resistance is fertile

Let me just alienate myself from my colleagues, ok? OK.

Here goes. With apologies to those who have already discussed this with me on Facebook and with apologies to you, since we basically just covered this:

JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU’VE SEEN IT ALL.

I MEAN.

FOR REALSIES.

There was that girl who wanted you to give her money so she could TRAVEL THE US EATING IN VEGAN RESTAURANTS and writing a blog about it. The donut place. The vegan bodega (“give me money to sell you junk food”). BUT THIS TAKES IT. Give this vegan bakery money to START SERVING EXPRESSO. I’M SO ANGRY I JUST SPELLED ESPRESSO WITH AN X.

wtf vegans!!!!! we’ve gone insane!!!!!!!!!! Are we here for animals, or are we here TO DRINK CARAMEL MACCHIATOS?

One of my Facebook friends said, “Both.” OK, yeah, maybe both. But why on earth would anyone “donate” to the “cause” of you making money? JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE VEGAN?

Get a better reason.

In other news I now make vegan Cadbury eggs. Everyone is very excited about this and this excitement somehow depresses me. What the crap is wrong with me? The Cadbury eggs are nice, but basically they’re just sugar bombs that replicate corporate trash food, only not trashy. They’re nowhere near as nice as a Yuzu Cream. But who cares, people like what they like. Be excited!

Oh wait, I’m also doing a very exciting donation project with our old pal Isa: check it out here, and look at this photo, and now I feel weird about mixing all these three things in one post. But these dudes: like 1,000 times better than the Eggs.

Shoulda lightened that photo a bit. Ah well. OFF TO DO YOGA!!!!! Still loving yoga!

Yours,

L

Just another day at the office.

I’ve needed to vent about this one for a while. Here goes:

Before I had the shop, I used my bank (ATM/credit) card all the time. Why fiddle with cash? Using my bank card means all my receipts go directly into my financial software (mint.com), and it kept everything so much cleaner, no receipts to enter into the computer later (why yes, 99% of what I buy is tax deductible) and no change to mess with. I had the meal delivery service going, and I often preferred my customers to pay with credit cards because it meant that I could actually get payment for their meals from them by processing their cards myself every week instead of hounding them for cash or running to the faraway bank to cash checks.

But with the shop everything has changed, and it’s made me realize something that all of you probably know but for some reason took me way too long to figure out: using credit cards is really, really awful for small businesses.  

Our credit card processor (authorize.net) takes, when all the many, many, many different fees are taken into account, about 3-6% of each transaction. Honestly it’s probably more, but I’m just too lazy to get a statement right now and figure it out. It’s a monthly fee, a yearly fee, a transaction flat rate, AND a transaction percentage. Plus a $20 monthly fee if I have transactions that need to be processed every month (like the Chocolate of the Month Club.).

Plus, whenever the government actually attempts to regulate these awful companies a bit more, they charge their account holders a fee to comply with the new regulations. For reals. A couple months ago my bill went down an incremental amount because of laws passed to stop the credit card companies from [here I would use the word "raping" if I believed in its use outside the realm of, you know, rape] small businesses like mine, and right next to the announcement of the reduction of charges was the announcement of “compliance fees” that added up to….the exact same amount of money.

PayPal is about the same, FYI.

Most of the bands I know use Square these days to do their merch, and with good reason—the processing charges are a lot less. We can’t switch to Square because our website runs through authorize.net and so does the app on the iPad we use as our cash register. We just need more functionality than Square offers right now. Jacob recently researched a bunch of different credit card processing systems, and it appears that they’re all mostly the same, fee-wise.

So we’re at where we’re at. And where we’re at is that when college kids ask if they can put one Drinking Chocolate on their credit card, I die a little inside. A Drinking Chocolate is our absolute most awful loss leader of all our loss leader items. A “loss leader” is supposed to be a product you don’t make a lot of money on but sell anyway because it lures people to you, or makes them buy other stuff, or whatever whatever whatever. (I know I’ve shared this little gem of a factoid before, but it’s like how if you [a vegan] go to a steakhouse, you’re helping them offset their loss leader—the steak. A steak isn’t usually marked up a much as it “should” be because it would cost too much, so when you go with your annoying aunt you never see to a steakhouse against your will and get a $15 garden salad, you’re paying an inflated price to make up money they lost from the loss leader. Moral: don’t go to steakhouses, vegans, and don’t hang out with those annoying aunts.)

