Not a bad view while out making deliveries. Better than traffic jams any day!
Today, Marty and I went on a delivery day that usually would have been done in 3 separate days. It was a 250-mile delivery run on a recording-breaking hot day. We honestly stayed cool driving around in Skye, my Maverick pickup truck.
We started making two deliveries in Manchester, one to a restaurant and another to a retail store. Next, we headed to Pawlet to an old general store.
We wiggle-waggled through back roads to Shrewsbury for another stop; a very small general store. We continued north to Rutland and delivered to another one of our restaurant accounts.
We stopped at a food truck called The Hangry Hogg and split a brisket and coleslaw sandwich. It was delicious and gluten-free; the owner Jason was very friendly and passionate about his business. His food truck will be in Bennington, VT, at Brewfest, which is coming soon.
Snack time and the last delivery!
The last delivery was 2 hours away in Albany, NY, to one of our busiest retail accounts. They ran out of Spätzle 5 days ago, so we had to get it there today. It was like stepping straight into an oven whenever we got out of the truck. It was 102 degrees in Albany this afternoon.
We enjoyed a quiet, late lunch at our favorite gluten-free friendly Chinese restaurant called Ala Shanghai. Marty said we are creatures of habit because we always order the same thing. The food is delicious, and the staff is friendly and efficient.
At a table in the corner, a group of waiters were sitting, making more dumplings for the dinner rush, which was pretty cool to see. I usually have their steamed shrimp dumplings, which are rare to find gluten-free but not today after having that brisket sandwich snack earlier.
The Maverick knows its way home from Albany almost by itself since we travel back and forth so often. We took more back roads avoiding the main road as much as possible. When we got home, I ran into the house and changed into a swimsuit. I dove straight into the pool and left poor Marty to put away all the coolers and ice sheets. Oops. 😬
Right now, we are under a severe thunderstorm warning here in Arlington. We saw the storm rolling in over the mountains while we were in the pool. We need the rain desperately as everyone’s lawns in the Albany area were brown and dried up. We have received a bit more rain here in Vermont, but definitely not enough.
It’s always good to see the chefs, stockroom people, and shop clerks whenever we make deliveries. We make small talk with them and then move on to our next stop. It’s nice to see so many familiar faces; everyone says, “Hey! It’s the spätzle people.” Lol.
We filled wholesale orders all week and dropped off a bunch yesterday to Wilcox Ice Cream, who does our dropshipping. We had to make all the other deliveries today since we couldn’t give up or cut another production day short. Finally, our delivery board is clear! Woot-woot!
Tomorrow, it’s back into the kitchen to make spätzle for the Troy Farmers Market on Saturday, but tonight, we are enjoying being caught up. 🤗
I wish I had one physician like people did back in the old days. One who knew you and not only your medical and family history, but your family.
Like everything else, things change and we have to roll with the punches; we have no choice. I have had three primary care providers in the last five years.
I had an appointment with my new doctor yesterday whom I have seen in the past for minor issues; but now she is my primary provider.
The word provider felt strange to me when it first made its debut. It feels sterile and foreign to me.
Anyway, at my appointment we discussed the numerous panic attacks I have been experiencing.
I explained my mental status in a nutshell and we put together a plan. Knowing my biological family history is indeed helpful now.
Fingers crossed I can get this shit under control and soon. 🤞🏼
It’s belly dance day which is the best medicine and therapy for me by far. Yip!
***Preface about this piece which came out of the blue today. My intent isn’t to bash my adopted mother, but this post has been looming in the back of my mind, waiting for the right time to come out. As with all my raw, honest, and emotional pieces, the purpose is to put me on a path of healing and not one of hate.
You don’t have to have psychic abilities to have a “visit” from a loved one who has passed in one of your dreams. Whenever I have had a “visit,” I remember it clearly, where dreams are cloudy, and I forget the details.
This morning, just before I woke up, I dreamt about my mother, Eileen, who passed away in October. It’s just like our relationship my whole life, not knowing it was real or fake.
