I dont know if its just me but it seems like all of my employees are in a funk, a fog, a long, lasting hangover if you will. I know that I am among them but I have good reason… getting stalked by an ex is difficult. But thats another story….
So how to motivate the unmotivated is the big question of the day. The tried and true method in offices is usually bringing in food. Donuts, bagels, pizza, etc. But we have just about every kind of food here in our kitchens I dont know what I could bring in that would top this. Maybe money? Maybe alcohol? Maybe a staff party? What do you think??? I just tend to think that sometimes with staff events they feel obligated to come even though they really dont want to. Its just another work thing. I mean, can’t you think of a million other things you would rather do then spend an evening off with all of the people you have just worked all day with…no actually I cant! But thats just me…
peace.love.food.
SN
“What does the name Crushcakes mean?” I get asked this quite a bit so here you go. I really struggled with finding just the right name to truly represent the vision I had of Crushcakes. After googling them, I would discover that many of the names I thought of were already taken. Mostly by other cupcakeries or bakeries around the country, but I wanted to be original. Different then what was already being done. My store is not pink and chocolate brown. There is no lace or doilies anywhere. My bakery would be modern, clean, upscale and delicious. My customers would fall in love with each cupcake with every bite. I would be using the freshest ingredients with nothing artificial crushed right into the cake batter. Thats it, crush…mmm…a crushcake! And everyone would have a crush on them the minute they ate one! And it was done. Crushcakes was born.
A lot of what I do in life is with love in mind. I love my food. I love my customers. I love my cafe and bakery. I love my staff. But here is the thing, I dont seem to be so good at love, I mean actual real love. The love you share with another individual. A person with whom to share love and a life with. Food is easy, it doesn’t nag you, it doesn’t yell at you or make you feel bad about yourself. It doesnt hurt you or walk away from you. Food is always there for you when you need it. If you give it just a little love and care, it will can be the best thing you have ever had. I am pretty sure that I have eaten food that was better then an orgasm…
In the last 2 years I got a divorce after 16 years of marriage. A divorce that has gotten really ugly even though we promised each other we would always be friends. Just a few short months after we split, I found myself falling in love with another. A relationship that began hot and sexy and everything I had ever fantasized about, only to end in ways you only see in movies. Makes me wonder if the true love of my life is Crushcakes…the love that will never leave me and only makes me feel good whenever I have a bite…
So anyone who really knows me knows that I am a doer. There are some people that will think a great deal about every possible scenerio and consequence before they do something. And even after all of that speculation, they still never do the thing they spent so much time thinking about. I am the opposite of that. I will think about something for a very short time and if it feels right to me, I will do it. If it feels wrong, I wont. There are times and circumstances that I will agonize over. Getting a divorce, for example, was something I thought more about then anything else I can ever remember. There were too many other lives involved to take that one lightly. We did counseling, yoga retreats, hypnotherapy, you name it, I tried it all before signing on the dotted line. But there is one thing I did lately without taking much thought and I now regret. I changed my name. I changed my name to be my own person. To say, “Listen world, I can be who I want and be proud of it.” But here is the thing, now that I am divorced, single and on my own, I still find myself wanting to be a part of something and here it is, family. I have an amazing family. Supportive, there whenever you need them and they have never walked away from me. We travel together, we play cards, we swim, we hike, we ride bikes and we take pictures of bears pooping in the woods in Yosemite together. And we laugh a lot. We talk a lot. We enjoy food a lot. So I ask myself, why do I want to be separate from this group of people who have always been such an important part of my life? So after some thought, and it really does feel right, I have decided to go back to my maiden name of Noormand.
So no need to wonder who is this crazy stranger that has taken over writing my blog and running my shop, its just me trying to figure out who I am in this crazy life…
peace.love.food.
SN
I am not quite sure what the correct response should be when people tell me about other cupcakeries, bakeries or other perceived competition that is opening somewhere near Crushcakes or the cafe. This actually happens more often then you might think. Do they want to see me get upset and shout in anger, “Why would they do that? Don’t they realize I already own the market on all cupcakes and baked goods in Santa Barbara?!?” Then transform into a jealous rage, “But a store selling only cupcakes is all my idea! There has never been an idea quite like this in the past nor will there ever be again in the future! Who do they think they are? Don’t they know this is my town and I own it all!!! I shall monopolize the entire baking market and not share it with anyone!”
