Food & Drink #3

[peperomia]

Happy belated birthday, dear @peperomia ! Hope your vision is getting back to normal

The blue one! That's my favourite one <3 Thank you @Pocahontas, I really hope I didn't come across as fishing for birthday wishes sorry.

YY to the unsolicited business advice with the pissy undertone that you're being very negative and not trying hard enough to set up something you know there isn't a real market for and don't want to do

 

[Passive_Aggressive_Lemon]

I did some sewing and my mum some knitting to make baby items and bunting - I did some stalls and fairs but it was a lot of work for such little reward, I wasn't making any money after paying table fees and for materials, let alone any money for time (hah!). People would come up to the stall, call their friends over, pick up stuff and go "OH ISN'T THAT CUTE. SHAME IT'S SO EXPENSIVE" and then leave. I mean, £4 for knitted booties? £6 for a knitted hat that looks like a tomato? Ughhhhhhhhhh.

The last stall I did was at a Christmas market in my town, I had a teddy bear wearing some of the dribble bibs I'd made and a hat to make the display more interesting. I'd safety pinned the bears bum to table cloth which was good, as the number of unattended kids that came up and tried to grab him and take off? Spending a day smiling and having people tell you they could make all the stuff themselves? Exhausting.

Now my mum and I just make them for my friends who seem to be having a baby boom. Much more rewarding.

Honestly, I could have written this post Craft fairs are the worst!

I make baby items too.

 

[Mustard]

I used to do car boot sales a lot. I’d bake a batch of brownies the night before and cut them into small pieces and sell them on my table. They disappeared quickly. This was before brownies were everywhere. Mine were really good!

 

[Ellabella]

The McCoy Muchos are really good, much nicer than Doritos.

 

[Begborrowsteal]

I used to do car boot sales a lot. I’d bake a batch of brownies the night before and cut them into small pieces and sell them on my table. They disappeared quickly. This was before brownies were everywhere. Mine were really good!

Brownies are my absolute favourite

 

[Flumps]

There was a cake maker in my area who used to advertise in our local forum. It turned out that the pictures she was posting were taken from someone else’s site and she was called out on it. I don’t understand how anyone would have the chutzpah to do that.

Mad isn't it? Like I said, back when I first started seriously (around 2010) there really were a very limited number of people in the UK doing the sort of thing I've posted. I know it's pretty big business now, but 'modern' if you will cake decorating, particularly fancy cupcakes and stuff was very much taking off in 2009-2010. I was on a Flickr group back then with others in the UK doing it and the number of times we all gave each other heads up because cakes designs (and often actual photos) were being lifted and put on other people's sites was insane. Then you'd see their actual creations and there was such a gulf between them.

I often used to get customers asking me to recreate cakes they'd found online, which I always refused to do, because (a) it doesn't seem right and (b) I liked the creating a design aspect too. It's one thing to take inspiration from techniques etc, but another to lift someone else's design lock, stock.

I sew. People CONSTANTLY ask me why I don't sell the stuff I make. I have no interest in it - it would make me enjoy my hobby less, I have a career already, it would be hard to make money from it, and to be perfectly honest, I just wanna make stuff for myself. Especially because one of the main reasons to get into sewing is to make stuff to fit your particular body, which can take time to figure out.

The number of people who act like I'm a selfish witch for not using my hobby time to try to run a tit business I wouldn't enjoy is insane. I actually very rarely mention my sewing anymore, because the reaction is almost always, "Oh, let me give you unsolicited business advice!"

Yeh. It's just impossible to make money. I really, really tried. I threw myself at it for 2 years solidly, and it wasn't viable. I suppose it might have been if I could have done it without the necessity of maintaining a full time job, but I couldn't stop that, what with a mortgage to pay and all that gubbins.

And yes, vast majority of people just don't value your time at all. Or they see supermarket prices and think somehow a 3 tiered cake with handmade decorations, completely customised, should cost them the same as the mass-produced one from M&S. Then once people who weren't worried about making money from it entered the market and were advertising their services at cost prices (basically), then I knew it wasn't going anywhere.

I lost the love for it for a long time, because it turned from something I enjoyed into massively hard work, and even now, it's not the same as it was when I first started, so think you're very wise to ignore all the unsolicited advice.

 

[colouredlines]

It speaks so much to the state of the 21st century economy, where every single thing people do has to be monetised or presented as a side hustle. Nobody's allowed any downtime anymore, we all have to be working or trying to sell stuff in our 'spare time'.

They won't bleeping let it lie, either. I once wrote out a detailed response explaining that, with cost of materials and labour, I would be charging 100€ for a simple cotton dress I'd made.

The reply was something like "Oh that's a great price hun x" No it bleeping isn't!

Then I felt pissed off at myself for feeling the need to justify it from a profit POV. The simple fact is that I don't sew to sell because I don't want to, and that should be explanation enough.

 

[crystaleyesd]

Bonjour fraus. Just about to tuck into this in my apartment pour le dejeuner. Sadly couldn't find any yellow sticker chicken so I went for saussison sec, soft cheese, pork rillettes, baguette and a salad. And duck it a wine I'm on holiday. Also included a bonus hand cradling shot a la JM but sadly I brought clothes instead of camera equipment so a tongue shot was pas possible.

 

[emm]

Bonjour fraus. Just about to tuck into this in my apartment pour le dejeuner. Sadly couldn't find any yellow sticker chicken so I went for saussison sec, soft cheese, pork rillettes, baguette and a salad. And duck it a wine I'm on holiday. Also included a bonus hand cradling shot a la JM but sadly I brought clothes instead of camera equipment so a tongue shot was pas possible.

View attachment 195556

View attachment 195557

Soooo jealous looks amazing !

 

[Captainmouse]

I did some sewing and my mum some knitting to make baby items and bunting - I did some stalls and fairs but it was a lot of work for such little reward, I wasn't making any money after paying table fees and for materials, let alone any money for time (hah!). People would come up to the stall, call their friends over, pick up stuff and go "OH ISN'T THAT CUTE. SHAME IT'S SO EXPENSIVE" and then leave. I mean, £4 for knitted booties? £6 for a knitted hat that looks like a tomato? Ughhhhhhhhhh.

The last stall I did was at a Christmas market in my town, I had a teddy bear wearing some of the dribble bibs I'd made and a hat to make the display more interesting. I'd safety pinned the bears bum to table cloth which was good, as the number of unattended kids that came up and tried to grab him and take off? Spending a day smiling and having people tell you they could make all the stuff themselves? Exhausting.

Now my mum and I just make them for my friends who seem to be having a baby boom. Much more rewarding.

That gif is soo cute

 

[panda_eyes]

That gif is soo cute

It's a mochimochi - I have some of her books but alas, I cannot knit that small! Such cute little gnomes and creatures and GIFS

 

[Pocahontas]

Bonjour fraus. Just about to tuck into this in my apartment pour le dejeuner. Sadly couldn't find any yellow sticker chicken so I went for saussison sec, soft cheese, pork rillettes, baguette and a salad. And duck it a wine I'm on holiday. Also included a bonus hand cradling shot a la JM but sadly I brought clothes instead of camera equipment so a tongue shot was pas possible.

View attachment 195556

View attachment 195557

Tres belle!

I remember you saying you hated the film Eat, Pray Love, but the bread, the light streaming in the windows and whole mise en scene is giving me major EPL vibes (even though she’s in Italy and eats completely different things, but you know what I mean).
Delicious!

I did some sewing and my mum some knitting to make baby items and bunting - I did some stalls and fairs but it was a lot of work for such little reward, I wasn't making any money after paying table fees and for materials, let alone any money for time (hah!). People would come up to the stall, call their friends over, pick up stuff and go "OH ISN'T THAT CUTE. SHAME IT'S SO EXPENSIVE" and then leave. I mean, £4 for knitted booties? £6 for a knitted hat that looks like a tomato? Ughhhhhhhhhh.

The last stall I did was at a Christmas market in my town, I had a teddy bear wearing some of the dribble bibs I'd made and a hat to make the display more interesting. I'd safety pinned the bears bum to table cloth which was good, as the number of unattended kids that came up and tried to grab him and take off? Spending a day smiling and having people tell you they could make all the stuff themselves? Exhausting.

Now my mum and I just make them for my friends who seem to be having a baby boom. Much more rewarding.

I know someone who’s expecting a baby soon, on this very thread

 

[crystaleyesd]

JM'S BACK EVERYONE. Back to the mother thread!

 

[Alansbigplate]

Babe, same. I feel like lockdown and the straightforward rules of it helped my anxiety so much in a way I didn't even recognise at the time. Now I'm back to making my own decisions and thinking about things, plus the extra mind-admin (so well described by @heretoreaditall2019 before) is creeping back up again and it's making me feel shakey in a way I haven't felt for months. @Nottonightbabe and @help i need some help! - hope you're doing ok. x

And I get cross with myself too, because none of it is really a big deal. All I need to do today is remember stuff I need to take with me as I'm off to my partner's for a few days, but it's his birthday, so there's presents, and food and just *extra* to remember. Even though I know he would be a bit annoyed at me for worrying about it, because he knows what I am like and would much rather I forgot things and was calm, than remembered everything and arrived in a state!

Also venturing out into the world means remembering extra bits and rules (masks etc). My mum and I were saying yesterday it's like the days of going out with a baby/toddler, where you have to plan a trip out like a military operation instead of grabbing your keys and going. Feel a bit daft complaining about it, because it's not exactly the worst thing in the world, but I don't know, it's just extra and I liked the calmness of before.

Anyway, I think we should all be extra kind to ourselves and realise that the weird times are properly not helping and to take it easy, generally and on beating ourselves up. I'm now off to write lists obsessively and not take my own advice.

Totally understand, anything out of the ordinary or change to routine just makes me anxious. Hope you have a good time celebrating x

Bonjour fraus. Just about to tuck into this in my apartment pour le dejeuner. Sadly couldn't find any yellow sticker chicken so I went for saussison sec, soft cheese, pork rillettes, baguette and a salad. And duck it a wine I'm on holiday. Also included a bonus hand cradling shot a la JM but sadly I brought clothes instead of camera equipment so a tongue shot was pas possible.

View attachment 195556

View attachment 195557

That looks diviiiiiine

 

[Lornadoom]

@Flumps All your cakes look so delightful, especially the tiny dainty figures having a picnic. I am also really happy that your husband has found a new and better job.

@crystaleyesd That all looks so très délicieux. So immensely glad you seem to have forgotten your Nutribullet

 

[HarderFaster]

A published author you say?

Only frigging boring books, tbf. I'll let you all know when I finally get around to the novel or the raunchy memoir.

Totally agree on the ubiquity of the side hustle as a sad indictment of society: saw my niece on Saturday and she was saying that alongside her full time apprenticeship she is starting a business selling homemade cosmetics on Etsy and I was like, cool, I guess, but the way she and my stepson were discussing it was like it was a pre-requisite to achieving any hint of success, and I felt so sad that their grandparents could work in unskilled but stable and relatively well paid jobs, afford their own homes and afford to retire, while they will probably never achieve that and blame themselves.

Sorry that was a bleeping enormous sentence and I'm too lazy to go back and add full stops.

 

[Toffee finger]

@peperomia belated Happy Birthday!

@Mustard I had a very tasty brownie for my snack today but if you want to send me some of yours to compare I would be very willing

Ahahaha honestly, no hard feelings. To gain perspective I should just look at the actual books I've published but Tattle is its own petty microcosm.

Jack is that you?! Haha!
Thanks Very intrigued as to what books you’ve published now!

 

[Mel Donte]

Time for a very late lunch - a burrito with refried beans, garlicky rice, Oumph kebab pieces and salsa. I made the refried beans with black beans instead of pinto beans because I'm a maverick like that

 

[emm]

Time for a very late lunch - a burrito with refried beans, garlicky rice, Oumph kebab pieces and salsa. I made the refried beans with black beans instead of pinto beans because I'm a maverick like that

yummmm how did you makethe refried beans? i alwYs buy them im also havinh a late lunch ot tortilla with a totally random filling of salad, avo and these oven baked veggie sticks. trying to use up stuff i have

 

[Mel Donte]

yummmm how did you makethe refried beans? i alwYs buy them im also havinh a late lunch ot tortilla with a totally random filling of salad, avo and these oven baked veggie sticks. trying to use up stuff i have

I cook an onion and several cloves of garlic in vegetable oil, then add cumin and chilli powder and beans (rinsed, obv). Cook for a bit longer then add dried oregano and coriander, some boullion powder, liquid smoke and lime juice. Blend using a stick blender whilst adding water a little at a time until you get the desired consistency.