meet people who found us from a bar they tasted at the distillery.

The whiskey is delicious on its own, too, which is nice for a whiskey drinker like me. Manhattans (and chocolate!) for all!

I asked everyone who works at the shop for their best-ofs, too:

• DawnMarie: Unlike everyone else, is probably out having fun and not immediately responding to emails, so I’ll update this post with her best-ofs when I get ‘em. (I’m hoping one of her favorites will be that crazy day she wrapped ten zillion bars…)
• Favorite thing to make:
  Sundaes in the summer!  Especially with gooseberries on top. (Customer-”you mean the ice cream, marshmallows, AND whip are all vegan? *face lights up*)
• Favorite thing I ate:
  Chocolate- ginger orange blossom truffle
  Cupcake- pistachio & rosewater
  Savory- latkas with sour cream & apple sauce!
  Drink- lavender lemonade
• Highlights:
  -Learning from and working with empowering, progressive, and witty women. Plus Jacob!
  -Actually being able to eat anything in the shop without worry of the ingredients.
  -Listening to good music all day
  -Maresa’s cake scraps!
  -Lagusta’s training nights & whatever she cooks for us.
• Favorite moments:
  I was having just your typical case of the rainy-pms-ing-monday-finals week-blues. My day turned around when I walked into work and my senior recital was being played as the shop’s music. What a supportive, loving feeling. And then I got to make chocolate all day. Chocolate shop therapy at its finest.
• During one of our busy days, I messed up and used black rasberries instead of red rasberries for a recipe and I already added in the balsamic syrup. I felt awful even telling L since we were pressed for time but  she didn’t even break a sweat. She just looked at it and went, “don’t worry- I’ve got an idea!” And just like that she made a tangy, fruity, amazing truffle out of my mistake- with black rasberries, balsamic syrup, lemon, lime, and strawberry that the customers all loved! Lesson learned: when life gives you lemons, make a new chocolate.
• Jayme: 
• Favorite thing I made: Holler Mountain bark. The first thing I made from start to finish.
• Favorite thing I ate: Pear, clover, & brown sugar cupcake.
• Beet coriander truffle!
• Highlights: when Non vegans walk in and are surprised & impressed that we are a cruelty free/Vegan shop. When vegans realize they can have ANYTHING they want! Putting bows on a zillion barks.

• Eating any food that Lagusta makes us (awww). Learning some real knife skills. Being able to work in an amazing, caring, human/animal/environmentally conscious environment.
• Favorite Moments: Working from 10a-730p with Maresa & Lucy without sitting down once and then enjoying a Taco Shack feast before finishing up the last 3 hours of work.
• Erin:
• Dipping truffles. (LY note: Erin is really great at dipping truffles!)
• Making ganache start to finish is pretty fulfilling- from the recipe, to flavoring, piping, rolling, dipping, decorating…
• Favorite moment was the night we all did yoga together, talking about our favorite poses. (very inflexible LY note: THIS WAS MY LEAST FAVORITE MOMENT.)
• Favorite eating was shiitake sea salt truffle, RSSC (Rosemary Sea Salt Caramels, natch), and turtles- and mac and cheese! (LY note: I like making snacks for the crew!)
• Funniest was when I called her “teal nail girl.” (LY note: Maresa and I almost hired her right off the bat because her nails matched our logo. [Even though you're not allowed to paint your nails in a food service environment. But this was just at the interview, so it was OK.])
• Fave customers- maeve and julian
• Fave times- when vegans come in expecting one or two vegan things and get SUPER EXCITED when they fing out every last thing is vegan. (LY note: this is my fave time too.)

• Jacob:
• STUMPTOWN! And indulging in a coffee obsession and taking it to unforseen heights.
• Maresa’s macarons!
• Sweet Pea Green Tea chocos.
• 
• Lucy:
• Turtles. (Lucy is our turtle expert, for sure.)
• I loved learning how to make caramels.
• Christmas rush. in the middle of it, I realized how much all of us has learned and how we could just bang it all out and do a good job.
• Favorite eating was pickle tempura, and chocolate lemon confit caramel.
• Fave customers- any shy old men. and the Smylies. also, the guy who gets gifts for his girlfriend “just because he loves her” and is always really polite.
• BOTH Erin and Lucy loved the chocolate tasting night!
• Maresa:
• Favorite eating: every last bite of the savory dinner (LY note: Maresa came as a diner! It was so great to cook for her.). and, apple caramels. and maui macadamia cream.
• Successfully making pb bars in less than one day (this happened once. it’ll go down in history like rudolph).
• Favorite customer: susan blickstein, who was with us through our coffee evolution, and would always give the lowdown on town-happenings.
• Favorite moment: sitting on the bench with L, eating pistachio ice cream, and comparing legs. also, realizing that our gals are totally the best ever. (LY note: this is my favorite moment, too.)