My mother put on a good show when anyone else was around, including Marty. She dripped with sugar, complimenting me after compliment, later saying something to hurt me when we were alone.
My mother bragged about my successes constantly, which were never real. She wanted people to compliment her for being my mother. She took credit for my achievements my whole life. For instance, the only reason why I have thick beautiful hair now is that she cut it often when I was little.
My mother told people how much she missed me and would have them call from the nursing home, giving me a guilt trip saying how sweet and wonderful she was and how much she missed me.
When I got there for a visit later that day or the next day at most, she treated me like shit and would end the visit after only a few minutes. Even when I told her I rearranged my work and production schedule to come to see her, she still ended the visit with a smug smile, thinking she had won.
The first few years she lived at the care facility, I always brought something with me I thought she would like, such as her favorite candy, flowers, a new piece of clothing, or food she loved. It didn’t matter what it was; she didn’t use it, like it, or eat any of them.
Each time I visited her, I had high hopes she would be nice to me and that we would have a pleasant visit. She was when staff was around; it was another story as soon as they left the room. I always left in tears. Every. Single. Time.
I did this over and over again. Marty would remind me of Albert Einstein’s quote about insanity: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Eventually, I stopped expecting her to be nice to me and for us to have a good visit. We had maybe five friendly visits in the eight years she lived at the care facility after her stroke.
That’s not many good visits considering in the beginning; I went to see her every day. Then I went twice a week, then weekly, then every other week.
It is terrible to say, but covid was a blessing that I could no longer be guilted or manipulated to come to see her. She still pulled her same tricks when we would FaceTime.
On our Facetime calls, she couldn’t play actress with someone else in the room. By the way, Meryl Streep had nothing on Eileen’s acting abilities. Instead, she would choose to have conversations with the person holding the iPad and not me or the four of us, even on Christmas morning 2020.
After that Christmas morning, I had it. I pulled back from her a couple of years before after being in therapy and realizing my unhealthy relationship with her was making me not only mentally and emotionally sick but physically also. In 2018, I had a massive ulcerative colitis flare-up and was back in counseling due to depression. She didn’t care about either of those two things when a social worker talked to her about it.
I remembered all the tricks she pulled on me my whole life. How mean she was throughout my childhood and teen years. I never talked about it to anyone. I thought it was my fault because I was a bad kid. I also remembered how she lied and manipulated not only me but every person in her life. I wrote about this in my blog post, “Aunt Claire’s gift.“
It turned my stomach watching her be phony to the staff at the care facility. She received excellent care and treatment over the years, but she threw everyone under the bus and reported every person trying to get them in trouble for doing nothing. She was known as “Eileen, the one who lies.” No shit!
True to her character, she did the same thing at all her workplaces before her stroke. She was fired from every one of her jobs or left on bad terms.
In therapy, one day, we uncovered I had attachment disorder, which made perfect sense that no matter how poorly she treated me over the years, I was afraid to lose her. That’s why I acted “insane;” refer back to the above description.
Through mediation and a lot of energy work, I could “cut the apron strings,” known in energy work as cutting the ethereal cords. If you want to learn more about ethereal cords, here is a link to read.
My mother’s behavior continued until she took her last breath on October 20, 2021. After she passed, I was left feeling completely relieved, without any grief or sadness whatsoever. I still feel like that today.
Usually, after someone passes, I get messages from heaven letting me know that the person is still around. I haven’t found or heard a thing from her. It feels like she doesn’t “need” her little Cinderella anymore. I did find two pennies together shortly after her passing in a puddle from my dad, letting me know she was there.
Perhaps, I don’t get any messages because her energy isn’t strong enough to do those things since she wasn’t the nicest person, which is entirely accurate in most cases. Kind, decent, loving people are usually still the same when they cross over and try to comfort us.
So back to this morning’s dream. I have found that loved ones appear how they want you to remember them in their visit, looking their best. She looked like she did when Noah was a baby, hair, makeup, and nails done, wearing a nice outfit. She was smiling and was very happy.
In this morning’s dream, Marty and I got off an elevator, and she ran up to us saying, “Oh my God, I never thought I’d see you guys again!” She hugged us and looked genuinely happy, not her fake happy look.
