Butcher Apprenticeship

Hi folks, It's Andy!  Sarah asked me to chime in on the blog and write about my Butcher's Apprenticeship with Fleisher's in New York.  Fleisher's is one of the top butcher shops in the country and was recently selected as the 5th best butcher shop in the US by The Daily Meal (food & drink media company).  Fleisher's specializes in whole animal butchery and uses the entire animal, letting nothing go to waste.  Fleisher's sources its meat from local New York farms.  All of the meat that comes in is pastured and fed a natural diet (i.e. grass-fed) with no hormones, antibiotics, etc.  Fleisher's is the real deal and this shop runs a lot of animals through each week.  My job is to break down whole animals into retail case-ready cuts......and I am loving it!     

Butcher Apprenticeship:

Both Sarah and I thought it would be a good idea if one of us knew how to cut meat since we are opening a butcher shop (it seemed like an important step)!  There are very few places that break down whole animals and are willing to train rookies in the lost art of craft butchery.  Fleisher's was the perfect fit!  Fleisher's loves to work with people passionate about whole animal butchery and provides an intensive 12-week apprenticeship program.  During the 12-weeks students learn to break lamb, pork, and beef while also learning the business of running a butcher shop.     

I am 8-weeks through my 12-week apprenticeship.  It has been a crazy adventure!!  Two months ago I was cranking out Excel spreadsheets and now I am tearing apart whole-animals!  Below, I have provided some of the highlights of my experience so far. 

Animal Delivery Day:  Animals typically come in on Monday and Tuesday.  There is a sense of thrill in the air when Mitch, the guy who delivers the animals, shows up with 20 sides of pig, 12 lambs, and 20 quarters of beef.  Mitch is ridiculously jacked from lifting animals all day!  Seeing all of the animals come in and digging your knives/saws in for those first cuts is awesome.  It is also sweet seeing the room, which on Tuesday is full of hanging carcasses, deplete to empty over the course of the week.

A fresh batch of lambs ready to butcher!!

Strength and Conditioning:  I am getting stronger every day.  All of the cutting and lifting is really improving my upper body strength.  I was ridiculously sore the first couple weeks!! Luckily, the soreness is going away and I am on a daily regimen of Advil and stretching!

The Butcher Boy!
(dry-aged ribs and loins in the background)

Knives:  I have a new knife fetish.  Every morning begins with a ritualistic knife sharpening.  It is very rhythmic and relaxing to sharpen knives.  I can tell my knife is sharp when I can easily shave off some of my arm hair!  My left arm has a huge bald spot!  

Using my incredibly sharp 8" breaking knife to break the shoulder off a pig.

The Band Saw:  I also now have a band saw fetish.  I was scared to use the band saw at first and I strictly adhere to my instructor's advice regarding the band saw:  "Respect the f*#k out of the band saw."  

There she is!  The band saw!

My New Diet:  I get to take home meat most nights.  It is part of the experience and it is really important to understand how to properly cook all of the different cuts.  In the beginning, I would just eat the meat with nothing else (no veggies, bread, etc. mainly because I was too tired to cook anything else after a long day of cutting!).  This all meat diet is right up my alley.  Sarah and the other apprentices, however, have convinced me to start introducing vegetables into the routine, so I have been slowly adding veggies to the diet!

Dinner is Served!  A true butcher's dinner!  No veggies allowed!

New York City:  NYC is amazing and there are so many things to do and good meals to eat!!  My favorite meal so far is the Momofuku Ramen from the Momofuku noodle bar in Manhattan.  Ridiculous!

The Momofuku Ramen with a beer and a glass of Sake!

Slaughter:  For some sick un-explainable reason, I really enjoy attending and participating in slaughters. There is something very exhilarating and exiting about the slaughter.  I really enjoy seeing the true farm to table process of a live animal to pork-chops and steaks!  I have included several photos of a pig slaughter and a goat slaughter.  If you are squeamish, I recommend looking away!    

Me "Sticking" the pig. 

Clean-up time!

Two fellow butchers, Hannah and Jon, skinning a goat.

Hannah cutting off the goat's head at the atlas joint.  

Master Butcher Hans Sebold pulling the insides of a recently slaughtered pig. 

Sausage Making:  I love making sausage!!  Mostly, I enjoy the recipe development.  I am currently working on a sausage inspired by a recipe from my old boss at Gallo who is from South Africa.  The sausage is a South African Boerewors and I call it, the "George."  

Camaraderie:  When you spend the entire day around a butcher's table cutting meat you develop great friendships with the other guys around the table.  I am doing the apprenticeship with two other students, Evan and David (Jonesy).  Jonesy and Evan have been a big part of my experience here in New York!  Evan is planning to open up a butcher shop in Grand Rapids, MI.  Jonesy is moving to Palo Alto after the apprenticeship and hopefully he will come help me cut meat out west!  The only thing better than breaking animals, is breaking animals with good people!