• Jeeeze, there’s a lot more!

Fun events, amazing customers (truly, amazing), delicious tempeh, our anniversary party, so many delicious chocolates (cream eggs!), wrapping paper with yours truly’s mug on it, the back room renovations, PARIS, that crazy cute caramel apple I made!

But this is getting too long, and I’ve got to start my New Year’s Eve dinner preparations.

If you have Lagusta’s Luscious-related highlights to share in the comments (or on Facebook or Twitter), I’d be honored.

Mother’s Day

First: if you want a daily dose of chocolate gorgeousness and general Lagusta’s Luscious TMI, Facebook is really the place for you. Or Twitter, if that’s how you roll.

Nextly: Mother’s Day is coming up. I wanted to take a moment to inform/remind/enlighten you to the fact that we make an entire line of chocolates named for the womens, including one named for my very own mom, one Pauline Benjamin Dubkin-Yearwood, that being Peanut Butter Cups (get it? PB!).

Moving along: Did you see this insanely lovely blog post about us? No, Well, go forth, then.

And finally: this very Sunday we will be at the New Paltz Regatta selling gorgeous hand-painted (and handmade, if you want to get particular about it) chocolate ducks to raise money for our local food pantry, Family of New Paltz. Every year hundreds of rubber ducks are raced in the Wallkill River to raise money for Family (personally this doesn’t seem super duper earth-friendly, but I’m told scrupulous care is taken to remove them all [but then where do they go?]), so that’s why we’re making ducks. 50% of the sales of each duckie will go straight to Family, so come on out!

Onward.

Yours,

Lagusta Pauline*

*You’re right that Jews aren’t supposed to be named for living people, and that my lovely mom is still very much living. Tell that to my goyishe dad!

BEHOLD!!!!!!

Oh my darlings.

SO much happened yesterday, what with me signing my name seemingly hundreds of times and then watching congratulations roll in on my own Facebook page and the Bonbons page, that I forgot to update the this here blog with THE BIG NEWS!

SO BIG!

Are you ready?

After 11 months of finagling, my sweetheart and I just closed on this fine wreck of a building in New Paltz! Just 15 minutes by bike from my house (three by car), this sad sack sweetheart needs some TLC, but around the end of May or so you’re cordially invited to the grand opening of the new LL HQ! It’s going to be our fabulous fabrication space plus a tiny little candy counter/chocolate shop, with maybe some savories sprinkled in too (homemade tempeh? croissants? maybe! maybe!).

(Buying the building was a real ordeal. If you want to read 3,000 words about my external and external struggles with it, here they are!)

I’ll be blogging a bit about the renovation process so you can share my joy/frustration/aggravation, too. Lots of before and after photos coming soon…

Take a deep breath! As my old Australian housemate, a male model named Peter with the bluest eyes and sweetest soul you’ve ever seen, used to say, “IT’S ALL HAPPENING, LG!” (he called me LG. Australians and their nicknames, you know?)

Yeah!

kitchen for rent!

To be frank: electricity and propane bills at the kitchen (and, for that matter, at my house) are eating me alive. And since I’m only doing chocolates these days and not the meal delivery as well, I’m not at work every day (yay!). So, I’m looking to share my kitchen 1-3 days a week with a like-minded business. If you know anyone, please pass this info along. Contact me at chef@lagustasluscious.com if you’re interested!