We briefly walked down the hallway with her; then, she was gone. I woke up immediately when I realized she wasn’t there. I was confused about if it was a visit or a dream; this doesn’t usually happen because of my strong intuition.
I came downstairs crying and told Marty about my dream and how I was questioning if it was a dream or a visit. He told me it could be whatever I wanted it to be.
Of course, I want it to be a visit, but I am not sure since the whole thing is fuzzy, and I can’t remember much. As the day goes on, the dream gets cloudier and fainter.
The sad thing is that even after all the shit she put me through, I am still that little girl who just wants to please and make her mommy proud and happy because she adopted me, her “present” from God. Maybe that’s why I always felt like just another possession of hers.
I am insane. No, excuse my french, I am fucking nuts!
It’s that time of the year when everyone’s gardens will burst with beautiful, ripe tomatoes. When we had a garden when the boys were little, we would watch the green tomatoes slowly turn red, then rejoice when we could pick the first ripe tomato. Every year we treated it like a miracle that occurred.
A couple of weeks later, we had tomatoes coming out of our asses. In the beginning, picking red tomatoes was a celebration. Having a lot of tomatoes isn’t bad, but the ideas start to run out after making umpteen Caprese platters, quick marinara sauces, BLT and tomato sandwiches, and salsas.
At the end of the summer, I used to can jars of fresh basil and Roma tomatoes that I would pull out in the middle of winter for a taste of summer. One year I got lazy and just threw tomatoes, peel and all, into freezer bags and frozen them. I wouldn’t say I liked the texture when I defrosted them and vowed not to pull that trick again.
When I was younger, I used to watch Ciao Italia on PBS with my dad. My father and I both loved Italian food and liked watching the host, Maryann Esposito, cook. We learned about dishes we had never heard of and tried making some.
One of her recipes was a gorgeous tomato tart. I followed her recipe when my dad bought her cookbook; after I moved to Vermont, I wrote my recipe on what I remembered.
I wrote that tomato tart recipe about 28 years ago and shared it with many friends. It became everyone’s go-to recipe to make for guests. I made it almost every time we had company for the weekend since it can be eaten cold, hot, or at room temperature.
I used to make this recipe long before my gluten-free days. Sometimes I made homemade pie crust, and other times I used a store-bought refrigerated one from Pillsbury. Both came out great. Shit, I miss those Pillsbury pie crusts. While I am nit it I should also admit how much I loved their cinnamon buns, biscuits and crescent roll. I am not a food snob and think everything has to be made from scratch.
After I had to go gluten-free, I didn’t make the tomato tart for years since I hated making GF pie crust. A few years ago, I found an easy, no-fail GF pie crust recipe and put this dish back into circulation.
Here is the link to my gluten-free pie crust recipe for my gluten-free readers. I use this recipe for savory and sweet tarts and pies all year long and trust the outcome every time I make it.
So, when you get to the point of “Oy vey, I have so many tomatoes, what should I do with them?” Well, you can make this tomato tart, which maybe becomes one of your favorite go-to recipes. Ripe Roma tomatoes work best for a perfect-looking tart; however, I sacrificed my last Jersey tomato when I made the tart last week.
Last week’s Jersey tomato tart. Not the prettiest tart I have ever made since I was in a hurry, but It was sooooo good!
After thinly slicing the tomatoes for the tart, the most crucial part of the recipe is to layer them on a plate between paper towels to absorb the excess liquid. Failure to do so results in a soggy tart. No one wants a soggy tart.
Tomato Tart
Ingredients
5-6 ripe plum tomatoes sliced into thin rounds 4 cloves of fresh garlic 1 small onion 1 tsp dried oregano 1 tsp dried thyme 1 tsp dried parsley 1/2 tsp kosher salt Freshly ground pepper to taste 2 Tbsp olive oil 1 9″ pie crust of your choice 1 Tbsp dijon mustard 1/2 lb provolone cheese
Directions
Slice the tomatoes and place them on a paper towel-lined plate covering each layer with more paper towels. This removes the water from the tomatoes so the tart will not become soggy.
