Cracked Cauldron Spillings

Last night, Manager and I discussed duty divisions.

Doesn't that sound absolutely thrilling?

While she's still in college, the bulk of the work in ferreting out information will come from me. I'll also be the one likely to contact suppliers and search for needed equipment. Anyone know where I can find a good used Hobart 20 gallon floor mixer with adaptors to scale it down to 60 and 40 quarts?

Of course, once we have the floor mixer, we'll need proofing cabinets, a walk-in refrigerator, a walk-in freezer (both where we can roll packed racks in and out as needed), a rolling machine would be nice, but we can make do with good counters for rolling out doughs and decent rolling pins. And ovens. We need at least 2 ovens - one for breads and longer baking things and one for the cookies.

That's just for starters. Then, we'll need vermin-proof storage containers for the flours, sugars, salts, spices, yeasts, herbs, dried fruits, baking soda, baking powder, cornstarch, and nuts. Containers for the wet ingredients (which will be stored most likely in the refrigerator - milk, eggs, cheeses, that sort of thing). Scoops for measuring out the ingredients. Scales for weighing them. Pans and sheets for baking them. Cookie cutters and molds. A stovetop for cooking icings and frostings and some of the add-in ingredients. A chocolate tempering machine for dipped cookies and pastries.

We have a lot of this on a home baker's scale, but we need to Baker-Size them. Things like the cookie cutters and molds, we have a sufficiency of.

Oh, who am I kidding? You can never have enough cookie cutters. I have several hundred, and I just saw three in a baker's catalog that I don't have. I must get them.

See? That's a problem. We both like neat, cool, nifty cooking toys.

We have to work very hard not to fritter our money on things that are nifty but not needed so we can get the essentials.

Manager's as bad as I am. Worse. One of the things she wants are hundreds of those cute little teapot/cup combinations for our teadrinking customers to use. She bought one the other day, chipped, for $2.00. She thinks that's a plus - all of them will acquire chips anyway, so she's just getting a head start on that.

And cauldrons. Anything that's a cauldron draws her attention. I have this huge cracked cauldron that will be our primary symbol for the bakery, but she wants cauldrons as the decor, too. Big ones. Little ones. China ones. Painting ones. Plastic ones. Kitschy cutsey ones. Broken ones. The tables will have little cauldrons holding flowers. Fabric printed with cauldrons as napkins and display fabrics. Paper napkins and take-out bags with cauldrons on them.

Oh dear! That means we have to buy napkins and take-out bags, too.

Gah! Printers! I really dislike dealing with printers. They usually get something wrong, and that delays things. No matter how precise and detailed you are, they always miss something. Even if you give it to them camera-ready and all they have to do is print, they'll "fiddle" with it and ruin it. And we'll need to deal with them for menus, napkins, to-go cups, bags, advertising, invitations to special events, coupons.

Now I have to think about interviewing printers, too. Thanks very much for bringing that up.