The kitchen details:

• The kitchen is in Rosendale, NY, on route 32.
• It consists of one large room, one office, one bathroom, and one back room for storage.
• Ample parking
• The kitchen is fully licensed with the NYS Ag and Markets department (it’s licensed under my business though).
• Two a/c units
• Wall propane heating unit
• Three ovens, one a super sweet pizza oven
• Four gas burners
• Dishwasher and three-sink
• Pots and pans, bowls and all kinds of utensils you can use.
• Vita-mix blender, Cuisinart, standing mixer, all kinds of machines.
• Food storage containers large and small
• Walk-in fridge with speed rack with pans
• Three freezers
• Wifi
• Butcher block cutting board table
• Full fire suppression system
• 100% eco-friendly cleaning supplies

I am:

• Neat and tidy! Everything in its place, a place for everything.
• Flexible with my schedule–hooray for working for myself! I try to take Sundays off.
• Entirely vegan, as is the kitchen.

You are:

• Neat and tidy! Everything in its place, a place for everything.
• Looking to rent a kitchen for 1-3 days a week. Days are flexible, but Sunday would be ideal.
• Run a vegan or vegetarian food business.

Rent: $75 per 24 hours.

So cheap!!

Interested? Contact me at chef@lagustasluscious.com.

containers and cooler bags (a super-duper boring post, to be honest)

My now-defunct meal delivery service used eco-friendly reusable containers and cooler bags, so when I shut it down, I was left with a sea of both.

And! In one of those twists of fate the rational mind can never quite comprehend, two months before shuttering the service, I ordered $700 worth of brand new Pyrex containers.

Thus! if you’re looking to restock your pantry with brand new (or gently-used) reusable containers and/or cooler bags, you’ve come to the right place.

Here’s what I’m looking to unload:

• Gently used plastic (no BPA) Rubbermaid Stainshield Premier containers with lid: 2-cup size: $1 each, including lids! They look like this:

• Brand new glass Pyrex containers, with plastic blue lids: 2-cup and 1-cup sizes. New in box! $3 for 2-cup and $2.50 for 1-cup, including lids. They look like this:

• Gently used cooler bags, various sizes: $7 each. Some look like this, and some look like other styles I’m too lazy to find pictures of.

• I have a few different sizes: 9-can, 12-can, and 18-can. (Yep, cooler bags are sized according to how many cans they hold.)
• Brand new cooler bags with tags, various sizes: $10-$15 each ($17-$25 new!)

If you live locally (my kitchen is in Rosendale, NY), shoot me an email at lagusta@lagustasluscious.com and let me know when works for you to come by.

previousnesses: the best of the past.

Heya pals!

Here are a few links to recipes, food essays, rants, ideas, and inspiration from my old meal delivery site, as well as my personal blog. Enjoy!

Great essays, food talk, and pretty photos:

• My coconut manifesto: why coconut is the new dairy. I think maybe the best thing I’ve ever written in terms of strict usefulness.
• In case you want to email me to ask if I think you should go to the Natural Gourmet cooking school in NYC.
• Really random thoughts on cooking.
• Hey, a super famous poet wrote a poem about my bittersweet chocolate vulvas!
• The grand peanut butter taste test of 2010.
• When I read a depressing book about chocolate.
• Continued musings after reading said depressing book about chocolate.
• Photos of this cool arty chocolatey thing I did in Brooklyn.
• The fanciest meal I’ve ever had. ALINEA!
• When I was really into writing poetry in chocolate.
• Photos of one week of cooking for the meal delivery.
• I. Am. Wildly. Obsessed. With. Watermelon.
• Once I got an email from Vandana Shiva and almost died.
• Mostly about peas + politics. And pretty photos.
• A few photos from the launch party for the Bluestocking Bonbons!
• All about Jerusalem artichokes, aka sunchokes.
• When I got really excited about making chocolate from scratch.
• A little bit about mushrooming.
• Sigh. I so adore my former sous chef Veronica.
• I believe in veganic farming.
• I love gum! LOVE IT.

And a few recipes:

• Pierogies
• Potato latkes meal with variations, homemade “sour cream,” and pink applesauce
• My homemade tempeh recipe
• Lemon thyme-pine nut cookie sandwiches with strawberry frosting
• Frosting!
• Lentils + rice (mujaddara) and koshari. So good.
• My literally award-winning chili!
• Onion rings!
• If you’ve ever eaten my food, you’ve probably eaten the dang phyllo triangles.
• More phyllo, this time smaller: fennel-olive pastries.
• Your Thanksgiving dessert: the famous pumpkin-bourbon tart.
• Tzimmes!
• All about agar.
• Ethiopian wat with savory teff muffins
• Matzo ball soup!
• Mexican chocolate chipotle sandwich cookies with cinnamon ganache filling: THESE ARE GREAT!
• Sugared flowers.
• Cabbage and onion pie. My oh my.
• The only not vegan recipe you’ll ever see from me: what I feed my beautiful cats.

