Pops redux

Ok, I think I'm finally done with cake pops.
After spending pretty much every free minute learning how to make the things last winter, I had decided that there was just no way to charge enough for them. To do the really cute ones, you have to spend a lot of painstaking time getting the tiny bunny features just right. That's a lot more fine work than you'd have on a cake or a torte. Yet somehow, the size of the cake pop makes it hard to come up with a reasonable charge.
To make it worthwhile, each pop needs to cost at the bare minimum, a dollar. I've seen big slices of cake go for $4 in a coffee shop. If you crumbled those slices, you would not get 4 cake pops. Yet when I look at a little cake pop on a stick--well, it seems like $1 is a lot to ask for basically two bites of cake. I guess this is just the "super size" mentality.
So I put them away. Then I saw that Starbucks now sells cake pops for $1.50 each, and there's nothing fancy about them. They are just round orbs in a colored chocolate shell with sprinkles. "Are these selling?" I asked the woman at the counter. "Oh yes, very well!" she replied.
So maybe...
But then, two local coffee shops would not be enough. I'd need to develop some kind of online ordering. And wouldn't that involve shipping?
From what I've read at other blogs, shipping is a cake pop problem. First, you have to come up with a way to pack them that won't jostle off your cute decorations. Sadly, there is no ready-made cake pop packing box.
And then there's the weather. Most sites that sell them recommend freezing them and sending them next-day air to avoid them melting in the box. That means the customer would pay a HUGE shipping fee on top of the already high cake pops themselves. Given the way things have been going, are there enough people out there who have the money for this kind of thing?
So I'm back into the research again.
Then I notice that to sell any kind of food, Kansas law requires you use a state-approved kitchen and it cannot be the same kitchen you use for your own family.
In my case that would mean renting out someone else's approved kitchen. All before a single cake pop has been sold.
Ok, I accept it. There's no way to make money at this--at least not right away. Which is reasonable, I guess. Most small businesses don't make any money at first. Some never make any money at all.
So the plan would have to be: Put some pops out at volunteer things for free, and give out some cards and donate a bunch to get your name going. Then parlay that word of mouth into advanced orders.
And so round and round I go. On one side, solving the problem is fun and so is making the pops. On the other: I just don't have money or more time to risk getting myself out there.
There has to be a better way...

Tips from a Dip

The idea was to try and have cake pops perfected quickly. After which, I'd bring them by a couple of coffee shops in my neighborhood that also sell locally-made sweets.
I thought it was a pretty good plan. It should have worked. Here's what happened instead:
I made several trips to the Baker's Rack, a locally owned baking supply shop that is--as fortune would have it--just a short block away. Several trips were necessary because I kept having new problems with the chocolate dyeing, dipping and writing.
Because you see, there are apparently an infinite number of small details that can cause problems with cake pops.
Firstly, the design. Check Google "Images" for cake pops and most of the shapes you see are spherical. My Valentine design, though, is flat--like those Conversation Hearts your kids give out in their Valentine boxes.
The problem with flat is that the cake/frosting innards of the cake pop are not evenly distributed around the lollipop stick. Hence, sometimes half the heart will break off under the weight and heat of the chocolate dip.
So to the drawing board. My first pops were made with cake mix and canned butter cream frosting. For the second go-around, I did a from-scratch cake and homemade cream cheese frosting, in hopes that the cream cheese would be a little more solid.
But that wasn't all. I also froze the pops, to give them a better chance against the heat. That worked pretty well, I thought, until I noticed that the chocolate coating cracked on several after they dried.
Then I decided that the chocolate dip needed to be thinner. Thinning chocolate is tricky. Everyone knows water would make the chocolate seize up, but cooking oil is also problematic, because it doesn't mix in as well. So back to the store, where I was told lecithin flakes are the best and easiest way to thin.
Now I needed a good color. Conversation hearts are generally pastel, but despite a big selection of darker colors, pastels were a rarity. I didn't even consider grocery store food coloring, whose main ingredients are water and propylene glycol (alcohol). They don't give enough color anyway. I had some cake decorating gel, but it was ancient.
So back to the store again. for some dye especially made for chocolate.
I now had the dipping down. But Conversation Hearts need written witticisms. Food grade markers would be easiest but are hard to find here. The big craft stores sell one brand, but it gets uniformly nasty reviews online. And there was no time to wait for a mail order.
I would have to pipe on the comments with a pastry bag.
Now here's the thing I found out about piping chocolate: As you work, it hardens in the tip until you can't squeeze anything out. I had a little plastic tube of chocolate for this purpose (bought, once again, at the Baker's Rack). I thought at first I'd been ripped off and that the tube was mostly empty. Until I cut it open and found it still full of usable chocolate. It's just that the tip was completely hardened.
So I went back to my own pastry bag, worked quickly and put the whole thing--metal tip included--into the microwave on low every so often to keep it moving. (Yes, I put a paper towel over the metal tip.)
And voila! Success at last.
Then one more trip to the baking supply store for little plastic hoods.
I nerved myself up and dropped off my free samples and my phone number at the two coffee shops (neither owner was in when I came by). But I didn't have too much hope because by that time, Valentine's Day was less than a week away.
A good salesman would have been back and followed up with the owners. I know this. But by this time, I was in a crunch to get ready to be a presenter at a garden show (to sell and promote our gardening book) to practice for an accompanying job, to prepare an audition for a job I didn't get and to help our son move. And oh, yeah, to get my own piano students ready for their upcoming events.
I figured if I'd gotten a dollar apiece for the cake pops (after the stores' cut) I would have made about $28.
So what, ladies and gentlemen, have we learned today?
When the big career job stops paying, you have to fill in with a bunch of little jobs. On Planet Conservative, this character-building, nose to the grindstone workout rewards you with enough to live on. And if it doesn't, well you're just stupid I guess.
In real life, though, all the little jobs take way more time than anyone on Planet Conservative can even imagine. And they usually pay about $28.
Unless you own the Baker's Rack.