Line a tart pan with a removable bottom with the pie crust. Prick the dough with a fork uniformly, so the crust doesn’t shrink when pre-baked. You may also line the pie crust with dried beans if you wish.
Bake in a preheated 425-degree oven for 10 minutes, ensuring the tart shell doesn’t get too brown.
Brush the tart shell immediately with the dijon mustard after you remove it from the oven, which seals the tart shell and prevents it from getting soggy.
While the tart shell is pre-baking, mince the garlic and onion. Combine in a small bowl with the herbs, salt, pepper, and olive oil.
Dice the cheese into 1/4″ cubes.
To assemble the tart, place the cheese cubes in the pre-baked tart shell spreading them out evenly. Next, spread the garlic and herb mixture over the cheese cubes evenly. Place the tomatoes in a circular fashion covering the whole tart.
Bake in a 425-degree oven for 30-40 minutes or until the cheese looks bubbling and the tomatoes look cooked.
Cool for 30 minutes and top with freshly grated parmesan cheese to taste.
Remove the ring from the tart pan and place it on a serving plate.
Serve either warm, cool, or at room temperature. Delicious with a freshly tossed garden salad or antipasto salad.
I have a lot more patience today than when I was in my 20s or even my 30s. I still wouldn’t call myself a patient person in some situations; I am not sure anyone is patient all the time, except maybe for Mother Theresa and a couple of others.
One of my biggest pet peeves is why swimwear and athletic bra manufacturers don’t sew the padding into the garment? Instead, they design a small opening where the padding can be removed and replaced.
Why? Ladies, you know what I am talking about. After you wash an athletic bra or swimsuit, the padding either gets folded over, twisted, or comes out completely.
Trying to get one of those pads back in makes me feel like my small, thin fingers are gigantic. Impossible on a day when arthritis hurts my fingers. It’s a huge pain in the ass!
The hole where you are supposed to put the pad back in. Are they kidding me?
In a fit of fury and swear words, when one of those pads flips, turns, or bails from the garment, I hank them out and throw them into the garbage. Simple solution. Period.
If the point of the pads in a swimsuit top is to make your breasts look larger, then ok you have to deal with putting the pads in and out. However, the pads are like sponges making the top never dry, which feels yucky and unsexy.
If the point of the pads is to hide a person’s nipples, you are practically naked to begin with. I can understand modest people may care, but chances are they aren’t showing their areolas by wearing a see-through color, like a white bathing suit leaving nothing to the imagination. Dark-colored bathing suits tend to hide bumps, ripples, and nipples.
Last week, I ripped the pads out of all my sports bras and swimsuit tops and am pleased with how fast my bathing suit dries! I also don’t have any more shit fits when I take the laundry out of the washing machine and find one of the annoying pads.
Sports bras are meant for support, and we know “support can be beautiful,” maybe I wouldn’t be writing this blog post if the pads were simply sewn in.
I try not to be a complainer on my blog, I really do, but I am sure I am not the only one who gets annoyed by this nuisance.
It’s Jersey tomato season bitches! Oops, sorry, I get a little carried away when it’s that time of year—kind of like when people are excited for pumpkin-flavored everything in the fall.
This is my blog’s second summer; I wrote about Jersey tomatoes last year. I won’t rewrite what I wrote last year, but here’s the blog link to my Jersey Tomatoes post.
My friend Ann, from my hometown of Iselin, NJ, comes to Vermont camping the third week of July every year. She is kind never to forget to bring up a few Jersey tomatoes for us. 🍅
Real deal Jersey tomatoes are vine-ripened, not picked green, and then gassed to ripen like supermarket varieties.
I read this article this morning claiming that you will be disappointed with their taste unless you buy Jersey tomatoes from a farmer, produce stand, or gardener. I believe it 💯.
When my parents still lived in NJ, I used to bring Jersey tomato starter plants back to Vermont with the hopes of growing some myself but was sadly disappointed with the taste when I tried.
