I never take these kinds of photos, but I was tying to get the dogs playing. I was about to delete it and realized it looked right for this post.
This blog and the journey that I am on are taking me to places I never thought I’d be. Learning to be true, honest and authentic is harder than it sounds. Much harder.
I have so much that I need to share and talk about….good and super fun things. Foodie things and recipes. Interesting things, but also things that I feel bad and insecure about. Talking about being tortured emotionally, manipulated, and disappointed over and over again by people who you love isn’t an easy thing to do.
Not sharing who I am now, and why I am the way I am would be a lie; a lie I’ve been telling my whole life to protect the feelings of others. I’ve been terrified that if I talk about my true self, I will make people upset and mad. What if they never talk to me again or not have anything to do with me? I have tried to be my true self and it came back at me with a backlash that would make your head spin. One of those “people” I am talking about is my adopted mother, but there are others that I still have to dance around as well.
Over time I know that I am going to write about things I am not comfortable with and it will be very hard for me. I’ve chosen to share my life with all of you instead of only having a cooking blog. If I was just writing a cooking blog I would be burned out in 6 months and would be done.
The one person on my journey who stands by my side, helps to push me along and often times lifts me is Marty. I’m so lucky to have someone like him in my corner, he loves me unconditionally and is very supportive, plus he accepts me for who I am.
I hate pampering. There I said it for the world to hear. Since this is a blog about my living as well as cooking I decided to come clean with my opening statement.
I know that millions of people love to be pampered. Most of my friends like pampering in one way or another. Please know I don’t mean to discredit, discount, or talk bad about spas and salons or the folks that love them. It’s just not for me.
I’ve had my hair cut, colored, highlighted, and permed. I’ve had my nails done. I had one pedicure, massage, and facial. I used to get my eyebrows and bikini line waxed, I even got a Brazilian wax done twice. All leaving me with a meh feeling. I do have to say the Brazilian wax left me with a, “Wow that hurt like hell!” feeling. Please don’t take it personally how I feel about pampering, you can just say, “Fuck you Julz, I like pampering and you are from a different planet.” Fair enough I am good with it.
On social media, I see how excited people are to have a mani-pedi day. A few years ago I actually scheduled one for myself. All I could think of was, “Get me the hell out of here!” I sat there thinking how much time I was wasting and that I was going to spend a bunch of dough being miserable. I hated the pedicure. I hated having my feet touched. I felt the same way about all the other pampering treatments I have had.
I can actually cut hair pretty well, I understand the basics of it. I’ve cut other people’s hair along with my family’s and did a few friend’s hair and make-up for their proms back in high school. I can’t do complicated cuts like my boys have now, but I can do basic stuff. I’ve been cutting and coloring my own hair for years. I tried almost every color blonde, red, burgundy, black and red, highlights, and an unsuccessful purple but didn’t like any of them. I especially didn’t like my mousey medium brown that has a lot of natural red in it. My natural hair color gets so brassy I hate it. It turns orange in the summertime. My father once told me my hair looked like a doorknob. Thanks, dad!
I started coloring my hair darkest brown, not black when we started the business almost 4 years ago. We were taking some Vermont Spätzle photos for social media and I looked at myself. It was summer and my hair and tan skin were the same color. I had a one-dimensional look. I figured I had the chance to have a new look at our new business. We were literally meeting hundreds of people every week, this was my chance to shake it up. I really liked the way the darker hair made my face and features pop. For the first time when I looked in the mirror, I thought it looked like me. My son Noah and my siblings all have dark hair I have recently found out, maybe that’s why.
Light brown hair with a brassy tone.
I have to “refresh” my color every 4 weeks. I use professional hair color and not drug store products anymore. There is a huge difference! I hate touching up or coloring my hair. I absolutely dread it and make up excuses, wear a hat, or use a product called Style Edit which blends the grown-out areas beautifully. That is until I suck it up and color it.
A hairdresser once told me, if you don’t keep up with your hair color you will look like a whore! WTF? It was a high-end salon and he was highlighting my hair. If you don’t keep up with it, don’t tell anyone I am your stylist. Screw you pal, that was my one and only time going to him. Another one left the highlighting color on too long and my hair broke off at the roots. See why I don’t like going? Every single stylist tries to talk me into cutting my hair short. I listened to them a couple of times and regretted it. Worse was when they did what they wanted and cut more off than I wanted. If I wanted to cut my hair shorter I would have asked for it. Capeesh?
Yesterday, I decided it was hair coloring and pedicure day. I had to psych myself up all week to do it. I had my hair done by 8:30 am and my toes finished before noon. Was it a waste of time? No. While my hair color is processing I run around like a damn idiot getting projects or cleaning done. You can get a lot done in 35 minutes! The thought of being stuck in a chair for that long at a salon gives me the screaming meemies.
