Thanks so much to those of you who came by yesterday, and especially for the support we’ve received from the Hudson community!

Yesterday was  a great day of getting to know the space, figuring out where the cash register is and where the spoons are kept.

Today we have a range of offerings similar to yesterday’s, and we’re also going to be serving Strongtree Coffee. The ever-friendly Sebastian will be on hand today as the guy-behind-the-counter, and Nick and I will probably stop in during the day to check things out. We hope we see you there, even if it’s just to take a quick look around.

It’s been about a month or so since our last post, because we’ve been working our tails off (and Nick’s been traveling like a baseball team). Since then we’ve found that we’re not selling our stuff at Hawthorne Valley Farm, and we are selling at the Philmont Public House, Chatham Farmers Market and Hudson-Chatham Winery. Hawthorne Valley? No clue, other than they decided to go it themselves and we wish them luck with that. Chatham Farmers Market? We’ve been finding that the farmers markets are the best single way to get our stuff out there, and we’re loving it.

Yesterday we spent about four hours at the Sangria Tasting Day at Hudson-Chatham Winery on Route 66 in Chatham, NY. HCW was doing its annual Sangria day, food was provided by Mexican Radio, the Hudson- and New York City-based Mexican restaurant and hot sauce shop (delicious flautas, guac and chips and other spicy and sweet sauces). And we were doing Mexican Wedding Cookies, quark-cake, lemon-glazed butterfly cookies, cheesesticks, croissants, petits-fours (almond cream, dark chocolate and fresh, local and organic fruit like Saturn peaches and blueberries). We sold out in about two hours, though we should have brought more.

Today we’re doing the Philmont Farmers Market, with much the same offerings. Two things we’ll be discussing in these pages soon: Christmas gift baskets and fine pastry school at Corinna’s Comestibles in Harlemville. Stay tuned!

Last week at Ginsberg’s 100th Anniversary we had a blow-out - what a great time. First, we met a host of local vendors, from O’Kenny’s Express in Valatie/Kinderhook - maker of some really nice pulled pork and pulled chicken - to Grandpa Pete’s sauces in Catskill to local farmers. We also joined Columbia County Bounty, a trade group promoting Columbia County (New York) agriculture and artisan products like ours.

Speaking of those, we sold out in two hours. Some of this was due to Nancy Ginsberg’s generous purchase of a slew of our products - ham and cheese, mushroom and cheese and plain croissants, plus some of our three-inch cheesecakes, the petits four and cheesesticks.

The only thing that didn’t go fast was the bread, but we’re thrilled about that - now we have a couple loaves for our house!

We also met up with a man we’ve been seeking for some time: out local sheeter and bakery supply repair place! He came by this week and was able to help out with the sheeter (we’re likely upgrading) and some other things.

We’re also very proud to announce two new customers, which I’ll do in a post tomorrow morning.

We’re stoked about the week - apologies for the radio silence, but I’ve been heads down on some consulting work and Corinna’s been swamped in the kitchen, but it’s been a really great week over at Corinna’s.

We’re putting out several posts over the next couple of days; two new customers (Hawthorne Valley Farm Store and Kaaterskill Farm Store), some awesome sales and feedback at Chatham Real Food Market Coop, and some exciting new stores that we’re in discussions with.

Also I’m going to blog about the fantastic service we got from our local printer, Pro Printers, where Ryan went above and beyond to help us out. We’re also going to talk about last Saturday at the Hudson Farmer’s Market, where we met several local producers (mushrooms, cheese, eggs and veggies) and lest I forget, the new line of ham and cheese croissants that are selling out every time we bring them out.

But first, lemme tell you about tomorrow’s Ginsberg’s 100th Anniversary Open House. We’re there, under the big top with an array of goodies for sale. We’ll have ham and cheese, plain, almond and chocolate crouissants, of course.

We’ll also have, for sale for the first time Corinna’s quark-cakes. These are real German cheese cake, made with Quark and not Philadelphia - they’re three inches wide and about four and a half inches high and topped with a delicate  tuile butterfly cookie. Delicate and substantial, satisfying but not overly filling. Five bucks.

There’ll also be cheese sticks, lemon petits four, lemon tartlets, rye bread and  palmiers. We hope to see you there - Route 66 near Route 9H!

Last night at the Chatham Real Food Market Coop, Corinna and I set out to do a three-hour product demo, but we sold out after a bit under two hours.

These are good problems to have!

The crowds were good - usually we had several people at a time - and some were pushing others out of the way to get tastes. We went through about three dozen croissants, a gaggle of lemon-curd petit-fours, and about two dozen cheese sticks.

Meanwhile, across the room, the cash register was singing as people bought. This was a great way to get out and meet customers and describe what we do, and we’re very grateful to Marcie at the market for the opportunity.

One thing she noticed yesterday was that the ham and cheese croissants and the cheese sticks sold especially well; today’s order out to the market will contain more of those.
Today we’re off to make deliveries to the Market and Strongtree, plus checking out the Hudson Farmers’ Market.

