I am baking bread, and the most delicious sour, yeasty smell is flooding the downstairs.  I can't wait to try this bread.  It's sort of an experiment.  I don't know when I stopped using recipes to bake bread, but sometime in the last two or three years it became more a matter or stir yeast into warm water, add flour until it looks right, knead, etc. rather than following a recipe step by step.  This latest loaf started started with half a teaspoon of yeast stirred into some flour and warm water yesterday morning, and left to ferment (with additions of water, salt, and whole wheat flour at various intervals - read: when I happened to look at it and notice that it might need a little feeding) until this afternoon.  I kept the dough wetter than I usually like it, inspired by a blog post I read recently about artisanal bakers working with wet doughs to get a superior crumb, and then baked it in a preheated Dutch oven at 450.  I turned it out onto the oven rack about ten minutes ago to brown the bottom crust a little more, and I can't wait to take it out of the oven.  I have no idea how it's going to taste, but if the smell is any indicator, this bread is going to be amazing.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty good about life this afternoon.  This is a nice change for me.  For the last while life has felt like one long series of discouragements, disappointments and personal failures.  Lately, however, I have begun to feel somewhat encouraged.  This is partly because of things that have happened, and partly because of some life changes I've made.  It's too soon to tell if my luck has turned, but as things are right now, I think I feel... cautiously optimistic.

One of the encouraging things that have happened was the craft fair this past weekend.  After the last craft fair, I really needed this to be a positive experience.  I knew that this was a different kind of event - much more focused on art and artists than discount items and cutesy wooden Santas.  Also, Indy had agreed to help, and decided to contribute some of her own items (some of the most adorably covetable pincushions, teacup candles, and button barrettes I've ever seen).  I loved our location - in the corner by the stage, right next to the old vault door, which I covered with garlands.  I wasn't expecting to make a ton of money, but I needed enough sales to make the thing, well, worthwhile.

At first, things looked bleak.  When we closed up Friday I had not sold a single item.  Both Indy and my Aunt B (also sharing our booth) had sold things, but not me.  We had lots of people coming in, looking at my things, commenting on how adorable/cute/clever they were, but then leaving without spending any money.  While the appreciation was nice, I needed actual dollars.  So when I went back Saturday I bit the bullet and lowered my prices.  And then things sold.  Half an hour into the second day, I had made my first sale of the weekend.  It was glorious, and such a relief.  The rest of the day continued to be moderately profitable, and by the end of the day I had covered my booth costs, and matched Indy's sales for the weekend.  It was great.

One of the things I'm discovering is that selling things in person is so different from selling things online.  I don't know if it's any less work (another crafter was saying that she justifies lowering her prices for craft shows because she doesn't have to do all the work of photographing, listing, promoting, and then shipping the item) since you still have to transport everything to the location, set up your display (which you had to spend time/money making), man the booth, then tear everything down when you're done and transport it all back home again.  You definitely can't get as much for the same item.  Every crafter I talked to said that while they could get one price online, if they priced things the same in their stalls, customers wouldn't buy.  I think part of this is that when people find your stuff online it's because they were searching for your thing, and are ready to buy.  Customers at craft fairs want to be wooed, for something to tickle their fancy.  Also, customers at craft fairs expect to get a bargain.  If it doesn't seem like they're getting a big bang for their buck, they don't buy.  I think this is partly because, in our society, the work that goes into an item isn't really valued.  When we look at things, we calculate the acceptable cost by the value of the materials that go into it, not by the labor it took to assemble the materials.  We're so used to buying things made by workers in third world countries that get paid $0.20 an hour that paying crafters anything like what their time is actually worth seems exorbitant.

At the same time, the things that people are drawn to in person vs. online is so different.  For example, one of the garlands that got noticed, talked about, and exclaimed over the most was my Black, Black Heart Garland (which also happens to be one of my personal favorites).  People loved it, and it sold out.  However, on my Etsy shop, this same garland is one of my least popular items.  Perhaps this is the result of the pictures I used to market it, or some other factor, I don't know.  But I think we're drawn to things differently when they're presented as images on a screen rather than the actual object being right in front of us.

The other fun thing about the craft fair was interacting with the other crafters.  During slow periods the crafters come out from behind their tables, and wander around looking at all the other booths, talking to the other vendors.  They find something that they admire, and then you hear the phrase, "Well, we'll see how my sales go."  You can tell when a vendor has had enough sales that she feels comfortable with her profits, because suddenly she's running back to the other booths, buying the things that she earmarked.  When sales don't go as well, there's a lot of bartering.  At one point, our booth ended up in the middle of this crazy round robin bartering act.  See, one of the other vendors was the Barr's, alpaca farmers who were selling yarn made from their alpaca's fleece.  I wanted some of this yarn awful bad, but my sales hadn't been quite good enough for me to feel like I could splurge.  However, she mentioned that she would love to have one of Indy's teacup candles.  In the meantime, Indy had been browsing the lovely cards at Cathartic Slant's booth, and wanted some of those.  Cathartic Slant wanted a couple of my garlands.  So we organized this big round robin of garlands for cards for teacup for alpaca yarn, and everyone was happy.

It was also a weekend of coincidences.  One of the guys helping with the sound system turned out to be one of the people who used to be in theatrical productions with Jacob.  At one point the only other girl I knew in high school named Bernadette (whom I hadn't seen since she graduated) happened to stroll into my booth.  And then, the young woman who was manning the massage station right next to our booth turned out to be Godiva's sister.  We didn't discover this until late Saturday.  All weekend we'd been shyly getting to know each other, and finally during a slow period on Saturday she took advantage of our extra chair to sit down with us.  She and I were talking, and she mentioned that she does belly dancing.  I asked her if she knew SD, who is very involved in belly dancing in Dayton.  She said that she did, but mostly because SD does swing dancing with her sister.  I asked her what her sister's name was, since I am a swing dancer too, and she looked at me and said, "Wait, are you Bernadette?  No way!  My sister G. said that I had to look out for you and say hi!"  It was kinda fun.  Now we're talking about going in together on a booth for the next Yellow Springs Street Fair.