For someone who thinks it’s a chore when it comes to self-maintenance, I never minded spending 3 hours getting ready for belly dance gigs. Maybe it’s because I am transforming myself into someone else? Maybe it’s because I love performing and dressing up? Most definitely! Every gig I had a different look whether it was different hair, makeup, or costuming. We had gigs almost every week so I got fast and efficient at it. I hope when the pandemic is over we can perform again, I’ve missed it.
Just a small sample of various gig s hair, make up and costuming.
Yesterday morning I heard the birds chirping. What does that have to do with this post? To me when the birds start chirping again spring isn’t that far off. Instead of my usual dark toenail color, I went with light lavender…a sure sign of spring in my mind. A sign of hopefulness.
Why do I hate being pampered? Is it a deep-rooted thing? Maybe it’s that I hate relying on other people and can’t sit still long enough to enjoy it? The definition of pampered is being treated with extreme and excessive care. Am I nutty enough to not feel like I am worthy of it? Whatever the reason…it’s just not for me.
I wrote about my one grandmother that I called Nana a couple weeks ago, but today I want to tell you about my Mema…my other grandmother.
In my post about Nana, I was the nurturer when I spent time with her since she lost her eyesight. Mema always took care of me. As much as I loved my Nana, I loved Mema with a different kind of love that I can’t explain. I loved it that she paid attention to me, made me snacks to eat, and played with me.
As I mentioned in my Nana story, I told you that I spent quite a lot of time with both my grandmothers. My grandfather Russ, Mema’s husband passed away very suddenly when I was 9. My other grandfather passed away when I was 4.
I remember my grandfather who I called Pa. I recall that he was one of the first real deaths that I understood. It was strange going to Mema’s house after Pa died. My dad took his father’s death very hard. They were extremely close and it was painful to watch. Mema moved to a smaller place after Pa died. I loved her upstairs and downstairs house and missed it after she moved. We used to drive by to look at it and it always looked the same.
Mema and Pa…Catherine and Russ on their honeymoon in Atlantic City.
We used to go to Mema and Pa’s house a lot for holidays and Sunday dinners. After his death, I would take a ride with my dad after work to go say hi to Mema and check to see how she was doing.My dad had tons of family members around, but he was also very close to his mother.
Saturday nights were the nights I slept over at Mema’s if I wasn’t at Nana. I was company for both of them and they babysat me…a double win for my parents I guess.
When I slept over at either of my grandmother’s houses I slept in the big bed with them. I slept on the right side at both of their places and that’s the side I’ve slept on since Marty and I got married. Side note…Marty wanted to switch sides on our 10th anniversary which I agree to for 5 years, then I told him it was ridiculous and I wanted my side back.
Mema used to go to the beauty parlor and get her hair done once a week like most women did. I loved sitting on her bed while at her dresser she would wrap her head with pink toilet paper and secure it with bobby pins when she slept. She said it helped her hair stay in all week. I guess it did because until she got a perm in the 1980s her hair always looked good to me.
I loved looking at all the pretty things on her dresser. She had a fancy mirror and brush set that was black lacquer with rhinestones. I loved her wedding ring box. I used to open and close it carefully. She always took her wedding ring off before bed because she put cream on her hands.
My grandmother wedding ring box. She gave it to me when I was a teenager, she knew how much I loved it when I was little. More valuable to me than the ring inside would ever be.
Mema would rub ponds cream on her face and she would do mine too. She also would brush out my long hair. My favorite part was that she would very lightly rub my back until I fell asleep. I guess she did this when I was much younger when she babysat me at our house. The next night after my story and glass of water, I wanted my mother to rub my back the way Mema did, she told me she didn’t have time for that nonsense and to go to sleep. I know she told Mema not to get me used to stuff like that. I heard her complain to my father about it while I laying in bed. I had to maybe 4 or 5 at the time, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
When we would go to Mema’s house on Sundays for dinner I sat on the floor watching tv. I was always sitting way too close, everyone would warn me. Meanwhile, Mema was in the kitchen cooking. I never cooked with Mema, did the dishes, or even cleared the table as I did at Nana’s house or at home. It was great! It was like having a day off to just relax.
Me, my parents, and Mema & Pa. Pa always had a smile on his face.
Mema was an average cook, she cooked comfort food and I liked everything she made except for her meatballs. I would ask my parents what Mema was making for Sunday dinner and when they told me spaghetti and meatballs I would cry. They had too much oregano in them and they were dry like the hamburgers that she made under the broiler. My parents told me I had to eat them, so I did.
As I got older my dad and I would stop at Mema’s by ourselves or with the other child they adopted, but usually, it was just the two of us. As soon as we would walk in she would ask if we were hungry. We really didn’t have to answer because before we knew it she was in the kitchen making us boiled ham and cheese on white bread “samiches” or my dad’s favorite bolognie and cheese samich. He called them rubber sandwiches.
Other times we would go and she would make the two of us tea and my dad coffee. We would dip Stella Dora Anisette Toast into our tea or sometimes Stella Dora Breakfast cookies. There was usually those wafer cookies that were chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. I liked the chocolate ones the best. I have Mema’s red apple cookie jar displayed proudly on the top shelf in my kitchen. Such a simple thing means so much to me!