We’re proud and honored to announce that Corinna’s Croissants are available at the Chatham Real Food Market Coop in Chatham, NY. We’re so excited because we love shopping at the Real Food Market Coop - it recently built out from a farmers’ market to a full-fledged community resource, and it has a truly wonderful selection of extremely high quality locally-produced goods including some wonderful breads, a vast assortment of locally produced fruits and vegetables, and organic goods.  There’s a little cafe, and many people pop by for coffee break, lunch and snacks.

Chatham Real Food was founded with the specific goal of strengthening our rural community. It works with local farmers to develop our food security, and with local artisans, farmers and other producers to help build a healthy local economy in our county. The Market is a cooperatively-owned outlet for the products of local farms and kitchens, provides education about Columbia County agriculture, and promotes a more localized food system.

To some of those ends, Corinna’s baked goods will be available at the Coop from next Friday, May 22, when we deliver an assortment of croissants and cheese sticks at 10 am, in time for coffee-break.

Then, later on Friday, May 22, from 4-7pm, Corinna and I will be at the market doing a tasting and demonstration of the products. Come on out and join us for some fantastic new stuff, to talk baking and swap baking tips and tricks. There will be Mexican food available, so Corinna will bring along a batch of her seriously decadent Mexican Wedding Cookies - pecan-packed, confectioners-sugar-coated diet-busting cluster bombs.

We’re very happy to be selling at the market, and hope to see you there!

Last night in Hudson we spent about an hour at Strongtree Organic Coffee Roasters, where Nora Edison and Chris Neumann were setting up for their ’soft open’. The coffees were fantastic, with Chris driving their massive espresso machine and Nora doing filter coffee. We stood chatting with the crowds - in from the Amtrak from New York and pressing their noses against the glass - and talking pastry, because we’d brought boxes of plain and sugared croissants, quark-berry bear claws, chocolate croissants and palmiers.

They went pretty fast!  Strongtree is an interesting place. Nora and Chris say that they set up a successful organic, Fair Trade coffee roasting business in Gainesville, FL - a very cool University town in north central Florida - but that it got too big, and that at the scale they attained it lost appeal. Seems that once you get that big in the coffee business it’s fairly impersonal and all about the numbers.

So they sold out and packed up and came to the frigid northeast. The location they have, directly across the street from the Hudson, NY Amtrak depot, is inspired. Many was the day that I made that early morning slog to New York City and wished to Heaven that I could have a real cup of coffee and some kind of pastry. The problem that Strongtree had was that Chris and Nora are coffee people - serious coffee people - and therefore didn’t put in a kitchen (talk about understanding your area of competence and outsourcing the rest!).

But they were surprised to see that there just wasn’t a whole lot available in the way of ready-to-eat high-quality wholesale food on order. Nora said that they had basically given in to selling pre-packaged baked goods until we walked in.

That speaks directly to why we set this up in the first place:  we just couldn’t find anything like what we’re doing within a 30 mile radius. Even if there were, we think there’s always room for high quality stuff, so we weren’t worried about competing with other businesses too much, and we think we’re complementary to a lot of what’s currently out there. But for not that much of a premium (sometimes none) we think - and apparently do Norah and Chris - that there’s room for some high end stuff as well.

Srongtree’s customers definitely agreed last night, if the reactions to the arrival of this stuff was any indicator (and if it wasn’t, the moans of ‘Oh, wow!’ when they tasted it certainly were!).

So we’re thrilled to have our second official outlet. There are five more in the planning, tasting, testing stage, and I’ll write about those as we hear reactions from them.

Ginsberg’s Foods, on Route 66 in Hudson, NY, is celebrating its 100th Anniversary. To celebrate its history and its ties to the community, it’s opening its warehouse and market to the public on May 30th. There’ll be product samplings, facility tours and a farmers market that will feature local produce and products from area artisans and food purveyors.

Of course, Corinna’s Comestibles will be there with a range of its baked goods - not sure what we’ll do in addition to the usual products, but there’ll be something special.

We’re customers of Ginsberg’s for our non-Organic bulk merchandise, like unbleached flour from employee-owned King Arthur flours in Norwich, VT.  We were thrilled to run into Nancy Ginsberg yesterday when we were over at Kaaterskill Farm Natural Storehouse which has re-opened in Hudson - though we had no idea who she was other than the first person to buy one of our quark-berry bear claws! As we were speaking with her, she said, ‘Oh, I run Ginsberg’s. We love real food and local products - hey, we’re having a farmer’s market later this month, you should come!’

Well, yeah! So we’re there. With bells on.

By the way, we’re also speaking with Sebastian at the Philmont Farmer’s Market - that is a really exciting piece of local commerce that we were happy to become involved in about a month ago. We’ll blog on that soon.

The Ginsberg’s celebration:

Where: Route 66, 1 mile west of Route 9H;
When: Saturday, May 30th, 2009 10am-3pm
Contact: Deanna@bakerpublicrelations.com