Or maybe they hope I will get so sad that I just loose control and break down crying and sobbing, “No, please no. Not this! I can’t handle another bakery opening in this town. It will kill me. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life! Please dear God if you love me at all you wouldn’t do this to me!”
Of course none of this is really how I feel. Here is what I truly think about the situation. I could not possibly own the market on cupcakes and all baked goods here Santa Barbara, no matter how much I would love to. No I take that back. I really would not love to. Could you imagine the pressure if I was the only one? I would have to be the best and most perfect at everything I did at all times. Or maybe it would be the opposite and I wouldn’t care at all because why would I? Where else are you going to go to get your baked goods? And then you would all get so sick of me and the lack of diversity in your life that you couldn’t stand it any more.
No, in my opinion it is much better if there is competition. I mean lets be honest, this town really is big enough for more then one bakery. And its a town that was built on the idea of small businesses. The Chilis, CPKs, Kmarts, Home Depots and other big chains in this town only survive out of necessity. And some of them can’t even do that (Circuit City). So I encourage other small business owners like me to be bold and just do it.
But more importantly, the competition will just make you love me that much more. You will soon realize that we are the best at what we do and that I will work hard at staying that way. Because if there was no competition and I did not have to try harder, well then you might just be stuck eating cupcakes from a boxed mix. And I would never subject you to that!
So now you have discovered the true me, not angry, not jealous, not sad….just a little competitive and cocky. But that’s a good thing because that’s what motivates me to work that much harder for your love…
peace.love.food.
SL
So you have probably heard the gossip and yes, its true…we do indeed have a ghost here at Crushcakes. How do I know, you ask? Well, let me tell you some stories and then you be the judge.
The first time I really felt her presence was just a very short time after we opened Crushcakes. If you have ever been here then you know that all of our cupcakes are displayed in the case on cake platters. We used to have a very fancy one that we always kept in the middle of the case which was made out of hand blown glass. It was everyone’s favorite and we usually put the famous Crushcakes on top of it. That day was very busy and we had a line out the door. As we started to sell out of Crushcakes, we removed the fancy hand blown platter and put it on the counter behind us. Suddenly there was this ear splitting crash and the whole store instantly became silent. We looked behind us to where the noise came from. It was our fancy platter, it was blown to bits by what sounded like a hammer slamming into the glass, showering hundreds of pieces across the counter. No one was near the platter when it happened.
That was her first appearance.
After that, she seemed to find it funny to screw with the bakers. Her favorite thing to do was to simply take a container of frosting or cake batter they has just made. The bakers would go crazy looking for it all over the kitchen, the refrigerator, and inside the sinks. Then the frosting or batter would suddenly appear out of no where, just sitting on the center of the prep table as if it had been there all along.
Another time, right after the article came out in the Rachael Ray magazine where Crushcakes was listed as one of the top 5 cupcake shops in the U.S., we had another incident. My sister-in-law had just very kindly surprised me with the Rachael Ray Crushcakes article beautifully framed to put up in the store. A few weeks later, I arrived at work to discover the framed article on the ground, pieces of glass littering the floor. No reason it should be there other then an angry ghost.
I had a feeling the ghost was a woman because of the up and down hormonal-like energy. It was as if she was very peaceful one minute then raging the next. Then one early morning she decided to show herself. Around 6am, Beth, one of the bakers, swears she saw a woman in a white gown standing in front of the Crushcakes cash register as if she was waiting to order something. Or wanted to tell Beth something. Reaching out…
That was it. I needed to share what was going on with someone who might be able to help. A friend of mine who fancied herself knowledgeable in these areas told me that I just needed to talk to the ghost. Make peace with her. Reason with her. Let her know that I am simply making cupcakes and yummy food here and meant her no harm. I thought it was weird that although the cafe portion of our store is older, at least 100 years old, the ghosts energy is centered around the newer part of the building where Crushcakes is. My friend suggested that perhaps the ghost was angry about the addition of that part of the building onto her home. She thought if I explained to her that I was friendly and and then respectfully request to her that we share this space, then maybe she would mellow out a bit. Stop breaking my things.
So I did just that. Late one night when I was particularly feeling her energy and I was all alone, I whispered to her, “Hi, I’m Shannon. I am just here making cupcakes and yummy food and mean you no harm. I hope to be here for a long time so I would really like it if we could get along.” Did I feel like a total idiot doing that? Yes I did. But I have to tell you, since that time, I haven’t felt her around much.
