Archive | Uncategorized RSS feed for this section

Every year we throw a holiday party for our employees. Last year I had this idea to invite a few regular customers, the folks we consider part of our family at this point. We continued that tradition this year, and also invited business contacts, purveyors, coffee roasters, farmers, brewers, etc.

Ayr and I were thinking about invitations. We wanted something that would be a tiny gift in itself. So I bought tiny manila envelopes from Staples, printed them with the holiday party information, and filled them with Star Anise, Cinnamon, and Allspice. Anyone who got an invitation also got some spices they could use to make mulled wine, hot cider, etc.

We got so many compliments that we figured we should extend the Spice theme to the gifts we gave at the door.

Ever since there were two trucks and not one, we’ve had problems with one truck grabbing something that belongs to another truck. The solution was to make everything exact copies so that it didn’t matter who grabbed which item. But some items need to be kept in good shape by each location.

Chris got this cool engraving drill. Now no truck will ever steal another truck’s creamer. We might find other uses for it too. I wonder if I can bring in my personal possessions and have them engraved?

We just closed CSA sign-ups at the HUB. For those of you who don’t know, we are trying a little experiment to bring CSA sign-ups and drop-offs to Clover. We had no idea whether this would work. We don’t know of anybody else putting CSAs in a retail context.

Friday night I raced over to the HUB, grabbed the clipboards from the wall, and ran home to count the results. I’ve always been obsessed with watching the results of elections. The numbers seem to mean a lot. So adding up the number of people on the lists felt a little like calculating the results of our little election.

So what were the stats? Altogether 119 people signed up, distributed over 5 farms. And $68,425? That is the number you get when you multiply 119 x $575 (average price of a share). If everyone who signed up actually goes through with paying for a CSA, that’s the dollar amount we will have funneled to local farms. I’m not sure if that number is really big or really small.

If Moffat (the company that makes our ovens) ever wants to crash-test their products, they should come observe us. We put bread in to toast every 3 minutes, so the oven gets opened at least 100-200 times a day. I’m guessing that most Moffat ovens out there get opened more like 10-20 times a day.

The door swivels on these copper bushings.  They don’t last very long for us, and cause the door to open slanted, which puts a ton of stress on the oven itself. It seems like we are replacing them all the time.

Are you coming to Meet the Farmer Night tonight in Inman Square? This is an event we’re holding for anyone who thinks they might want to sign up for a weekly share of vegetables delivered to Clover during the summer. It’s happening tonight, 7pm-9pm at the HUB (1075 Cambridge St).

If you’re here for the event, we’re going to have a little activity set up. Make your own whoopie pie, with winter vegetables from Marshall Farm and Red Fire Farm (two of the farms are participating in our CSA program) You’ll have to trust us, these will taste good. Even the kohlrabi whoopie pie.

Not represented in the picture: we’ll also have radishes from Drumlin Farm and we’ll be making onion rings w/onions from Lindentree Farm. We couldn’t figure out how to pull off an onion whoopie pie…

Not to make all my posts about my bad qualities (like my inability to find plantains) but here’s another. I’m becoming a bit accident prone.

Last week I was biking down a very quiet Inman street. I hit a small
pothole, crashed into a parked car, and did some damage to my shoulder. I’m not supposed to lift anything with my left hand, which is why you haven’t seen much of me on board the truck (lots of lifting up there).

Today I was taking orders and slipped in the rain. The iPod hit the ground, and now the screen looks like this. I’m sorry, guys.

It still works, but it’s not pretty. I know one of our customers works at the Apple store. This post is for you. I’ll personally buy you a week of sandwiches if you can give me a fix.

I remember how excited I was to go through the old records, receipts, etc to try to learn a bit about the former owner and the car’s previous life.

Today I picked truck #2 up from getting the generator installed. I found this package, the truck used to be a bakery truck, ATV bakery, Reading PA (where I went to buy it).

Saw this the other day. Sort of wacky isn’t it?

OK, hands down, the award for best customer name goes to Yoda. Can you believe that? I’ve always loved my name, well mostly loved my name. And I never knew another Ayr. (There’s a complicated story behind my name, if you’re bored and we’re slow ask me someday.)

But Yoda? Come on, that’s the coolest.

And Yoda, I hope you don’t mind all of this attention. And I’m not making a joke, we really all think your name is super exciting. And now I’m really really glad we instituted our “order/ name” order taking system.

This is the “dry storage” behind Clover. There you see organiz oats, organic chickpeas, organic sugar, organic flour, organic agave syrup, salt, packaging, equipment, and a bunch of other stuff. We get shippments from unfi every couple of weeks.