The air, temperature, and acidic, sandy soil make these Rutgers-developed tomatoes so sweet, tender, and remarkable.
I know the farmers that grow Jersey tomatoes must know how much people love and cherish their tomatoes.
The look on someone’s face when they take a deep whiff of a Jersey tomato and then take a bite says it all. There isn’t another tomato like it.
As a cook, I can say that when chefs and cooks see the look of pleasure on someone’s face when they taste your food is the reason why we do what we do.
This morning I made Sam peanut butter stuffed french toast slathered in local chocolate honey and finished with a dusting of powdered sugar.
Watching him eat it, I had a happy heart because I knew he savored every bite. He told me when he was done, it was “really, really good.” Yay!
If the farmer who grew the tomatoes we had for breakfast would have seen that same look on my face as Sam’s.
A juicy, ripe Jersey tomato sandwich with Hellman’s mayo on both sides of the bread, sprinkled with kosher salt and pepper. True perfection on a plate.
Funny that when I went back to copy the link to last year’s blog post about Jersey tomatoes, I did it on July 24, just like today! I didn’t plan it; maybe 7/24 should be Jersey tomato day along with my brother-in-law Peter’s birthday. Happy Birthday Peter! 🥳
I learned a new cooking trick this week that I wanted to share with you. In my cooking classes, I’ve taught my students that if they don’t like spicy food, then don’t add the spice or just a smidgen.
I like food with a little heat, but I wouldn’t call myself a true spicy food lover. Sometimes I want to add hot peppers to a recipe that benefits from it or a dish that is supposed to be spicy, but I don’t want the dish to be an ass-burner the next morning. Sorry, but it’s true. Lol!
We have been watching the show Iron Chef, which is now on Netflix and not the Food Network. I used to love the food network but now prefer cooking programs on other channels like the BBC, Bravo, or Netflix.
One of the Iron Chefs competing in a battle was Mexican Chef Gabriela Cámara. Cámara has a restaurant in Mexico City called Contramar, specializing in seafood. She also has a cookbook, My Mexican City Kitchen, published in 2019. You learn to cook Mexican food from Chef Cámara on Masterclass.
The Iron Chef battle used chilis right up her Mexican cuisine’s alley. Some of the dishes she made were spicy, using as many as five different chilis and other dishes weren’t spicy at all. In one of the dishes, she used citrus juice to control the heat of some habanero peppers.
Ah! This was something I had never heard of before. I like adding fresh jalapeños to food, but you can never tell or be sure what jalapeño is very hot and one that is not as hot.
I am making pork carnitas tacos for dinner tonight with fresh local corn. I wanted to make another side dish that wasn’t heavy, like rice or beans, since it is blistering hot outside. I wanted something light and flavorful.
I found a dish called Calabacitas. Calabacitas is a dish using zucchini and yellow summer squash, which I had one of each in the fridge.
Mise en place.
I looked up different recipes for calabacitas and saw the similarities in some and others that were copied and pasted from one website. This infuriates me if you don’t know that by now!
I combined a few recipes with what I had on hand and needed to use up before they went bad and came up with my own to try.
The basis of the recipe is using zucchini and summer squash along with corn; sometimes, tomatoes, garlic, and green chilis are used, and sometimes not. Queso frescos, oregano, onions, and cilantro are in most recipes. Some call for fresh lime juice; others do not.
I decided in my recipe I would use zucchini and summer squash. I would also use onions, garlic, fresh jalapeño, lime juice, cherry and grape tomatoes, oregano, cilantro, and feta cheese as a substitute for the queso fresco.
I took a nibble of the lone jalapeño I had in the veggie crisper and knew it was a hot one. Shit, I wanted to use the jalapeño but didn’t want the dish to be too spicy. I remember chef Cámara used citrus to control the heat of habanero peppers, so why couldn’t I use fresh lime juice to tame the heat of my spicy jalapeño?
I removed the seeds and pith, the spiciest part of the pepper. I cut the jalapeño into small dice and put it into a small mise en place bowl. Next, I squeezed fresh lime juice over the jalapeño. Later, when I make the dish for dinner, I will taste diced jalapeños to see where the heat is.
