Cupping at Blue Bottle

SF street food festival conference.

Today was the SF Street Food Conference, which fell on the heals of the festival this past weekend. I wish I had partaken more in the festivities, but I am grateful for what I did experience.  The conference sold out for the Monday panels.  Gioia called me and told me to come take her spot for the end of the day.  She went to the conference for "work" but she wanted to get to the office to return emails, etc.

We had a great panel of people from Liba Falafal (foodtruck), Wise-Sons Deli, nolafoodtrucks.com (an incubator organization for entrepreneurs), Inticing Creations ( a cake decorator), and Blue Bottle Coffee.

I thoroughly enjoyed their perspectives on starting a company, hiring and growing a company, embarking on dramatic career changes, and taking all of the necessary risks to follow a passion.  Lizzy Caston shared some cool anecdotes of coaching entrepreneurs through the process.  I liked when Gail Lillian urged us to "follow our gut" and do what feels right.  I loved when James Freeman talked about "ignorance is bliss."  Sometimes it's better not to know about something and just to believe you can do it.  Otherwise, the obstacles might deter you.  James also said that when you take out a loan from a bank or a third party investor, with whom you have no personal connection, it's easier to mis-spend that money.  Whereas, when you spend your money, each and every penny is considered invaluable. THey all said to start small.  They all said that it's crucial to test your product before it goes to market.

Farmers markets may or may not be the best place to start (for us, I think they will be great!).  Lillian said that they food world is only just beginning to transform in San Francisco.  Some people are starting by bike.  Lizzy told the story of a rich Nike principal quitting her job to ride around on a bike, selling curried pop-corn.

I am really empowered and inspired to take the next steps, and I genuinely look forward to all that I am going to learn in the process.  I look forward to the journey.

Sunday juicing

Today I made 7 different juices.

This does not capture the disaster that was my kitchen

Here is what I had for ingredients: carrots, celery, some chinese greens (I forget their name!), mint, oranges, apples, pears, nectarines, apricots, cantaloupe, tomatoes, and ginger.

It's a juice pyramid!

The first juice I made was a carrot -orange-mint.  Then, I made a tomato-carrot-orange.  Let's call the third: Chinese green-pear-tomato and the fourth an: orange-apple-ginger.  I surprised myself because the fifth was a cantaloupe-celery-mint, and it might be my favorite.  The sixth was a cantaloupe (which you can juice with the rind)-pear.  I made an apricot-nectarine blend just for myself, and I gulped it down before the photo shoot.

By the end, my juicer was releasing some pulp into the juice.  The final juice was frothy, but still delicious

I am working on getting a list of all the local produce that grows on Cape Cod, or in Massachusetts, in the summer months.  It will be very important that the fruit be grown locally, as much as possible.  Oranges are such a staple in juicing, and those don't grow in New England.  I'll have to get those from CA, GA, or FL.  This will be my next research piece for the juice-portion.  I have reached out to Halycon Farms on Cape Cod, but I will probably need several sources of produce.....to be decided.

SoW

Today, I went to SoW, the pop-up juice company that Luisa Alberto started.  SoW began with a kickstarter campaign.  Now, they are open on Saturday's from 9 to 12 and operate outside of a wine-bar, which is owned by a friend of Luisa's.  Soon, the will open on Monday's as well.  Their future seems so bright, and I am so excited to follow Luisa in this journey!

Luisa worked for Blue Bottle for several years, and from what I understand, she worked very close with the founder/president during the "boom" years of expansion.  She then went to go work for Good Eggs before having the juice idea.  On Thursday, she announced to her boss at Good Eggs that she would be leaving to take on the SoW endeavor full time.  She is on the bring of something so very very exciting, and her passion was just uber contagious - I am feeling even more jazzed about our idea for this summer!

Me and Luisa

So, lots of ideas were brewing as I was there and hearing more about SoW. They are sourcing from local farmers - I need to know more.  They are giving much of their fiber waste to a little farm that is on a plot of land in Portrero Hill, where some guys are raising worms for soil.  I want to do this somehow in Cape Cod (give it back to the farms that are sourcing our veggies?). A friend of Luisa and Derek baked some pastries out of some of the fiber - is this a new role for Val?  We could bake pastries out of some of the fruit discard and sell them with the coffee?

Derek works "bakery hours" and makes tons of juice for a cafe in the Dogpatch.  So, another avenue they are exploring is the idea of wholesale juice.  They have this one account now - should they expand? Luisa was part of the Blue Bottle revolution that brought Blue Bottle's brand to many local cafe's and restaurants.  Should they do this with juice?  Maybe some day we will order SoW juice at Outerlands Cafe?

Rolo waits unpatiently outside

I cannot wait to sit down with her and learn more about her plans, ideas, and experience.

Tahoe 2012

I noticed that, this year in Tahoe, serving gourmet beers (read, not Coor's light) in cans was hip.  They were able to perfectly illustrate the beers' logos on tin rather than paper.  It made for a killer break-time buzz that was refreshing and minimal in the hand.

2012 - the year of the Sierra Nevada Torpedo Brew. What a lovely surprise to see this in (huge) can at Alpine Meadows.

Ippuku - 31st Birthday Dinner with Manuel

Happy Birthday to me and Jonny - Quest office parties