Mema’s red apple cookie jar
Back to her tea, I am not really a tea drinker but when I do make a cup I made Mema tea which was light and sweet made with regular Lipton tea bags. She had these little teapot-shaped dishes to put your teabag on.
My most favorite thing of all was that Mema played cards with me at her dining room table after dinner. My parents sat in the living room watching tv while we played. We also played tic tac toe and checkers. We would play rummy, go fish or war. We played for a long time and now even as an adult I can say that I really think she liked playing with me and had fun. She and I would howl laughing at some of the things she would say about the cards she was dealt. She did it not out of obligation, and I never once had to ask her if she wanted to play with me. It was her idea and she did it because she wanted to. I could feel that even when I was little.
When I got old enough to drive I would pop in every once in a while to say hi, had a ham and cheese “samich” and a Stella Dora for the road. When I started dating Marty he would go with me. When we moved to Vermont after we got married, we would stop from time to time and visit with her when we came back to Jersey.
I used to go to NJ with Noah when he was little by ourselves. I was a stay-at-home mom and Marty worked a lot so I would go down and visit my parents and Mema. Noah remembers the two of them and playing a game with sponge balls tossing them back and forth to each other. Sam got to visit her as well, but I don’t think he remembers her.
I checked in on her more often after my dad passed away since I was in NJ at least every other week to be with my mother. Mema took my dad’s death hard. I never remembered seeing her cry at his funeral, but I had my head so far up my own ass with my own grief maybe I just didn’t notice. She was stoic and quiet, it was heartbreaking because that wasn’t who she was. She told me a year later that you never get over the death of your child. So sad. I had two children and couldn’t even think about it.
From the time I was very little until I was a grown woman with my own children, I will always remember how she kissed me goodbye. “Go give Mema a kiss goodbye” my parents would tell me. Like they had to tell me? I loved her goodbye kisses. She would take my face in her hands and kiss me on one cheek about 10 times going mmm mmm mmm mmm. When I saw her do this with my boys it made me so happy they got Mema kisses too.
When I think back all I can remember is that Mema was genuinely nice to me. I think we really enjoyed each other’s company. I was her first grandchild and she treated me like I was special. What she and I had was more than special. I am very lucky to have had her as a part of my life. Ok, I have to go wipe my eyes and blow my nose now.
Today was delivery day for The Vermont Spätzle Company. We used to do all of our own deliveries, but now we have the amazing folks at Wilcox Ice Cream drop ship our frozen spätzle all over VT for us.
We do the deliveries to all of our New York wholesale customers. Some have some smaller deliveries weekly, but our other larger wholesale accounts get a lot of product at one time every 4-6 weeks.
We like to deliver to as many of our NY accounts as we can at once since we are already there. It seems like once we receive that first large order, more NY orders start flooding. I always “feel it in my bones” that we will get at least one more doozy of an order in the next day or two.
Within moments of my prediction, the order came in while I ran into the house for a second. Marty started asking me to check our delivery board for something and I immediately saw it…The Niskayuna Co-op needed a delivery. Ha, I knew it! Even the guy from the Niskayuna Co-op named Damien who orders the spätzle knows I’ve been right about my last three predictions.
When I worked at school I had the same “feel it in my bones” predictions about when the health inspector would come. I taught everyone that whenever you left the kitchen for the day it should be ready for a health inspection first thing the next morning.
I would give everyone the heads up when I had that feeling and sure enough, when he would walk into the multipurpose room wearing his hat and heading towards the kitchen, we would all laugh. After the inspection, the kids would always ask me, “Mrs. Irion how did you know?” Just for the record we always scored in the mid to high 90’s on our inspection. We got a 99 once, he never gave out 100’s. That day he couldn’t find anything wrong so he took off 1 point for a stained ceiling tile in the bathroom down the hallway. 😂 You never argue with the health inspector, I thanked him and said see you in 6 months.
You knew the health inspector was there for an inspection when he had his hat on. A couple of times he was in the school for a different reason and he just stopped by without his hat on. The first thing he said was, “Don’t worry I’m just stopping in to say hello.” Whew! One time he actually bought a blueberry muffin and a coffee from me! This meant he thought I had a clean kitchen and trusted me with his stomach. LOL
Emptying out all of our freezer to pack and load up the van.
So we’ve been working feverishly all week to fill all of our orders, flash freezing the product, boxing it all up, and loading it into our van this morning. We were glad to see that the snowy forecast was wrong and we only had about half an inch. The roads were just wet so we are home free. Jinx!
As I stepped out of our back door I slide a foot down our driveway and caught myself from falling. I guess I screamed because Marty heard me in the house. All I could hear in my head was The NY Rangers hockey team’s announcer say, “What a save and a beaut!”