Ok, it’s after dinner, and I am reporting back that, yes, citrus does tame the heat of chilis which is what the blog post was about. To be honest, and we know I am, as much as I try to be a zucchini and squash person, I’m not.
Millions of people love zucchini and squash, but I can’t get past the watery texture. I’ve tried making it several times and am still not a fan. I think the only way I like zucchini is in chocolate cake, which makes sense since it makes a moist cake from all that water.
I was not a member of the clean plate club tonight.
I am sorry, zucchini and summer squash lovers, but I am not a fan even after grilling, sautéing, zoodles, roasting, and casserole. In my head, I want to love some foods that everyone raves about, but at the end of the day, I still don’t like them.
The rest of the dinner was delicious; pork carnitas tacos with homemade corn tortillas and fresh, local bi-color corn that was tender and sweet. A true taste of summer.
Last week, I wrote about all the characteristics that made up me. As a new blogger, I often forget that many of you only know me through the blog, not how I got to be Julz. I also forget that you don’t know how I have accomplished some of the things I did.
Before we started The Vermont Spätzle Company, I reinvented myself many times. I was a cashier, store clerk, administrative assistant, store manager, and stay-at-home mom for 11 years.
I worked for a caterer and did some catering with Marty; I was a lunch lady and a food service director. I was a hotdog lady and a convenience store supervisor. In every one of those positions, I worked my ass off. Marty and I have very strong work ethics, and in any job we have, we work as if we were the owners.
Over the years, I worked for many assholes who didn’t appreciate my hard work and dedication. When I drove home from those jobs, I prayed out loud in my vehicle this prayer “God, please let me have my own business someday. A business that no one else has.” I did this for years.
I was in a reiki master class and meditation group on Sunday nights during this time. This is where I heard about the book and movie the secret. My friend Everley, my reiki master, told us about it, and we watched the movie.
The Secret is about positive manifestation. The movie taught you step-by-step how to achieve anything you wanted in your life by positive manifestation. The movie changed my life.
I didn’t make a tangible manifestation board with photos, dreams, and aspirations; I made mine in my head. I knew exactly what I wanted my life to look like in ten years.
One day, back in 2005, Everley and I went to visit a friend of hers who was a psychic and had just lost her husband. She did a reading on both of us. I was nervous because this wasn’t something I had planned.
In my reading, Loretta told time that she saw me teaching. I told her I was a belly dance teacher; she said that wasn’t it. Less than two years later, I was hired as the food service director at the Arlington School District, and students would be my employees. I was going to teach them the hands-on side of culinary arts while they had a teacher to follow up with classroom work. She was right! I taught and worked at school for 7-years.
Loretta also told me in more than ten years; she saw me making large sums of money doing what I love. Everything I would learn up to that point would be considered my “college” education. She also told me it would all start with writing, not a book or CD, something she didn’t know what it was. I was aching to know what that something was! After 8-years or so, I forgot all about it.
Jump to 2017 when I finally figured out how to make our gluten-free spätzle after seven years of experimenting with all kinds of ingredients. Finally, I figured it out! I was so excited and said aloud, “This is the birth of The Vermont Spätzle Company!” I even did a Facebook post saying so since I was so damn proud of myself.
When I served the spätzle for dinner that night, Marty said, “We have to share this with the world!” Later that night, I realized it was like God slapped me on top of the head and said, “This is it, dummy! This is the business no one else has!”
Excited, I told Marty, “This is it! This is what Loretta was talking about! We can’t fail! This is what I asked God for!” At that point and still today, our spätzle is the only gluten-free spätzle in the world. Even after five years, we are still the only commercial spätzle manufacturer in the states. There is no other product like it.
We decided that night we would start this business and go into it 150%. Over the next three months, I had to figure out how to make it again; then, I had to figure out how to make bigger batches. Doing big batch cooking in the schools made this easy for me.
We had to design a logo and search for packaging. Marty worked tirelessly getting our licenses, both state and federal. He also designed our label and learned how to do our nutrition information. He also figured out how to make a UPC for our product if we wanted it to be in stores.