So far, so...

Okay, so we're almost a month into the new year and this is the first post since December sometime. Yes, you'd be right if you think that Means Something.
It means I'm beginning to think I may never become an optimist.
Now two years into this project, I'm just this close to giving it all up. I've gained exactly zero new insights into optimism and positive attitudes since December, as my oncoming extended whine may illustrate.
Like everybody else, I usually start the new year with some good intentions. I don't like to think of them as resolutions. They're just some sticky notes on my mental refrigerator. "You're too angry too much. You need to spend time every day meditating. Just learn to let the bad things go. Get back in the habit of blogging. And exercising. And composing. Something's gotta change for the better this year."
Stuff like that.
So how's it gone so far, you may ask.
First thing: A huge fight with my daughter. I'm not kidding. It was only, like, Jan. 3 or 4. Angry? Yes. Have I meditated? Not even once. Composing? No. Blogging? You can see for yourself. In fact, exercising is the one horse I've been able to get back up on.
So in the spirit of politicians everywhere, I've decided not to change myself at all. Instead, I'll spin it. This year, instead of trying to change my thinking, I'll be concentrating on doing. Specifically doing something that will bring in some desperately needed coin.
I have two things to report so far:
1) I've been trying to learn to make cake pops to sell...somewhere, somehow. Cake pops--basically, chocolate covered cake on a stick--are the rage on at least one coast, I've read, but no one seems to be doing them here.
People who know me may scoff. I can cook, sure, but I've never been much of a one for fine presentation. So the painstaking decorative hand that cake pops demand may prove to be too much. But I vow to have mastered the art by Valentine's Day or die trying. Here's an early attempt.

I'm still learning how much to thin the chocolate melts and the best way to get the writing on the front, which I haven't yet tried.
2)Now that I think about it, I can't really say much about the second project. It's just bad luck. But it's definitely a really real project that would (theoretically) bring in really real cash. Some day. Maybe not as soon as the cake pops, though.
Sadly, blogging is not something that has brought about any extra money, so I'll be cutting back my time on that. See how neatly that fits in with my sloth of late? Talk about expert spin.

We'll meat again...

Nothing like the holidays bearing down on you full speed to whip up the stress. With less than 10 days to shop and with nothing bought and an austerity budget that would make British PM David Cameron wince, I'm feeling it, baby, I'm feeling it.
So today I'm taking the only logical approach--a post dedicated entirely to meat.
We'll begin with news of a recent study that has found that apparently, looking at cooked meat causes men to relax. The authors started with the opposite hypothesis--that the ingrained competitive nature of men and the ancient hunter reflexes would cause them to become tense, possibly sizing each other up as to who would win in a squabble for that rib-eye steak. (Well, that last part was just a little imagineering on my part. But they did expect the opposite of relaxation.)
Here's Stephen Colbert's hilarious take on it from a few shows ago:



The Colbert Report: Cheating Death - Calming Meat Goggles & the iThrone
Uploaded by ComedyCentral. - Click for more funny videos.