We loaded up all our orders and double and triple-checked our invoices and counts then headed to Saratoga. Our first stop was Healthy Living. We couldn’t pull in or get into the loading dock because a regular size UPS truck was blocking the entire thing. When we are in the business van we are on our best behavior. If we didn’t have the van, both of us would have told him what an asshole he was.
This is the Hudson River completely frozen over and covered with snow. It looks like it could be a field instead of a river!This is King Dairy…their milk is the first ingredient in our spatzle. We get our milk the morning they bottle it. Is that local and fresh or what?
This driver literally had a bunch of delivery vans lined up waiting for him to take his sweet ass time walking back to the truck. I almost blew a gasket keeping my mouth shut. When we could finally get near the delivery area we loaded up a u-boat with our frozen spätzle and wheeled it inside to be checked in. They take the temperature of the spätzle to make sure it is below freezing. Our spätzle was -19 degrees this morning. 🙂
Loading dock and delivery entrance at Healthy Living. A u-boat is the wheely cart.
After making delivery number one we were off to the Niskayuna Co-op with Damien’s order. He wasn’t there, damn it, I wanted to joke around about my prediction and being psychic. Next time I will because…there will be the next time. We loaded up a cart with their product had it checked in and headed on our way.
Niskayuna Co-op delivery entrance
The third stop was to the Honest Weight Co-op in Albany. This place is always jam-packed! There were delivery trucks and vans everywhere parking wherever they could in the crowded parking lot. We saw some of the same van drivers we saw at our first stop. Fridays are delivery days for farmers. Honest Weight is a weekly delivery for the most part. Marty usually delivers to them on Saturday mornings before the Troy Farmers Market. It’s nice that for the last two weeks we’ve been able to bring it on Friday. He can leave for the market almost 30 minutes later, which is a lot at 6 am.
Honest Weight delivery entrance
Next, we hopped on the NY Thruway and headed to Athens, NY. We made a quick stop at our friend’s business The Crimson Valley Nursery in Coxsackie to drop off a bag spätzle for Danny & Jen. We even got a tour of their greenhouse. It was so warm in there. It reminded me of Frosty the snowman when he gets trapped in the greenhouse and melts. I cried so hard when I was little and still cry today. Weird enough, it has to do with that damn attachment disorder I have. I’ve worked through a lot of it, which is so healing I can’t even tell you!
Our friends place Crimson Valley Nursery
Our final delivery was to Field Goods, an online farmers market that services some parts of NY, NJ, and CT. At Field Goods, we can drive right into their warehouse and unload their delivery right onto a pallet and then drive it to the freezer with a manual forklift. I could tell Marty liked the forklift part, I liked that it was hot pink!
Inside Field Good Warehouse loading and unloading area
By this time we were both starving! I have been craving these smoked chicken wings with a peach, dijon chipotle sauce that we get at a place that we found back in November in Hudson. The place is called American Glory Bbq and now we’ve had two delicious lunches there. My dad always said don’t go back to a place too much you are bound to get a bad meal to ruin it. 🤣
On the Rip Van Winkle Bridge crossing the frozen Hudson River again. Those bomb-ass smoked wings with that peach dijon chipotle sauce. We both had their collard greens and ham, Marty loves their brisket chili topped with lots of cheese.
We decided since it was still early we walked around the town of Hudson. The shops are all antique shops, boutiques, pastry shops, and restaurants. I am sure the place is jam-packed with NYC people in the summer.
As we walked around we found some residential streets. The absolutely beautiful architecture was clearly from the 1600 & the 1700s. The homes were all so well take care of. The former carriage houses were now garages but still looked like a horse and buggy belonged in them.
Some gorgeous homes that were massive! Here are two cafes I want to go to when it’s warm out. I just want to order a drink and people watch.
Walking around was truly like taking a step back in time. It was quiet, no cars or people around and we played tourists. We can’t wait to explore the side streets more the next time when it isn’t as cold and snowy. It’s fun to imagine who and what it was like walking down those streets almost 300 years ago as we did today. I’ll put money on it that no other full-time spatzle makers strolled down Allen or Warren Street.
We are almost home and I am writing in the car. I asked Marty if he was happy I was writing because it was so quiet. He said no, but I am never quiet, so I’m sure he liked the peaceful ride home from my usual blabbing. The ride went fast for me lost in this blog post.
Home sweet home. The van is empty except for a bunch of soft cooler bags.
So that’s a day in the life of The Vermont Spätzle Company. It’s nice to give people a glance into our business and they can see that we don’t just wave a magic wand and make it all happen. I’m not good with magic wands, but I am one hell of a good psychic! 🔮
Last night I wrote two blog posts. They were both in my head so I wanted to write them down. The Porchetta one was food-oriented and was fine. The other one about music and leftovers had no ending.
This morning Marty sounded like Jon my writing mentor. “Can I tell you something about your music and leftovers piece?” he asked. I said sure knowing I dropped the ball somewhere. “You started strong, but had no ending.”