And finally, really pretty photos of cupcakes.

Welcome!

Hello!

big news

Hello, internet foodie pals.

Some big news for you today. Here’s the note I wrote to my clients about it, then let’s talk about what it means for this little blog, OK?

I write to you today with some big news. After nine years of running the meal delivery service, I’ve made the sad decision to shut the business down in 2011. I’ve so enjoyed the cooking for you all these years, but these days running two businesses is getting to be just too much, and something has to give. So, I’ll be focusing on chocolates full time starting in January.

I feel sorry to stop cooking for such amazing clients–you’re all so incredibly wonderful, it’s been an honor making healthy food for you and your families. Some of you have been eating my inventions (and occasional flops) for 6+ years, and that kind of loyalty–the fact that I’ve never put in one ad for the meal delivery and that over 60% of my business came from word-of-mouth advertising—is so heartening. However, it’s time to focus on new challenges.

So there we are. It’s all very exciting—sad, exhilarating, and liberating, all at once. The meal delivery service was my baby for so many years—I started it with negative capital (lots of debt, in fact) and it not only taught me to cook (I went to cooking school, but in truth I’m much better at teaching myself, so the first three or so years were serious on-the-job training—I still blush to think about some of the wrecks I sent off every week. At one point I had so few containers that when I ran out one time I gave a client an entree in a reused plastic take out dessert container shaped for a pie slice.), it gave me financial stability, confidence, endless challenges, discipline, hundreds of 12-15-hour work days, and, if I do say so myself, an astonishing amount of business acumen for a former English and Women’s Studies major who at one point couldn’t tell you the difference between gross and net income to save her life.

I also had the honor of meeting some incredibly wonderful, and, sometimes, wonderfully bizarre clients. I haven’t done the deliveries myself for about five years, but in the early years when I’d stay up all night cooking then make my shaky way into NYC for those hellish 20 deliveries* I got to know most of my clients. Most of them were true sweethearts (and in truth I kicked them off the schedule if they were not a good fit for the service–I almost always had a waiting list for the meals. It was just as important for me to enjoy cooking for someone as it was for them to enjoy my cooking.), but there were a fair amount of straight-up nuts mixed in too—the woman who had only nail polish in her refrigerator, the guy who told me he never refrigerated the meals (!!!!), the longtime client who was perennially two weeks behind with the meals (no preservatives! I shudder to think!). The supermodel, the political wonk with his own show on CNN, the actress, the famous painter, the hundreds of strivers and stressed professionals.

Oh, and all the trends: first the Atkins, then the wheat-free, then the gluten-free, and the Macro peeps, and the raw freaks, the beet haters, Brussels sprouts avoiders, and the fat phobic. I’ve really developed my e-mail diplomacy skills over these years, and I’ve turned almost all the beet and Brussels haters into devout fans.

I have dinner party stories for the rest of my life, that’s for sure. But what I loved the most were my core crew—those clients who truly understood and appreciated the quirky way I cook. It’s not for everyone, but it was for them, and for that I’m profoundly grateful.

This weird little made-up job carried me through my twenties, and I honestly don’t know what I would have done without it. After a nervous breakdown engendered by witnessing the events of September 11, 2001 at way too close range, I followed my sweetheart on tour in Europe (he tours with indie rock bands as a sound engineer and tour manager) and thought about what I wanted from my fragile little life. I wanted to follow my own rules, be my own boss, and make people happy with my cooking. When I got home I designed a flier and a website, and started with four clients. With no capital, even less business sense, and, to be honest, very little cooking skills, things went slowly. But in time I was able to quit my part-time job working at my old cooking school, and the glorious freedom of working for myself has never diminished. I became a much better cook, too!

Anyway, enough sappy rambling.

This change doesn’t mean I’ll be going away from this blog–far from it. Though I won’t have weekly menu photos, I will be be doing lots and lots of chocolate testing which I will be sharing, and, after nine years of cooking in quantity, I’m really excited to cook for my my sweetheart and myself every night (and since 2011 is going to be a big touring year for him I’ll probably be eating alone a lot too)–I’m planning on posting all about the little excitements of cooking for two (or one) after so many years of cooking for 20. We rarely ate anything except what I cooked for my clients, so this is a whole new world for me. If anything I’m sure I’ll be posting here more, since it will feel less like work and more like foodie fun.