That very first day! We sold our first package to Matt Bittle.
Marty was working full-time, so all this was done after work in the evenings. On June 3, 2017, we sold our first package at a small farmers market right across the street from our house. We gave out samples, and people flipped over them. We went with 32 packages and sold every one of them.
I immediately gave my notice at the two jobs I had at the time because I was going to become a full-time spätzle maker! We built our production kitchen and bought used work tables, refrigerators and freezers. We found everything at the right time for the right price. We met all the right people at the right time, so everything fell into place quickly.
On Wednesdays, Marty’s day off, he would drive through the state to every co-op and specialty store, dropping off samples while I stayed home and made spätzle. He got us demos in the stores we would be in. After we were in stores throughout Vermont, he made a 500-mile delivery loop every other week while still working full-time and volunteering on the rescue squad at night. I honestly didn’t know how he did it.
WCAX did a story on us then more people found out about “the spätzle people.”
I was our social media person, which was the thing that identified us as the “spätzle people.” Whatever store we went in, people would say, “Oh look, it’s the späzle people!” Okay, so we wore our “Keep calm and eat spätzle” shirts, but they still knew us from Facebook and Instagram.
Our menu of hot food we made and sold at Oktoberfest Vermont and Glenville. We quickly discovered we couldn’t continue to be both the manufacturer and hot food vendor. It was fun but too time-consuming.
We did many events for the first couple of years, including Oktoberfest in Burlington, VT, and Glenville, NY. We also did a tasting event at Stratton Mountain and won a trophy for best presentation. We did another tasting at the Vermont Cheesemakers Festival, one of the top ten food events in the country, and won for best artisan food. We didn’t even know people were voting!
Knowing we couldn’t fail through positive manifestation and Loretta’s prediction, we made the scary decision for Marty to quit his full-time job and become the other spätzle maker. My body took a beating making so much product myself that I ended up with carpal tunnel syndrome in my right arm.
Now we use a local business, Wilcox Ice Cream, for distribution throughout the state of Vermont; we no longer could lose a production day with Marty on the road. We did as many as five farmers markets a week, but after doing that and working seven days a week, we started to burn out. We decided we needed to take one day off a week and scale back on farmers markets.
We do the deliveries in New York state, trying to hit as many stores as possible when we head out. We have a distributor, The Alpine, who delivers our product to Weis Supermarkets and Key Foods in Pennsylvania.
During the pandemic, it was a scary time for us. We were constantly worried about being able to get the ingredients and supplies for our product. I held my breath every day, hoping we didn’t come down with covid and have to stop production when so many people wanted our product due to the ease of preparation. You don’t boil our egg noodles; they get a quick sauté and are ready in less than 5-minutes. Again, no other product like it anywhere.
Photo credit Fran Kieltyka
Now, we do only the Troy Farmers and are concentrating on our wholesale business. We did come down with covid in April, two years after it reared its ugly head and had to shut down for 10-days. It wasn’t the end of the world, but we hated that people had to wait for more spätzle. Even though people don’t have to cook so much anymore, they still purchase our product because they love it and how easy it is to cook.
After reading my Jewelry blog post, my writing mentor, Jon Katz, called me, reminding me that my readers don’t know how I got to be a successful business owner, belly dance teacher, wife and mother, a good cook, and a confident, strong-willed woman.
I have much more writing to do, sharing with my readers how I overcame negative obstacles and became who I am. When life hands you lemons, you have two things you can do; crumble and be weak or become a strong, confident person persevering and succeeding.
Loretta’s prediction of “making large sums of money” definitely hasn’t happened yet, especially now with the doubling of ingredients and supplies and tripling in price.
Loretta said I would be doing something I loved, and she was right! I still love making spätzle, and we are as passionate about it as we were the first day.
She said it all starts with writing, which may be the social media that gave our business an immediate boost, or maybe this blog? Only time will tell.
Every year we go to the Arlington Firemen’s Carnival. Marty used to DJ the carnival with his friend Kevin; they would also be on call with the rescue squad.