That son of a bitch was right again! He beat Jon Katz to the punch!
I went back and finished up the piece tying the whole post together. If you read it already and thought it was lackluster it was. You could go back and read the end, or not.
No excuses, but now I have another rule for my writing… the next time I am dead to the world, I will proofread my stuff before I publish it. My first rule is to never write drunk. LOL!
Marty hard at work, doesn’t the spatzle look good?
These have been a few very busy weeks for us. We have been in production so much and have been up to our elbows in spatzle. Tomorrow we have to make a bunch of big deliveries all around NY, so we needed to get all the orders filled and make enough product for Marty at the Troy Farmer’s Market on Saturday and for a bunch of curbside pick-up orders.
We had to make spatzle on Sunday this week, you know my Sunday kind of love day? I never get tired of making the product or even packaging it…it’s the dishes that I dreaded doing this morning.
When we got up today I knew it was going to be another big, long production day with a couple of deliveries afterward. While we were having our coffee I kept saying I don’t want to do the dishes today! Ugh!
Dirty dishes with the hard-to-clean raw batter and all the dishes used to drain the spatzle before going into bins to cool.
When you think of dirty dishes in a normal production kitchen they are nothing compared to ours. Hell, I washed a million dishes when I worked in the kitchens at school, even the worst pans in the world weren’t this bad.
After I figured out how to mix our ingredients in a special way then I had to increase my batch sizes. The thing that I didn’t count on was that I had to figure out how the heck to get the dishes clean from the unconventional ingredients we use.
Without exaggerating, it took me six months of experimenting with different cleaning methods, water temperatures, soaps, rags, and scrubbies, etc until I figured it out.
Marty cleans the steam kettle for me! Here are all of my clean dishes!
It takes me as long to wash all the production dishes as it takes to make a couple of hundred pounds of spatzle. After the production dishes are done I have all the bins to wash that hold the spatzle after it has been drained and cooled. Ugh.
Today I just wasn’t feeling it. I needed something to drag me through this production day. Music is always my answer. We listen to music every day in our production kitchen, but today had to be something to kick my ass into motion.
Broadway Music Radio on Pandora was the ticket. A lot of the music was from newer Broadway Musicals with a few oldies thrown in for good measure. Song after song I was singing behind my dust protection mask making the day go quickly. Some songs like one of my favorites “Cellblock Tango” from Chicago came on and I went into a whole dance number.
Our Alexa video speaker that we play music on, we have a smaller just speaker one in the packing room that are paired to play the same thing in both rooms. Technology!
I took tap, ballet, and toe or point throughout my whole childhood starting at the age of two. I love that I can still jump into a tap number at any given moment. I just need a 5,6,7,8 and I am dancing away.
Although it was a long day, we filled all the orders we need for tomorrow’s deliveries and the weekend. Mission accomplished.
I’ve been cooking real lunches and dinners all week, but I needed to lean on some leftovers for the next couple of dinners.
Tonight I took the leftover mashed potatoes from our Porchetta dinner from Marty’s birthday and turned it into loaded potato soup. It was easy, quick, and filling. I also took a container of leftover short ribs and gravy out of the freezer for tomorrow night. We are going to have short rib poutine which is one of our favorites and will be quick and easy after a day of deliveries and getting back late.
My loaded potato soup, tasted much better than it looked.
At the end of the day, or a long week I should say, music yanked me through not only dish washing, but also holding myself accountable in the gym. I worked out on some days that I just wanted to come inside and sit down, but I didn’t I got in there and gave it my all.
As far as leftovers? They are a lifesaver! They are the greatest thing since sliced bread! Look for a blog post down the road that will be called something like The Joy of Leftovers or Lovely Leftovers.I will talk about how to not only use leftovers, but how to plan them into your weekly menu.
***I am planning on taking all of you on our delivery route with us tomorrow. There is snow in the forecast, so that should make things even more interesting. We are planning on hitting the road early, we have a lot of stops to make.
Long before the pandemic, before people actually started caring about toilet paper and hoarding whatever they could literally get their hands on, I noticed how ridiculous the math is on each package of paper products.
Each brand has at least 3 or 4 different types of toilet paper and each of those has different size rolls. Single, super, double, mega, super mega are just to name a few.
Consider that each supermarket chain has at least 40 different choices of toilet paper to choose from is beyond crazy.
Paper towels are the same story. Lots of brands with different types of towels and a huge assortment of sizes. Single, double, select a size sheets, mega…the list goes on and on.
This morning we were getting ourselves organized in the production kitchen and I looked at the packages of Bounty we had on hand. Remember, I only bought one package at a time when I saw them I didn’t hoard a bunch. We need good paper towels in our kitchen. 😜
It actually made me laugh that we had so many different mathematical equations we are supposed to solve!
I remember a YouTube video that went viral during the quarantine lockdown. A dad had a full on rant about toilet paper math. He sat down and actually figured out the math!