(Also, I still have a lot of meal delivery photo posting to catch up on in the next few weeks!)

Yours,

Lagusta

*Driving through Times Square on no sleep? Not the best idea in the world. The BQE? Downright suicidal. I used to take naps on the Thruway rest stops on the way home–one time I woke up to find a grizzled old trucker staring at me drooling from about one foot away. “Howdy,” he said, politely. That’s when I decided I needed a delivery person (actually—I think I decided that the day I got **three** parking tickets in a row, one for pulling over to ask a cop a question which I prefaced with “Can I stop here to ask you something really quick? I know it’s a bus stop but I am so incredibly lost.” She very kindly gave me directions to get me out of the tangle of Queens I was in, then casually wrote me a ticket. “You can’t park in a bus lane, honey, what were you thinking?” I wasn’t parked, I was stopped for 30 seconds!), and I’ve been blessed with amazing ones ever since. Except for the one very easy-going and perhaps overly relaxed pal of mine, who returned from his first day with shaky hands and that look in his eyes of one who has never truly looked Manhattan traffic in the eye before. “I…might have….underestimated how…ah…stressful that was going to be.” He said. You and me both, honey. I learned after that to only hire women delivery people, and they’ve never failed me.

Kira’s farm and business busy-ness

Heya Lusciousnesses,

It’s the week before the week of Thanksgiving, which means we’re in high gear over here. A couple bits of business:

• We’re all filled up for Thanksgiving orders, thanks to everyone who ordered!
• I probably won’t get a chance to post the weekly food photos for last week and this week until after Thanksgiving.
• If you’re in the Hudson Valley, you might have heard about the tragic fire at Evolutionary Organics/Conuco Farm. EO is my dear pal Kira’s farm, she’s an amazing person and a brilliant farmer. Here’s a note she recently wrote about an auction to benefit reconstruction.

So – I do believe that by now you all have heard there was a fire a little over two weeks ago that burned down a barn. Insurance is not going to cover any of what Hector or I lost in the fire, and it won’t come near covering what the other two people lost in the fire either.
With a little help from our market friends in Brooklyn, we are throwing together a bad ass auction to raise money to get the farms back on track. The auction will take place December 10th at a place called the Commons in Brooklyn. A little along the line of holiday shopping with purpose. If any of you have a useful, interesting, or cool item or service you wish to donate to the auction we would be more grateful than you can imagine. Every little bit helps! Ideas of items to auction off are also much appreciated.  We are trying to put together the list of items by the end of the month so we can arrange pick-ups and all the other details that it will take to pull this off. You can contact me by email or phone at 845-417-1543. Thanks for even thinking on this. Kira (evolutionary organics).

• Here’s another blog post that has more info on the fire and donation efforts, and Kira’s email address is blondykinney@yahoo.com if you want to contact her directly.

• We will also be having a donation box for Kira’s farm at the CRAFTED sale I’m putting on with a few friends on November 27-28.

That’s all from me. Have a great holiday if we don’t talk before then!

a barter!

Hello friends!

I’ve got a little barter offer for ya, please spread the word!

I’m looking to have my meal delivery service website redone—it’s time. I’m looking for someone who can work with an art director pal of mine (who doesn’t design websites, tragically) who has designed all my meal delivery service paper goods (fliers, stationery, menu sheet I send to my clients, ads, etc etc.) to make the site look more like my paper identity and also to somehow magically bring it closer to the Bonbons site. The idea is to form a, like, uh, kinda, cohesive Lagusta’s Luscious brand identity (It’s all very businessy and somehow makes me want to use the phrase “vertical integration.”).
So, if you have sterling references (cool sites you’ve made) and want to overhaul a site for chocolates, food, money, or a combination of the three (preferably with a very light emphasis on the last one, or, even better, an invisible emphasis), let’s talk! If you want to do a trade for chocolates, you can be anywhere in the US, but if you want to trade for chocolates + food or just food, the delivery area is NYC all the way north to Rosendale, NY.

Sound fun? If you’re interested, shoot me an email at lagusta@lagustasluscious.com.

Tell your friends!