Of course all of this could just be our wild imaginations trying to create something where there is nothing but a faulty nail in the wall or a cracked glass platter… or my bakers favorite past time stirring up hallucinations. Either way, sure does keep life interesting…
peace.love.food.
SL
You might want to learn to not make major and elementary level spelling mistakes, especially in the heading of your blog entries where everything will notice. It is supposed to be “you’re so special” as in “you are special” not “your” as you’ve written.
Every now and then I just need to pause, take a breath and realize how fortunate I am. In this weird economy, not only have I been able to open my dream business but I have had the ability to sustain it. I mean, this was just a crazy brain child conceived while in Sonoma on a yoga retreat. When I wrote up my business plan and submitted it to various landlords in town, some actually openly mocked me, “Seriously, a store selling only cupcakes???” Yes and I persevered. Not only did I find the landlord that supported the idea, but I found a space that was practically made for me.
And the expansion of the cafe is the frosting on the cake (if you will). The energy in this space is one that cannot be described but only felt, a combination of comfortable homeyness and yet earthy, rustic and progressive (this is not Grandma’s house). And its not really an energy I have created, although I like to think I had some part of it, it is really created in whole by the customers, the staff and the buildings own energy (and/or ghost…).
Nothing makes me happier then walking through the restaurant and hearing how much people love the food or this is their favorite new place or, “OMG, I had no idea this place existed!” Yes, I still hear that every day I love it!
So this is my thank you to all of our customers. Thank you for continuing to come in and keeping the dream alive. Because no matter how much I bitch, and no matter how much I will continue to bitch, because that’s just how I am, please know that deep down I am so grateful that I have such a great place to bitch from. Surrounded by people that I love (most of the time) and food that that I love (all of the time)…
peace.love.food.
SL
I am not sure why but special order cupcakes are tricky. The cupcake we create is often not what the customer had in mind. Maybe there is some kind of disconnect in the order taking or something is lost in translation, but somehow an order for a pull apart cupcake cake with a “peachy color penis” and “happy bachelorette” written across it in icing would seem straight forward enough. But then the customer comes to pick it up and you get this look of, that’s not exactly what I was thinking. Was it too small, too big, too dark, too light, too many chocolate curls???
Last week I took an order for “Happy Birthday Ashley” to be written across 18 cupcakes, one letter on each. Simple right? Wrong. They were so cute, each cupcake, some chocolate, some vanilla, some strawberry, some cookies ‘n cream, each displaying a large letter in purple and pink frosting. The lady actually shoved them back at me and said no, she didn’t want them. They were not how she envisioned them to be. I am not sure what what she envisioned, perhaps the letters in neon lights? I smiled sweetly at her (maybe it was more like sickly sweet) and asked her what she did envision. She stated that she wanted the frosting to be swirled high with each letter perched on top. I explained to her that we had tried that but the letter could not fit on each cupcake nor could you really read it with a high frosting top to them. We did the frosting flat so that you could read it better. She didn’t care, some how we had to make it work her way or her 19 year old daughter wouldn’t want them.
Similar situation for another customer who ordered Indian cupcakes. Like India, the country, not the people. He told us to use our creative license and design something delicious and beautiful. We made chai tea cupcakes with brightly colored sugars on top, reminiscent of the market places in India. We looked on line and found all of the colors most commonly used in the Indian traditions, bright purples, pinks and golds, and we thought we had matched them perfectly. We were so proud when we opened the box to show him. Instantly he looked like he he was going to cry. He couldnt even speak but just sat there staring at the cupcakes, his lips actually trembling a little bit. Then he blurted out, “I was hoping for a red dot or something.” A red dot? Seriously?
Our first lesbian cake was a hard one as well. The couple actually gave us pictures to try to match of them, wanting their bodies to be surrounding the BIG cupcake in all of their naked glory. One was to have bigger boobs then the other. One darker skin. One short hair, one long. When they opened the box, appearantly our version of the correct amount of body hair did not match their reality. Lets just say we had to add more…
But maybe I should actually be looking at this more with more of the glass-half-full mentality. I mean, at least 50% if not more of our customers are thrilled with their orders. Girls with their fairies, butterflies and flowers are always jumping with joy when they take one look. Our famous Dr. Seuss cupcakes were spot on. The pigs, martinis, bees, and more, all well loved. I mean actual jumping up and down these-are-the most-beautiful-cupcakes-I-have-ever-seen reactions. So maybe I just look at the special folks the way I do about life in general…
I do my best and karma takes care of the rest…
peace.love.food.
SL