The dad calculated how many sheets each size roll had, each package had, how many feet per roll and the best one of all he figured out how many shits (his word) if you used 20 sheets of toilet paper per shit.
A lot of other bored quarantined folks also made videos with their calculations, some even weighed the rolls. I am relieved that other people besides myself thought about this crap….pun was intended.
Each person on the videos ranted about the toilet paper brand companies and how misleading and confusing their advertising and marketing were.
I hit the jackpot when I saw this at the store!
The toilet paper calculators also ranted on about how much toilet paper people hoarded and actually needed for a whole year. They concluded that no family could ever take that many deuces or number twos.
Now that the store shelves are finally restocked with toilet paper and paper towels, just take a gander at the ridiculousness of all the mathematical equations that are being marketed to us.
Jon, my writing mentor told me whenever I write a piece I need to keep the readers in mind and think “why should they give a shit” about what I am writing. In this case, the whole story is about that very thing, giving or should I say taking one, and how much toilet paper everyone needs. 😬
I know we aren’t out of the woods yet with covid, but there are some positive things that have me taking a deep breath of relief. I don’t think I have taken a breath since the shit hit the fan back in March and everyone panic shopped hoarding everything in sight. I keep a well-stocked pantry and freezer in the winter especially and I usually have enough Charmin toilet paper and Bounty paper towels for our home and business.
Whenever we open the last of something, it goes on a shopping list. This way I rotate my stuff and always have the important stuff on hand. When we did go to the store for the first time I was in utter shock like everyone else.
When I walked up and down the aisles of Hannaford the shelves were empty. I felt afraid, scared to death, worried, what were we going to do? I have ulcerative colitis I need fucking toilet paper dammit! Then every time I went to the store I got angrier and angrier. Why was it taking so long to restock everything even with limits on everything? Did I arrive every single time when everything was sold out again? Seriously WTF?
On one trip to Aldis I almost had a panic attack. There was not one package of meat, chicken, sausage, or fish in the meat section. My shoulders tighten up just thinking about how afraid I was. It was like living in a third world country and there were no food rations left for me.
I am sure we all experienced it. Every time I go into a store, no matter what one, I hold my breath and slowly look down each aisle. Up until a few weeks ago, aisles were still low on inventory. I would start cursing under my breath and get myself into a total tizzy asking why is this taking so long. Me cursing under my breath? 😂
Every time I saw Charmin or Bounty I bought one of each. I left the store feeling like I won a million bucks. I wasn’t hoarding, I was looking out for my own ass, literally.😜
A couple of weeks ago I started noticing things were starting to reappear on the shelves giving me some sense of relief. We went to a big Shop Rite the other day when we were out delivering, the last time we were there the shelves were still almost bare, but this time they were full, full, full! I controlled myself and didn’t buy one package of Charmin or Bounty.
Now that I have enough of the good stuff on hand, I realized that I had to start using up those cheap ass paper towels I was forced to buy. We can’t use them in the production kitchen at all since they are a hazard when they literally fall apart when you are using them. I am happy to report that the last roll of that horrible, thinner than shit, garbage is gone.
Who would have ever thought that in a world where people want vacations, fancy cars, big homes, nice designer clothing we would be satisfied and relieved coming out of a store with some toilet paper, sanitizer, Lysol, and maybe a can of soup or box of pasta?
Marty got to the empty tube of paper towel before I did. We both will either blow into the tube and say, “do do dooooo!” or clunk the other person or the dogs on top of the head with the empty tube like when we kids. That I think maybe the secret to our 32-year marriage.
Since I started this blog journey I’ve mentioned my work and our business The Vermont Spätzle Company, but I never really talked about it. I know that many of you have been on this journey with us since the beginning, but for those who aren’t familiar with our product…here we go.
Marty and I own and operate the Vermont Spatzle Company. We are the whole kit and kaboodle. We make the product, package it, box it up, deliver it, market it and sell it ourselves. It took me over seven years to develop our recipe. We have the world’s only gluten-free, no-boil, ready in less than five minutes pasta. I was trying to develop a gluten-free spätzle because there was not one on the market. There still is not another gluten-free spätzle available commercially besides ours.
When we had to go gluten-free in 2010 due to medical reasons. Marty really started missing spätzle. He’s from Germany and grew up eating it, I used to make it a few times a year. While we could get terrible gluten-free bread, pizza, bagels, and pasta you could not get spätzle. It seems the more you can’t have something, the more you want it.
The actual cast iron pan of spatzle that is in the background of our label.
So what the heck is spätzle anyway? Well, spätzle is a German egg noodle that is like a little dumpling. In Germany, it is served with sauerbraten, different types of wursts and other things with gravy. One of the most popular ways to have it is fried up in a little butter, then topped with caramelized onions and cheese.
On March 11, 2017, I finally nailed down the recipe and we decided we were going to go into business with 150% effort. We had to find the right packaging, design a logo & label, obtain licenses, nutritional labels, and UPC codes for stores. We learned a lot the first year!