There seems to be a weird obsession going on with meat right now. On the Food Network, which used to be all about cooking, we have instead a parade of portly guys touting the biggest greasiest meat piles they can find. Guy Fieri routinely hunches over mammoth burgers and pronounces them "money." And over at Man v. Food, the host (whose name I forget) pounds down every gross restaurant eating challenge he can find, including one called a "Manimal" in Maine that consisted of an eight-patty cheeseburger, two hot dogs, fries, coleslaw, large soda and a milkshake with coffeecake mixed in.
Apparently the hunting reflex has vanished, but they're still trying to symbolically dominate when it comes to eating.
Then there's this:

Yes, just in time for the holidays, a bacon and sausage creche, with the mini-weenie Baby Jesus lying in a bed of sauerkraut. This is...well...yeah.
Then again, if you're worried your child might grow up to be a dreaded vegetarian, you can start him/her off right with this product:
No, this is not a joke. It is--or was--a real product that, according to the Internets, boasted four slices of bacon per scoop. It was introduced by J & D's, makers of Baconnaise and other bacon flavored items. The company quit selling the baby formula, according to the Huffington Post. But no matter, they got the desired publicity.

Meanwhile, there's meat as fashion.
Lady Gaga got all the attention for her meat dress, but she's not the only one. It took only a couple of clicks to find these and other interesting meat clothes. Add to cart?




Feeling relaxed yet, guys? Because I think it's time to RUN for your LIVES.

Dream, dream, dream

The New York Times ran an interesting story on happiness the other day by John Tierney. Apparently there's a study now that suggests that if you let your mind wander while you're doing a task, you're more apt to be unhappy later.
The study, conducted by Harvard psychologists, used an iPhone app called "trackyourhappiness" to randomly call people around the globe and ask them how they were feeling. The results: People who reported stray thoughts and daydreams were less likely to be happy a few minutes later and the stray thoughts caused the unhappiness, rather than the other way around. (Read Tierney's account here, and also in Science.)
And okay, I guess it makes sense that if you start fantasizing about finally having that loan paid off that you took out against your 401K so your kid could get through the last semester of college, that the thought might lead you to unpleasant other thoughts such as: Why did tuition go up by double digits at the state university for each year beginning when my kid enrolled and why didn't student loans cover everything and why won't time go faster so we can stop paying $50 a paycheck?
Wait. Hold on....Trackyourhappiness? Really? A stranger will call you up, ask you what you've just been doing and then how you felt about it. And people willingly signed up for this?
Maybe it's just me, but doesn't that kind of put the science in question? First of all, these are people who have iPhones. Secondly, they are paying a monthly charge for the connectivity, so they are likely fully employed. And third, they are extroverts who would willingly discuss deeply personal matters with an anonymous someone taking notes.
I've seen iPhones. If I could afford one, I'd buy it and then spend the rest of the time skipping around and laughing with glee. Rrrring..."This is a Harvard scientist. What are you doing right now and how do you feel?"
"I'm just bagging up a pile of warm dog poop. And I feel FANTASTIC! I have a job and an iPhone."
So probably, the results are skewed because of the sample.
But it might be interesting to see what the survey would look like if a different population was sampled.
Rrring..."Hello. This is Harvard calling. What are you doing right now and have you had any daydreams lately?"
"I've just robbed a convenience store. Daydreams? No, can't say my mind wandered. Gotta go..."
Rrring..."Hello, Harvard University here. We're doing a study on daydreams and happiness. What have you got for us?"
"Sorry, I've got six craft in my sector and five waiting in a holding pattern. Can't talk now, man."
"Ok, only just tell us, have you had any daydreams in the past half hour?"
"Look--no--I--well, no. But...'
"And do you feel happier than a half hour ago or no--"
"Oh yeah, yeah. Sure, great. I--oh s**t!/ (connection lost).
If the results hold, then these non-daydreamers would also be the happiest.
Me, I'm a die-hard daydreamer, and that's never going to change. I'll never be Zen enough to focus only on brushing my teeth. In fact I've had at least six daydreams just while writing this post. They're like little vacations you take inside your head. Vacations I desperately, desperately need. I will never give them up on the elusive promise of a slight increase in happiness.
So sorry, Harvard. Tell the positive thinking industry they can take my property and my dignity. But they'll take my daydreams only when they pry them from my cold, dead brain pan.