In our case, a loss leader is usually some ludicrously fancy thing that costs us an insane amount of money to make so we can’t mark it up as much as we should. In the case of the Drinking Chocolate, once you factor in the almond milk, Mimiccreme whip, iSi whip chargers, marshmallows, sugar, 55 grams of ganache (A TON—see a photo of how much that is here), eco-cup, lid, arrrrgh, it comes out to $2.50 a glass. Which we sell for $5 and oh honey, you should see how people balk at the price.

None of the labor/mortgage/taxes/utilities/blah/blah/blah are factored into that, of course. We’re becoming famous for our Drinking Chocolates, and I love making them, but every time I do a little $2.50 sign goes off in my head, and I die a little. $2.50 Drinking Chocolates aren’t going to keep the lights on, particularly when we’re actually making only $2.37 on them when someone pays with a credit card.

Obviously, I don’t say anything to customers who use credit cards. Until a year ago, I was that customer! I just didn’t realize. But now I do, and I figured in case you didn’t either I’d write this little post. One more thing—rewards cards are where we really get screwed (that and American Express, but we get screwed so royally on AmEx that we, like every other sane business, don’t even take them.). If you can save your airline points card and whatnot for those rare trips you have to make to Target and the supermarket, every small business owner in the world will thank you.

PLEASE NOTE that if you’re a pal of mine and you come into the shop with a credit card, I won’t be all bitchy at you! I promise. I just had to vent a bit.

Onward!

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO IS CONSTANTLY IN A RAGE ABOUT THIS?

Sorry to yell, but I keep getting all shakey and screaming-with-rage about this. A sure sign it’s time for a blog post.

Every week it seems there’s a fresh new crop of for-profit enterprises asking for donations on my Facebook wall. Recently it was a vegan bodega in NYC.

Yes: you are supposed to give your hard-earned vegan cash to some vegans who want to sell you shit corporate junk food back to you. But it’s vegan junk food! So it’s totally fine.

This week it’s these hot boys making vegan doughnuts who want you to give them money so they can open up a shop selling you doughnuts. 

The doughnuts look fucking amazing (as do the boys, which I already mentioned. I digress.). And, as is typical with these things, you do get something in return for your cash: free doughnuts, in most cases.

So many of my friends are directly involved in projects like this, I’m beginning to think there’s something wrong with me that it makes me so ragey. Maybe it’s because my town is full of displaced people whose houses are ruined, businesses trashed, farms flooded? Maybe because people are starving all around the world, animals are being tortured everywhere, women are being beaten by men everywhere, etc etc forever forever?

It’s wonderful that these hot boys are making sexy little doughnuts.

I want to make that point clear. They look delicious. I keep meaning to seek them out when I’m in the city. But it’s not true activism. It’s joyful work, and it’s on the activism spectrum, sure. But treating doughnut-making like a non-profit makes me sick. Yes, of course, the vegan world needs delicious food activists making food so good it converts non-vegans instantly. I’d argue we are the core of the vegan movement, in fact. But there’s a line in the sand that separates us from non-profits—animal sanctuaries, animal rights groups, etc. We are not non-profits. We are here to support non-profits. We are also here, no matter how you spin it, to make money.

It’s really, really, really hard to run a small business, particularly a hardcore vegan foodie small business. I spend hundreds of hours a week doing it and have, full-time, for nine years now. Every single day of these nine years could I have used a free cash infusion. 

I work 12, 13, 14, 15 hours a day. I make poverty line wages (actually the shop is doing pretty grand, but it’s just that I have those three mortgages and student loans, renovation expenses, etc blah blah, sexy lingerie to buy on etsy, etc, so I’m always poor). But my job is pretty fucking easy. I make chocolates. My job is the literal definition of fun. And you know what? It is fun. Lots.