Farmer’s Market
We were quite surprised how fast people found out about our spätzle, and how much they loved it. Social media was the driving force behind getting our product in so many stores. People knew who we were whenever we went into a store. They would say, “Oh look, it’s the spätzle people.”
We also started doing farmer’s markets right away, sautéing our spatzle at our tables, giving people samples, and educating them about what spätzle is. Our product is not geared only towards gluten-free customers, 75% of our customers are not gluten-free. Once they try it ,they are hooked. People ask us if we put crack in our spätzle, that’s how addicted to it they are.
Spatzle for breakfast! Sautéed in butter, dusted in cinnamon topped with fresh berries and whipped cream!
Our customers use our spätzle sautéed with butter, pesto, with different types of sauces and stir-fried dishes. Italian dishes, soups, casseroles, and macaroni & cheese. Someone actually replaced a flour tortilla with our spätzle and they called it the spätzle enchilada. It can even be eaten as a sweet dish. It is truly a blank canvas and the possibilities are endless.
Tradition German meal with pork cutlet and a hunters sauce, leftover turkey spatzle soup, chicken parmigiana with spatzle and cold spatzle caprese salad with fresh mozzarella pearls and a balsamic reduction.
Our product is available through the entire state of Vermont, a few locations in New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. It is also available through a few online farmers’ markets that offer home delivery, or at pick-up locations near their customers.
Our spätzle has been featured in newspaper and magazine articles. We were featured on a television news show in a segment called “Made in Vermont.” After the show aired everyone in Vermont knew who we were. The more people read about it or heard about it they wanted to try it.
Our “Made in Vermont” segment being shot.
When say that our spätzle is made with love, we mean that 100%. At our super busy times, Marty and I can produce around 1500 pounds a week, but we put love in every batch. By the way, 1500 pounds is a lot of spätzle!
I was able to quit my job within two months to be a full-time spatzle maker. Marty worked another full-time job and full-time at The Vermont Spätzle Company for the first year. He was our marketing person who went from store to store, did demos, and was our delivery person. While Marty was working at his “real” job, I made all of the product and packaged it. We both worked farmer’s markets every weekend and sometimes mid-week.
When I say that working for yourself, having so much passion and love for what you do and the product that you make, is the best feeling in the world! Having our customers share with us their spätzle memories telling us of their grandmothers making spätzle or that they included our product in their holiday meals. Wow-what an honor!
When everything shut down with Covid last March, I had a mini conniption and worried about what would happen to our business since our farmer’s markets were nearly extinct. We are a food manufacturer and essential business so we continued working, business as usual.
We have been extremely lucky and blessed the people still have to eat, cook at home, and have supported our business. Our customer wholesale business is thriving, even though our once busy farmer’s markets are not.
From start to finish ending with a delivery to one of our wholesale customers Field Goods an online Farmer’s Market that delivers to parts of NY, NJ, CT and Long Island.
Conventional spätzle is a batter made of wheat flour and eggs. Sometimes it is cut with a knife into little strips on a cutting board or pushed through a press with holes in it into boiling water. It forms little dumplings that are drained. In our country you usually find spätzle in the dry pasta section, you have to cook in boiling water, drain it then sauté with a little butter. While we do make a batter and push our spätzle through a press into boiling water that’s where the similarities end. We have developed a special mixing process when making our batter.
We decided in the very beginning that if we were gonna do this, we were going to do it right. We wanted to use local milk and eggs which are the first and second ingredients. When we were sourcing our special flours it was important for us to find non-GMO products. We finish our spätzle off with a small amount of nutmeg. The nutmeg gives the spätzle a homey familiar flavor that people just can’t put their finger on. It reminds them of their omas or grandmothers in Germany.
Those gorgeous little brown specks…ground nutmeg.
Our product has won numerous awards including Best Artisan Food at the Vermont Cheesemakers Festival, one of the top ten festivals in the country. That was a very big deal for us.
We also did some festivals in which we sold our spätzle as a hot food item we called Spätzle Bowls. It was always a huge hit at different Oktoberfest celebrations and was a crowd favorite. It was so exciting to hear how many people loved our product. We could see it on their faces when they dug into their Spätzle Bowls, instant gratification for us.
Our spätzle is sold in retail stores in 12-ounce packages. We started to offer our 2-pound family packs at our farmer’s markets. Families would come every week and would have to buy several packages. We thought that it was a waste of packaging and came up with the idea of a bigger serving size bag. Most stores still only carry the retail size, however, The online farmer’s markets and a few local stores carry both sizes.
Not many people have seen the inside of our production facility in person. We built the facility ourselves behind our house. We have a 38 step commute to work and I thought that I would share a typical production day with you.
Our 300 square foot production facility. Steam kettle and sink area, refrigeration, packing area, Big Bertha working hard.