And then I went home, and discovered that I'd sold almost as much on my Etsy shop over the weekend as I'd made at the craft fair.

This is unrelated, and this blog post is way long as it is, but I couldn't help sharing this extra little bit (which also contributed to my general cheer).  On Sunday I came home from a CL Leadership Team meeting, and Ani was home watching the first season of Bones.  She had just got to the Christmas episode, in which everyone has to be quarantined because Zack released a bio-contaminant while sawing through a bone, and Hodgins was exposed to it because he was drinking eggnog at the time instead of wearing his bio-hazard mask.  The two of them come out of the decontamination shower wearing towels, and, well, I do think my heart skipped a beat.  And this is why I love Ani, because both of us shrieked at the same time, and then she hit pause.  And then rewound it.  Three times.  (I may have encouraged her a little bit.)  It was rather wonderful.  If I weren't already in love with Jack Hodgins, I would be now!

Also, I should mention that the bread turned out incredibly good - not as sour as I expected, but with a moist, tender crumb and a gorgeous depth of flavor.  I'm making this again!

Wordless Wednesday: Invitation



You all should come!

I know my family loves me because nearly every time I go home, they have fresh goat cheese.  Sometimes it doesn't even really fit with the menu (though IMHO goat cheese goes with nearly everything), but they have it because it's one of the few kinds of cheese I can eat.  Also, it's one of my favorite foods (combine goat cheese with artichokes, and I'm pretty much in heaven).  It's a bit expensive, so I don't buy it very often, but every time I go home, there it is on the table.  And then sometimes they tell me to take the leftovers home with me.  It's like the total opposite of adding insult to injury (adding compliment to blessing?).  And I know they love me.

Yesterday was a rather long day.  We had, not only Thanksgiving, but also Family Christmas Planning.  When you have so many peoples' schedules to coordinate, so many details to be worked out, so many Family Traditions to honor, and just about everything seems to be full of Emotional Implications to someone, you have to plan carefully.  So every November sometime we get together and have a family meeting to plan out the holiday season.  Some years this has gone badly, with tears and shouting, and people having to go off later to Reconcile Their Relationship (there is a specific formula for this too - what can I say?  My family is odd).  This year things went surprisingly well.  We started with brunch at noon, followed by two hours of planning in which we set the schedule for the next two months, negotiated an adjustment to our family gift buying and stocking stuffing procedures, and established the Committee for The Family New Year's Day Party.  And nobody cried (except for The Duchess when she had to take Jacob's name slip out of the hat before we drew names for the gift exchange), and nobody fought, and we got done at a somewhat reasonable hour.  And then we cooked Thanksgiving dinner.

It was an amazingly good Thanksgiving dinner.  I wish I'd taken pictures of the table - everything was beautiful as well as delicious.  Mom roasted the turkey, since over years of intense practice (turkeys are cheap, especially when you have 11 kids to feed) she's perfected a method that delivers vast quantities of crispy turkey skin, succulently moist breast meat and just right dark meat.  I made garlic mashed potatoes, the Duchess was in charge of the salad, Rosie made her green beans with garlic and pine nuts, Sae tried something new with a butternut squash gratin that was delicious, but possibly not quite delicious enough to justify the incredible amount of scrubbing it took to get the dishes clean afterwards, and Mariah did her usual glorious job on the pumpkin pies.  It was great.  And the fresh goat cheese?  That was left over from our family brunch, which was four kinds of quiche, really good bread, and fruit salad.  Sae had been going to contribute it to the quiche, but didn't arrive in time, so we set it out at dinner alongside the butter to spread on the homemade bread I brought.  And it was good.

When I got home, Johnsy and her family were in the living room watching Casablanca.  Her mom and two brothers had driven in from West Virginia to be with her and make their own turkey goodness to feast on.  I sat down just in time for "Oh, I don't know what's right any longer.  You have to think for both of us." and stayed until the "start of a beautiful friendship."  Man, I love that movie.  Then Ani came home, and I showed her Engagement, the movie we made almost four years ago now.  It was like a time trip, seeing Spain and 14, Belle, MDoS, JJ, so many other friends I don't see much any more.  Spain is married and teaching at SLU, 14 is now a Jesuit, Belle is married and living in Cincinnati, MDoS is in New Jersey with the Beautiful T, and last I heard JJ was at Notre Dame finally finishing up his Masters.  It was good, but it was a little sad thinking about how much my life has changed since those days.

Today is a quiet day.  I was supposed to meet AnniPotts for breakfast, and completely slept through it.  Since I woke up I've been doing some things around the house, including baking bread to take to Mai's Here Be Turkeys party tonight.  Tomorrow will be a busy day, helping clean Mom's rugs in the morning and afternoon, and then going off to the Smorgasbord dance in the evening.  And then it will be Sunday, and the weekend will be almost done.  You will note that there is no shopping mentioned anywhere there.  I'm doing my best not to buy anything today, my own small protest at how ridiculously commercialized Christmas has become.  I even was about to buy a skein of yarn to knit socks for Boy-O's Christmas present (although I think it might be tempting fate a little to knit socks for a brother a second year in a row - that didn't turn out so well last year) but decided to wait until Monday.