Um, yeah.

It has been over a year, apparently, since I last posted. I got frustrated with the caramel business idea, stymied by the necessity of a professional commercial kitchen in order to be legal. And then I took a nutrition class in September 2009 that resulted in my discovery that I'm sensitive to gluten and dairy, and addicted to sugar. I cut out all three completely for six months and lost more than forty pounds. I didn't make caramels for a long time.

Recently, I started making them again, just simple maple butter batches, nothing fancy, to give as gifts. I ruined the first batch completely by not cooking the sugar long enough, but since then every batch has been perfect. The remnants of the last batch sits on the marble slab, and I can easily resist it. I know what dairy and sugar do to me. The flavor of fine caramel is still one of my great pleasures, I just savor it in much, much smaller doses.

As for love, I'm still trying. If it were as hard as learning how to make perfect caramels, I might have a chance. But it's much harder.

Experimental Caramels coming soon.

If you want a caramel, send me your address and I will mail you a small bag of them.

Cheers.

Caramels, Part VI: Bacon Caramels

Seriously? Seriously.



Here's the freshly cooked and finely chopped Applewood Bacon.



The finished product turned out redolent with bacon, particularly since I mixed the cold butter with the pan drippings and mixed them in. The taste was almost TOO bacon-y, but really, everything is better with bacon.

That Which Shall Not Be Named

More good news about High Fructose Corn Syrup!

....enough said.

Drum Roll, Please

I think the name of this business is going to be:

Miss Margaret's Conscious Caramels

Thanks to Richard for that one. I'm letting it sink in but I think it's a good choice. It does what I want it to do. The question at the moment is what to call the website.

www.consciouscaramels.com is the most obvious, but that leaves out the Miss Margaret, and if I start doing other things under the Miss Margaret name then that could lead to problems, but www.missmargaret.com is a dance studio in Toledo, Ohio or something like that, and www.missmargaretsconsciouscaramels.com is just way too long don't you think? Despite my fondness for run-on sentences?

Sigh.

I'm meeting with the food business guru at the Small Business Administration on Friday afternoon. Whoo!

Maggie, You're Ruinin' My Liquor

Fooling around with label ideas. An ode to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof seemed appropriate for the honey bourbon caramels.

I made a batch of plain light caramels today with fleur de sel, and I think they were the best batch yet. Finished at 238 degrees, they were the perfect balance of sweet and salt, soft and firm. Oooh baby.

The Business End, Part 3: The SBA and Doing My Homework

Who out there knew about the Small Business Administration? The FEDERAL AGENCY DESIGNED TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESS IN THE UNITED STATES?

All of you suck for not telling me sooner.

I have an appointment next week to meet with one of their counselors and talk about my business idea, practical issues regarding a food based business, and the resources available from the SBA.

Holly, my friend extraordinaire, has suggested that she would like to be a part of this venture. I will definitely need another set of hands and a better brain than mine on this. And it would be fun to do something with Holly, though I don't want to risk our friendship either. It will be a test of our ability to be open and communicate clearly with each other. Joseph also said he was interested and maybe he can provide some of the data management support.

Tonight, I'm reading Sell Your Specialty Food, and it seems at first glance to be an awesome resource. I'm going to follow the steps that it suggests, the first being to develop a vision statement of what I would like to achieve.

Here goes.

"Love and Caramels (working title) will make unique and creative organic artisan caramels. We will use only organic ingredients with as little refining as possible. We will strive to be aware of the sources of all of our ingredients and to forge relationships with the farmers and craftspeople who make them, creating an unbroken source of energy and love from the earth in what we make. As a company we will be environmentally and in all other ways responsible and impeccably honest in all of our relationships. Love and Caramels will be a way for us to bring joy to our customers, to our partners, and to ourselves and our families."

I know, it's a first draft.

And for a tagline:

"sweet disorder, judiciously arranged."

Cell Phone Cozy: Pattern

Y'all want to knit a cell phone cozy? Here's my pattern.

It doesn't matter what yarn you use, just knit a swatch wider than your cell phone and determine the number of stitches you need that way. I hate knitting swatches, but it's a good idea. Knit a good one so that you don't end up with a cozy that's too small.

The needles you choose are determined by the yarn you use; big fat yarn, big fat needles. This cozy was knitted using some kind of sportweight blend, very soft, on size 8 straight needles. You can also use double pointed needles since the cozy is such a small piece.

Cast on an even number of stitches so that you can purl one at either end of each row.

Row 1: purl 1, knit 2, purl 2, knit 2 then purl 1 at the end of the row
Row 2: repeat
Row 3: purl 1, cable 2 (skip the first knit stitch, knit the second, pull the yarn through but leave both stitches on the left needle, then knit the first stitch and slip both of them off the needle), purl 2, cable 2, repeat to last stitch, purl 1

Repeat rows 1-3 until you have cable stitches for 2 inches (or as long as you want the top of your cell phone cozy to be).

Stockinette stitch until cozy is as long as you want it to be for your phone. Then purl three rows in a row to make the seam at the bottom of the cozy. Then stockinette the rest of the cozy until it matches the front and start your cable rows again.

Cast off when both sides match.

Turn wrong side out and bring the edges of the cozy together and sew with yarn using a yarn needle.Use a crochet crochet hook to pull the tails through stitches on the inside and tie off. Turn right side out and slip your cell phone inside.

Enjoy!