I’m not, like others I know, undercover working at slaughterhouses and coming home crying every night, taking hours’ long baths to attempt to soften my shocked and aching muscles so I can get through another awful day smothering baby chicks. I’m not, like others I know, a social worker attempting to keep teenage girls off heroin and alcohol. My job is not deserving of free money. 

Also, there already exists a system for funding businesses, called investors. It’s not my bag, being an anarchist and whatnot, but it works for some people. If I invested in a business, I’d sure want dividends, not “shout-outs” on websites and whatnot. I get that this new, social network-based investing system is meant to be something inbetween finding traditional investors and just straight-up asking for money, but it’s the appeal to one’s social-justice consciousness that annoys me. I do think sites like IndieGoGo and Kickstarter *can* be used to provide “investors” with something actually valuable or meaningful for their donation/investment, but a few doughnuts, a t-shirt here and there, and recognition seems pretty sad. Dun-Well is offering a sweet catered doughnut party, which seems fair for a larger donation–actually, several of the incentives seem logical: a doughnut named after you, a tile with your name on it in their shop-to-be. All of this seems fair, actually. My problem is with the appeal to one’s animal rights ethics. If you want to trade some money to a great little start-up in exchange for a bunch of doughnuts so they can get off the ground, please do. But please don’t pretend that NYC having a vegan doughnut shop is going to change the face of the animal rights world and thus your donation is as valuable as if you gave it to a true animal rights group.

Maybe a lot of it is pride. I guess I have to admit that. If I opened up my shop without help from my family and secret riches, others should be able to too. Of course I have my partner’s (rather scanty) income to lean on when things get lean, and I’ve borrowed a TON of money from friends over the years. And I’ve always paid it back. I never hesitated to ask, they never hesitated to give, I rushed to pay back. I also, as you know, do a ton of barters, and I suppose this is somewhat like a barter. Sort of. But I never acted like I’m doing God’s work by making caramel. I would have been ashamed to do so. I’ve certainly said it’s part of my mission to live a life in line with my values, and that the shop is my personal attempt at animal rights activism, but I’m sure not going to pretend that you buying chocolates there is yours.

My plan is to make money, I’m not going to pretend it’s not. I want to make enough to buy myself cute shoes, and eventually to build a small, eco-friendly house on that little bit of land Jacob and I own. I want to make enough to travel a bit, work a bit less, and, of course, to give to my favorite animal rights organizations and arts organizations and environmental organizations because I love animals and I love art and I love the earth and they are all essential for my sanity and survival.

I also love doughnuts. But never will I love doughnuts enough to donate money to two hot boys running a for-profit business making them.

Am I saying I feel superior to them, because I’ve managed to find a way to run a business without begging for money from well-intentioned people by appealing to their ethical beliefs in animal rights? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying, I suppose. And so it is.

Hmm. I just realized that as I edit this and mull this all over while answering emails, I just signed up to pay $250 to be a sponsor for New Paltz Flood Aid, which is basically giving money to farmers. How is it different? It is. And not just because it’s a catastrophe, because farming is just…different. Maybe I’m a hypocrite. I don’t know.

Don’t give money to people running for-profit businesses, friends.

It’s a disgusting thing to ask of you.

Just popping up for a moment to say that I’m beginning some renovation blogging over at the Non-Expletivey Blog. If you’re into that sort of thing, you might want to check it out. Right now it’s pretty boring, but there is lots more to come.

I miss you, resisters! Soon we’ll talk about other stuff too, ok?

xoxox

L

Yo! While I’m out gallivanting around setting up shop, check out blog reader pal Adrienne’s fun foodie blog, why don’t ya? It’s nice.

And our old pal Brittany is also blogging up a storm here all about local politics and oh oh, so so much more.