Recession Zen

So here we are. It's been a year and eight months since the big income cutback. We've tried various ways to make money--selling stuff in our garage left from the previous owner, writing a garden book, etc.--and sometimes we've been successful. We've slashed our household spending to the bare minimum (ask us about our front tires) and then spent a lot of it in a fit of rebellion this year because, dammit, we need a life, too.
And now our second austere Christmas is looming and there is no indication that our situation is anything but permanent.
So how's my positive attitude coming along?
That's hard to say. I suppose the best way to track something like that would be to somehow put all my emotions on a chart, and if it were possible to do something like that on Blogger, I would. But since I don't really feel like working out a lifetime emotion chart, I'll just have to describe it.
I'll skip past childhood and adolescence, and go straight to adulthood. Graduation from college and getting that first job--euphoria. Finding out how hard it was to live on a reporter's salary--the Dumps. Getting a better job--euphoria. Getting married--euphoria. Having kids--daily euphoric highs followed by Dumps, lots and lots of dumps. Finding out how hard it is to live on basically one salary--well, you can see how this is going. My chart would look like just about anybody else's on the planet.
Now that we're approaching Christmas, have added a 16-year-old driver (but not a car) to our insurance and are looking ahead to college, I really should be in the dumps big time.
But I'm not. My emotional chart has flat lined. No elation. No dumps. It's just hard to get excited about anything.
(I identify a lot with author TM Shine, who wrote this really funny piece recently in the New York Times.)
Is this a good thing? Maybe. Back when I thought I had control over anything, I was always getting upset and unhappy because I should have done better. Then I'd get out a legal pad and start making lists. When things went well, I'd be flying high.
What I have now sounds a lot like resignation, but I don't think it is. It's more detachment. I haven't stopped wanting the nice stuff that goes with money. The new clothes, the respect, the occasional movie, the feeling that your car isn't going to shake apart at speeds over 60 mph. It's just that I'm exhausted from caring anymore.
This is how I imagined Buddhism. Detachment. Why care about a world you obviously cannot control?
And I'll say this: It certainly does protect me from scraping along the desperate bottom as I did a year and a half ago. It doesn't exactly feel like happiness, though.
But I'll need a lot more than Zen detachment to make things better.
Now where's my legal pad?

Ironically, we were unafraid

By now the pundits have weighed in on the Comedy Central Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. Either he wasted an opportunity to engage middle-of-the-road folks who are turned off by politics and do not vote. Or his rally was simply an exercise in irony and too-cool-for-school self awareness. On the one hand, the rally didn't do enough to stir people to action in tomorrow's election. On the other, nobody really watches cable news, so why get so worked up about his media criticism? Yet the press, obviously, was annoyed.
We watched almost the entire rally live, giving the house a sedentary vibe so weird for a Saturday that my daughter said it felt like Thanksgiving Day and the Macy's Parade. I would have gone if I could have. But alas, not enough money. (Although I briefly considered hopping a freight train chugging slowly past our house.)
Apparently no one knew what to expect. Some news organizations wouldn't let their reporters attend (on their own time off) out of fear of being partisan. Yet the very non-partisan appeal to reason and moderation also kept it from getting huge amounts of prominent space.
And they all have good points (she said, reasonably.)
But it's too bad that no one talked about the opposing force of the rally, as personified by Stephen Colbert. It's too bad nobody mentioned the fear.
Because that is what I think the rally was really about. How can any of us maintain that go-get 'em American spirit in the face of seemingly overwhelming fear about every possible thing, 24 hours a day?
I don't mean just the fear you see hyped on the evening news--the child predators, avian flu, carcinogens in the drinking water. The heartbreak of psoriasis. I'm talking about the very real fear many of us have now, of waking one morning without a job, or health insurance, or a home because of forces beyond our control.
Colbert, in character as a faux conservative TV host, made a pretty good opening, supposedly cowering beneath the stage in an underground bunker. I've felt like that, after looking at our budget and counting the days until my daughter looks toward college. How can you get up the guts to spend the money on night school, or invest in your own business or apply for a new job when you're worried you may get thrown out of the house you've paid on for a decade? How can you dare to take the risks involved in improving your station in life?
It's fear, plain and simple, that is the paralyzing force that hobbles us and keeps us from being the great nation we used to be. FDR had it exactly right. Right now we have the realistic fears about joblessness. And on top of that, we have all the other fears pumped up by people who want to sell us something or force us into an ideology.
So yeah. If you wanted the rally to be a call to action against certain political parties, then it probably was a failure. But me, I looked at all those people on the mall--250,000 by some estimates. Out of that many, a lot are probably as scared as I am right now. And yet here we are, able to enjoy a sunny Saturday, laugh at a few jokes, forget about our troubles for a couple of hours.
Some say that's irony.
I say it feels like optimism.

So on with the laughs. Here's the latest, an Auto-Tune send up of Stewart's closing speech: