Reality Checks.

Well. It's been a while since I hit the blogosphere. I've missed it, but it's been so busy getting the truck up and running, trying to manage the other aspects of the business, taking on additional TV spots, catering, teaching and doing those bits of life like keeping a moderately tidy house and walking my dog that I haven't blogged. I'm behind on a lot of stuff, really, and just trying to keep it all together.

Neat stuff is going on, though!

We're parked on UOttawa Campus, and we're rocking it. We moved to a more central location this last Monday, and our sales shot up, making me glad once again we are in a truck and can just pick up and move if a place isn't working out.
The students are really enjoying our food, and I think the real goodness of it is striking a chord. One thing that has really surprised me is the increasing popularity of our apple cider, which, in reality, is just apple cider with a bit of cinnamon. It's pretty straightforward, but the students are talking about it a lot, and coming up asking for it after hearing about it (don't worry, we're still selling tons of soup).

It hit me yesterday. The fact that it's actual apple cider. It's real. It's just food. It's food. Real food.From apples. From an orchard. Pressed by people. Who live at their orchard. Who bring me the cider. And we heat it up. With cinnamon. Just food.  And it's sort of hard to get real food. Quickly. Affordably. And then it hit me. Holy crap. My mission to connect people with real food is working. And people WANT real food. With substance. With health. With love. With justness and realness and wholeness. And people really want this, this real food. And it's shockingly hard to get real food. As a young woman said over her cell, as she stopped in front of the truck, "woah- it's like fast food, only all healthy, and GOOD." I'm amazed at how unique this is.

We made French Onion Soup this week, and despite the challenges of making Grazing Days Bone Broth in a limited space time continuum, it was worth it. Thanks to Adventures of An Ottawa Foodie for the blog post and the picture!

And yeah, it's funny it took me the cider to recognize this, but it's what we're doing. We have lineups at lunch now, and we are getting BUSY.  I had to cook extra after we closed down this week as we ran out, and ran out again.

I can't do it alone, though, and as usual, I have tons of great help. The lovely Clare has returned to her summer work (sigh) but wonderful Julie is with me still, and we're adding a couple of young folks to our mix. I'm going to start taking an afternoon or two away from the truck so I can manage the paperwork and planning that I have been frightfully neglecting, and plot our next move (a trailer with our solar generating equipment that doubles as storage space for our cool foods in summer, summer menus, the next truck- as if we stay on campus we need a second truck for festivals, classes, the ideas are infinite, the resources, finite). My brother is planning again, so brilliant!

That's the stone soup news. On to the heap of paper. Egads.