As for me. Oh my gosh. I’ve got Valentine’s-level exhaustion happening (all chocolatiers measure tiredness in relation to Valentine’s, right? I’d say I’m at about 3/4 Valentine’s level right now), but multi-vitamins, eating my greens, and the usual revolutionary zeal are keeping me running strong. Last week I made a list of everything I did in one day, and it went something like this:

Breakfast, house cleaning, body cleaning, cat kissing, to work in Rosendale, made chocolates, shipped chocolates, made a tagine, ate tagine, one load of crap from Rosendale to NP, dealt with a minor emergency [such is my life right now, and such are the minor emergencies that are thrown my way every day, that I can't even remember what this refers to. I vaguely remember something about a burst water pipe and panicked calls from the contractors.], answered emails, packed up more chocolates, ate come caramels, cleaning  in Rosendale, one more crapload to NP, cleaning in New Paltz, painting touch-ups in New Paltz until 1 am or so, then home to bed for Daily Show watching, more tagine eating, more cat kissing, more email answering, and sleep.

Phew. I’m all moved out of Rosendale now, and almost completely set up in New Paltz. We’re still wrangling with the Planning Board, but otherwise things are looking good. The shop is looking incredibly shoppy and I can’t wait to show you a zillion photos.

Everything is crazy and awesome right now, to be honest. I feel incredibly happy and at peace and everything-in-its-right-placey about my life. Dealing with governmental agencies and contractors and running thousands upon thousands of dollars over budget on this project is a challenge, as is sleeping through the night without waking up 10 times to write things like ORDER CONVERSION KIT FOR WASHER/DRYER IN DOWNSTAIRS APT!!! on the endless to-do list, but I’m really enjoying and am really up for this challenge.

I think Jacob and I are pretty good at being project managers for this project—organizing all the contractors and service providers and buying endless stuff and driving all over the world to pick it up. He’s also doing a ton of work pulling off siding and I’ve painted every single inch of the new shop at least twice. Renovating two apartments and a chocolate shop is a much bigger task than either of us realized, but so far we’re keeping our heads above water.

I’m proud of myself because my rage twin has only managed to escape once—I gave Max Kimlin from Kimlin Propane a, let’s just say, very loud talking-to. It started with Jacob saying, “Please, please don’t yell at him,” and ended with Jacob and our contractor pal Aaron hiding in the corner and acting like they didn’t know me while I yelled at him. (Maybe someday if anyone is interested I’ll tell you all about The Many Reasons I Do Not Suggest You Use Kimlin Propane Except That After The Talking-To Max Actually Shaped Up And In The End Things Ended Up OK.)

The point is, all that weirdness from last fall about my job and my place in the world seems to have quieted down. (Still working on rage issues, as you can tell.)

I’m grateful.

OK, I seriously need to order that conversion kit. Right now.

love and other indoor sports,

Lagusta

Wow.

I took a few minutes out from packingpaintingmovinghaulingchocolatizing the other day, and the out-of-doors greeted Jacob and I with this bounty! I'm telling you, SPRING.

LIFE IS SO EXCITING AT MIDNIGHT WHEN YOU’VE BEEN HAULING CRAP ALL DAY FROM ONE KITCHEN TO THE NEXT AND DRANK 2 GLASSES OF WINE REALLY QUICKLY RIGHT WHEN YOU GOT HOME!

PEOPLE.

LISTEN.

I have finally, after much hand-wringing and whining and advice-seeking and self-scolding and wishing-I-was-stronger-ing and gyms-are-gross/yoga-isn’t-for-me-ing, figured out my ideal exercise:

MOVING.

Moving is perfect for me! Not only is it a great workout, but I push my body much more than I would in your typical when-will-it-be-over workout because it actually accomplishes something. I will push my body harder than I’ve ever pushed it if it means one more carload of chocolate molds and Pyrex containers and spoonulas will get to the new shop before darkness sets in.

Amazing.

Anyway, so this week I’m moving my business from Rosendale 10 minutes down the road toward my house into New Paltz. (Hey, I just did a radio-style “reset” for new readers! How fancy! If you’re new to this blog, I hope you feel sufficiently clued-in now.)

SPRING! Here are some glorious photos of last year’s glorious spring. Sigh. GLORIOUS! This one is super great too.