While I was working my ass off for other people, I would pray every single night, “Please God, I would like to have a business that no one else has.” When we were starting the business it was like someone slapped me on top of the head saying, “Wake up stupid! This is it!” Right then and there we knew we would be a success, we had the Big Guy helping us out. 😉
Dear God I have got to clean that mirror in our gym!! Yesterday mid workout, no fooling around or smiling.
It’s been 4 months since I had my shit-fit and walked away from belly dance out of complete frustration and anger. At that point, I was at the end of my rope with all of this Covid bullshit affecting my love of dancing and teaching.
I took myself out until I can go back to teaching and dancing without restrictions. I would rather not dance than be dicked around with…you can dance today, then the next day you can’t.
I just passed my four-month mark of, “Operation get back into shape.” It started off as a way to blow off steam and be as angry as I wanted in the gym. I listened to angry music and went back to serious weight lifting. No diet, no pressure, no weighting myself, just get in there and get my strength back. I’m going to come out of this a stronger person.
I am even more determined to keep at it and make this a lifestyle choice like it was for so many years of my life. I do have to admit there are many days I have to talk myself into working out and sticking with it. That’s when I thought of what my Nana would tell me when I was a little girl.
Nana would say that everyone has two little angels on their shoulders. On the right side you had the good angel, and on the left side was the bad angel.
She said that whenever I was about to decide to something or not do something I needed to listen to the angels on my shoulders and make the right choice.
For example, when I was a kid if I wanted to eat a bunch of candy before dinner…The bad angel said, “Go ahead kid you deserve it.” The good angel said, “Your parents will be mad if you don’t finish your dinner.” The bad adds, “Hey shut up, it’s her favorite kind of candy.” The good one said, “Don’t listen you will get a bellyache.” Ok, I won’t eat the candy.
If only I would have listened to Nana’s advice when I was a teenager or as an adult. I forgot all about the good and bad angels. They would have saved me a lot of heartache and trouble over the years.
I spent a lot of time with both of my grandmothers when I was young. I loved both of them and looked forward to visiting them. They were both widowed, but other than that they were so different from one another. I had different relationships with each of them. In one relationship I was the nurturer, in the other one I was nurtured.
Nana was a lot older than my other grandmother that I called Mema. Nana lost her eyesight from cataracts when I was around 7 or 8. I became her helper. I would get dropped off at her apartment on a Saturday mornings after my dance classes.
Best day ever with Nana! I went with her on a senior citizen bus ride to Asbury Park, NJ
I would help Nana with her laundry. I loved wheeling her laundry cart down the long hallway and onto the elevator. I liked loading the laundry into the washer and throwing in some detergent. Nana had a bunch of quarters in her housecoat pocket. She would count out how many I needed to put into the machine.
While the laundry was washing we would sit in the lobby of the senior citizen apartment building. I knew everyone and they would ask me to show them what I learned in dance that morning. I loved performing for them. Nothing has changed in that department.
When the washer was done, we would go and do the same thing with the dryer. Later nana folded her things. She folded some and rolled up some. Since she couldn’t see, that was how she could tell what was what.
Later in the day, I would walk Nana around the corner to a little store. She had one of those old fashion grocery wheely things. I remember that the store always had a bad smell. We would get the same thing almost every week. Milk, eggs, bread, and bananas. Thank goodness I never had to ask anyone for help, because no one spoke English. This was the Spanish section of her neighborhood.
As we would walk back to her apartment, and rounded the corner, there a gospel church. We could hear the choir rehearsing for the next day. Nana and I sat on a bench on the apartment grounds and listened to them sing. Church hymns are church hymns so Nana would sing along. I liked these hymns so much better than the ones we sang in our Catholic Church. They were jazzy, fun, and full of life. I never got to go into that church, but I could imagine what it looked like and who was singing.
On our way back into the building, Nana would hand me her keys and I could get her mail. I could reach her mailbox on my tippy toes. I did my best to read her mail to her. She was very organized since she was blind so she would tell me back in her apartment what basket got the mail and what one got the bills. My absolute favorite thing to do of all was to take her little brown bag of trash to the incinerator. It had a handle like a mailbox at the post office. As I dropped the bag down the shoot I would say to the bag of trash, “Goodbye cruel world.” 😂
Nana managed very well for a long time living alone and being blind. She could cook, do dishes, and clean. I started to notice when I came that her cleaning wasn’t as good anymore, so without her knowing I would clean what she missed.
Images of shoulder angels on Pinterest
The idea of the good and bad angels represents your conscience and temptation. Decisions we have to make every day, even if we don’t realize we are doing it. That was what Nana was preparing me for in her way.
Yesterday I really didn’t want to work out. I mean, I really didn’t want to. “Don’t work out today, you deserve a day to relax,” said the bad angel. “Don’t listen to him, you get out there, you will be glad you did,” the good one whispered. I listened to the good one and felt great after my workout.
Nana passed away in 1993, but I feel her around me from time to time. Yesterday, she joined me on my workout journey, and it was a Saturday, our day we used to spent together.