Every year, I take a selfie with Sammy in the same spot. Old Facebook posts came up in my memories, and I saw how much Sam has grown up. When it happens right in front of you, it’s not something you notice as much.
We hung out with Kevin, who was still the DJ, and his wife, Brenda. We stayed for the fireworks, which started at 9:30 pm, the most impressive fireworks to date with a fantastic finale.
Marty and I were exhausted from the farmers market, but he helped his buddy anyway pack up all the DJ equipment, tent, etc. Kevin was as tired as we were.
This was the first year I sat in a chair and just people-watched and socialized a little since my brain was still fried from the market. It’s incredible to see the children I knew from school all grown up with lots of kids of their own.
We speak to so many people at the farmers market and give our “spätzle spiel” and a sample cup to potential customers over a couple of hundred times or more at any given market. That’s a lot of talking, even for me, who was voted the most talkative in my senior class at JFK High School. 😂
Sam didn’t want a wristband for the rides like he used to when he was little, but he got to drive the ambulance on two short rescue squad calls instead, which was his big dream when he was little. He is literally “living the dream.” Lol.
Today is Sunday, and I am not doing shit but swimming and feeding us easy food. I need to rest and recharge my batteries for another busy week ahead.
We have another gorgeous day here in Vermont! This is the nicest summer we’ve had in the 32 years we have lived here. I know we need the rain terribly, but we are enjoying the beautiful weather since we have it.
I don’t post things I make for lunch very often because they are dull and ordinary. We eat a lot of leftovers turned into salads or sandwiches.
Yesterday, we had what was supposed to be the night befores dinner. On Wednesdays, my belly dance day, I have our dinner made ahead, and it just needs to be reheated. I don’t get home until almost 8:30, and I am ravenous.
When I got home from belly dance, Marty was heading to his fourth rescue squad call of the night. He’s an advanced volunteer EMT; it wasn’t even his coverage night.
Marty is not one to let someone in need have to wait for an out-of-town EMS agency to cover the call if no one else responds. He needs another person to be the driver.
I ate some leftovers and went to bed. He didn’t get home until after 11 pm. I am glad I didn’t wait for him to have dinner together. After dancing and teaching for 3 hours, my body is physically exhausted and needs to rest.
Wednesday night’s dinner turned into a Thursday lunch menu; we had Korean cauliflower “wings” with Alabama white BBQ sauce, Asian lettuce wraps, and a small bowl of white rice.
This was my first time making the Korean cauliflower wings. I’ve made cauliflower Buffalo “wings,” but these were as good or if not better. I wrote an entire blog piece last year titled Su-per-cauliflower-listic-ex-pi-a-li-do-cious. Here is the link if you want to read about it.
As I was searching for recipes, I saw one from Chef Edward Lee, a Korean chef who lives down south. His twist on his regular Korean chicken wings is a drizzle of white bbq sauce. I had never heard of such a thing!
I researched and found I am late to this flavor bomb party. It will now be a regular drizzle on our bbq chicken and smoked brisket. Above is the recipe I used for the white bbq sauce.
After searching for a recipe for the Korean cauliflower wings, I tried this one from Food52 without the sauce the recipe recommends with the “wings.”
As for the Asian lettuce wraps, I used a copycat version of PF Chang’s recipe from Damn Delicious. It’s a good recipe, so I always have a can of water chestnuts in my pantry. I used ground turkey because that’s what I had on hand. Above is the recipe link I used.
I never take credit for recipes that food bloggers do by blatantly copying and pasting someone else’s recipe and then calling it their own. I dislike that they do this! It isn’t fair to the original person who did all the work.
At this point in my busy life, I don’t see myself creating my recipes for these dishes any time soon. Use the ones I did, and I promise you won’t be sorry; they are straightforward.
We finished up with production and have deliveries to make this afternoon. I’ve got a million things on my to-do list today, but for the next couple of hours, I’ll be poolside then having leftover “wings” and lettuce wraps for lunch.
Happy Friday! Have a great rest of your day and weekend! 💜