Yet another great thing about spring: it’s the perfect season for moving. Not too hot, not too cold.

Oh, and am I the only one with a seemingly endless stack of cheeky anti-Bush t-shirts gathering dust in the closet? They make good painting clothes, that’s for sure. Maybe I could start a trend of calling the bush the “Obama” so I could just make a quick change with puffy paint or something and then bring on the “The only Obama I trust is my own” shirts.

Speaking of photos (and moving on from failed presidencies), when everything is all set I’m going to create the most massive post of all time with photos of every single inch of the new shop—so be excited about that, because YOU ARE GOING TO FREAK OUT ABOUT HOW AMAZING IT IS. Or, at the very least, about how much painting I did.

On a bitterer note: I am making a list of people not welcome at the shop, complete with photos! How terrible am I?

There are two people on the list so far, and I really hope it will stop there. I thought of several others I’m not thrilled about seeing, like the Women’s Studies prof who wrote the short story in which I am negatively featured as an overly chatty vag-blocker at a drinky party (truthfully, this 6-year-old story is sort of getting old as I’ve told it to everyone I know twice and I don’t even harbor any annoyance at said WST prof anymore, especially since I’m still besties with the dude she was flirting with—as well as his lovely wife, because some people understand that talking to a dude doesn’t mean you want to sleep with him, Ms. Women’s Studies Professor!),

or the woman to whom I once screamed “FUCK YOU” at a meeting of our organic food co-op (she responded in kind, don’t worry),

or the former Mayoral candidate who I gossiped about on Facebook last week without realizing we were Facebook friends (he instantly commented saying I was, in fact, incorrect in stating that he was “literally insane” [his grammar and spelling were a lot worse though] and we were off to the races after that. The next day 3 people stopped me on the street to thank me for the lolz.).

or that one former meal delivery client of mine who makes me crazy for a million trillion reasons,

or the other one who makes me crazy for a million trillion other reasons and recently ran into me in town and said, AND I QUOTE: “Yoo hoo!! Word on the street is you’re opening a chocolate shop! You’re going to have to deal with people! I can’t wait to stop in and witness the fireworks!!!”

or a dude who, at terrible Italian restaurant in Battery Park, I once had a heated discussion with about the music industry and the nature of selling out. This dude would *not* concede that I was right (selling out is still a sin), and I got a bit hot under the collar and screamed that he needed to “shut the fuck up” at the top of my lungs (naturally this happened just as the song coming over the speakers had ended, so the entire restaurant turned to look.). (We’ve made up, at a wedding last winter though, over whiskey and wine. All good.)

or the famous farmer around town with whom I once got into such a bizarrely heated and prolonged fight about the need for feminism that our respective partners were literally holding us apart, lest we punch each other.

or one of my former culinary school instructors, who was a really close pal until she stayed up all night once reading the old lagusta.com, which was a collection of essays written by yours truly about things like I write about here, and came into school the next day and told me my political views were so extreme she wanted to pretend I no longer existed.

or those two dudes on the internet who are always sending me crazy emails and Facebook messages about me not being vegan because of the honey thing and the used leather shoes thing.

or the proprietor, with whom I share a few pals, of a certain trendy NYC vegetarian restaurant, who I’ve talked some serious smack about because she talked some serious smack about hating vegans in the NYC papers. (every vegan knows the golden rule: you’re only allowed to complain about how 99% of vegans are insanely annoying to other vegans–not to the press, lady.)

or my scammer!

or this reallllllly annoying ad rep who keeps promising to write an article about my biz in exchange for taking an ad out in her paper and who emails me about every other day which boils my blood because my mother is a journalist and I know that that kind of quid pro quo is disgusting, yo! And also, I’ve told her a million times that I don’t do ads!

or this person who emailed me last week complaining about the rosemary caramels, AKA ONE OF THE BESTEST THINGS I MAKE, HANDS DOWN, saying that “my friend and I both agreed the rosemary was overwhelming. The next time you make a chocolate to donate to a charity, try to make one that tastes delicious.” and subsequently caused me to eat five caramels at once, shoving them into my maw and yelling “I’M EATING FIVE AT ONCE AND THE ROSEMARY STILL ISN’T OVERWHELMING! AND I HAVE A VERY SENSITIVE PALATE! PEOPLE ARE FREAKING INSANE!”

I’m beginning to think I could go on with this all night.

THE POINT IS:

None of these bonkers freakers am I banning from the shop. (Also: two glasses of wine + exhaustion + insane hyped-up energy created by thinking about all my enemies = very weird syntax)

You just can’t go around banning people from your capitalist enterprise, you know?

What am I, twelve?

Obviously I know that I’m going to have to sell chocolates to people whose political views or personal style or ways of being don’t line up with my own, and obviously I’m fine with that. Plus, as my work is my activism (as I so eloquently/bizarrely put it recently here, about halfway down, right before I started rapping), I want people to eat my chocos who aren’t anarchist vegan far-lefty man-hating feminists who have seen every episode of Arrested Development a minimum of four times. Conversion is the name of the game. (Ideally converting people to veganism, that is. But if I convert a few over to the side of Arrested Development who weren’t already on that team, that’s fine too.)

But:

The idea of the two people on my banned list eating my chocolates makes my heart hurt so bad, it’s a whole different level. Their nasty vibes would pollute the shop so terribly (and both have blogs that I mos def do not want to be featured on) that I decided that instead of worrying they were going to come in, I would preemptively kick them out. I’ve prepared a polite “we reserve the right to refuse service” speech and feel much calmer about the whole thing.

On a sweeter note: I’m also making a list of people in the neighborhood as I meet them, so I remember their names. I’m committing myself to remembering names these days, and have realized that the reason I never do is because I don’t pay any attention when people introduce themselves, usually because I’m so uptight about worrying that they won’t pronounce my own name right. This is all changing—I’m going to be that warm shop owner who greets regulars by name! FUCK YEAH!

Oh hey, that reminds me: how do you prefer to be treated when you enter a shop? I’ve been thinking about that lately.

I prefer:

• a lot of signage that will educate me about the products being sold that I can peruse (or not) at my leisure,
• to be greeted upon entry,
• then left alone unless I specifically ask a question.

I have a feeling I’m not the average consumer. If you’d share your thoughts on this, I’d be super appreciative. I can’t think of any better customers than you, the people who have put up with my rambles over the years and are still here.

I’m really excited about life right now, can you tell (except a wee bit depressed by realizing I have so many enemies)? I’m going for everything, balls out, 100%, on my terms.

It’s amazing. I feel powerful and proud, and the shop isn’t even open yet.

Yay!

OK, time for bed, and finishing up that New Yorker article about that dude doing those experiments about drummers and how they experience time differently than the rest of us. CRAZINESS.

THE WORLD IS FUCKING AMAZING, PEOPLE. IGNORE THE HATERS!

So we strolled into the Planning Board meeting tonight and chitchatted with everyone until the meeting began, and we were the first item on the agenda. Here’s how it went down:

“First of all, we’d asked you to come back here to discuss the sidewalk issue. After consulting with the Village lawyer, we’ve realized that the land in question is owned by the Village, so we can’t make you build a sidewalk on it.”

And that was that!

(I’m sure the letter from our lawyer had something to do with this realization.)

Phew! $1000 saved. As I’ve said: I love sidewalks, but paying $1000 for one, plus hiring a surveyor and engineer and submitting plans which would delay the chocolate shop opening by months, was, as you know, making me a crazy person.

How lovely it is to no longer be a crazy person. Seriously, what a difference a week makes. Jacob’s home again, plans for the shop are shaping up, Easter rush is subsiding. My mind is no longer a place I’m scared to visit.

Oh, and hey, if you’re local, our public hearing for the shop (after which the Special Use Permit will hopefully be granted and we can begin work) is May 3 at 7 PM. Feel free to come to New Paltz Village Hall and speak out in favor of an organic, fair-trade vegan chocolate shop in your town!

Good night!