Evan Carrying a Lamb

  

Jonesy

Overall, the apprenticeship so far has been an incredible experience.  The stresses of being a butcher are much different than the stresses associated with corporate life.  At the end of each day, I am completely exhausted, but it is physical exhaustion vs. mental exhaustion.  I really enjoy seeing the meat come in and go out each week. I also get a great sense of achievement turning a room full of animal carcasses into beautiful case ready cuts, bacon, ham, sausage, stock, and other wonderful things!  The main negative here is being away from Sarah and the baby-on-the-way!  Only one month left until I get to go home to my beautiful wife and our new son to be.  Harold!    

 

Too Bad I Already Used the Title "New York, New York!"

Andy and I were pretty wildly busy through August - we moved from Modesto to the ranch, worked our part time jobs (Andy for Gallo, me for my family's business) and did everything we could to get the new house organized and ready for the baby who will be joining us this Christmas.  We had a lot to jam pack into that month since Andy's butchery apprenticeship started in early September and would be keeping him away until two weeks before our due date!  Here's hoping the doctors got that due date right...

Andy's a little more easy going than I am.  I'm kind of a planner.  So when it came to the big trip to NY, you can imagine I'd spent some time planning how it would all go down.  We were going to arrive in Brooklyn on Wednesday night before his first day of work the following Monday - this would give us plenty of time to outfit his room, test out his commute, and explore the neighborhood.  Then while he was working I was going to get together with all of my NY friends, and pop up to Boston to see a few more.  I had us booked for a clam bake birthday party in Westchester one of the weekends with friends.  The only thing I hadn't managed to cook up was a weekend in the Hamptons!

So, you can imagine how I felt when during our layover in Denver, Andy reaches out to his new roommate to let him know what time we'd be arriving and we find out there is no blow up mattress to borrow (there had been three), and no one would be able to meet us at the apartment for like 4 hours after we were planning to arrive.  On this very same layover Andy gets an email from Fleisher's, that due to a construction delay the first week of his apprenticeship would be in Kingston in the Hudson River Valley, two hours upstate instead of Brooklyn!  I about had a heart attack.  Every single thing I had planned was completely busted.

And, somehow - it all worked out for the better!

13 Highlights from my 13 days in NY (Andy's first 13 of like 100!)

1. Rented a full-size Silverado truck upon arrival at LaGuardia so that we could drive to IKEA and buy a bed.  That's literally the biggest truck I've ever driven.  If only I hadn't gotten that parking ticket for parking in the street cleaning zone on the one and only day we had the darned thing!!

The girl at the counter at budget thought I was crazy for renting this thing.  Oh, and she gave me like 10 restaurant recommendations.  I thought that was pretty awesome.  She was concerned that I get the best Brooklyn had to offer since I was eating for two!!

2. Bushwick food.  Bushwick, the Brooklyn neighborhood Andy lives in for the next three months is a really family-oriented neighborhood, and from our limited exposure seems like it is mostly made up of immigrants from Central and South America.  His apartment is surrounded by dollar stores and amazing ethnic food restaurants.  We tried Venezuelan, El Salvadorean, Mexican, and Dominican in just the few days we had to explore.  Yum.  If you're in the area check out Arepera Guacuco.  Probably our favorite.

Andy lives right upstairs from Cutie Baby.  Maybe he'll get a chance to shop for some baby gear in his free time...hahaha...

3. Central Park - one of the only NYC places Andy really wanted to see was Central Park, so we went on a self-guided walking tour of Manhattan and the highlight was the park.  Unfortunately it was like 85 degrees and humid, so I was dragging, but I have to give it NY.  The park is gorgeous.  Unfortunately around every corner I see a grass knoll or a bridge that I recognize from a Law and Order SVU episode....

I wish I'd been wearing shorts.  Hot+Humid+Pregnant=Uncomfortable...

4. The St. James House in Kingston NY.  I was kind of a slacker and didn't take any pictures of my own, so you have to just check it out on airbnb.  When Fleisher's changed our venue for the week, they put us up in this really cool 1890's renovated house in walking distance to uptown Kingston.  Gorgeous.

5. Watching the Bronco's whoop on the NY Giants at a NY sports bar.  Andy was wearing his Bronco's hat, but otherwise we were exceptionally polite and low-key.  Nice win Peyton.

6. Homemade beef tallow mint flavored soap.  This is one of the products that Fleisher's makes as part of it's "Whole Animal Butchery".  Not only is it using a part of the cow that would otherwise be thrown away, but it's also delightful.  Note to self: learn how to make soap.

7. Hans Sebold, master butcher.  Once again, as part of the last minute plan change, Fleishers let Andy and I and the other two new apprentices join in on a class called "Pig to Pork".  The teacher, Hans Sebold, is quite a character.  He has been a butcher since the 1950s - apprenticed in Bavaria, Germany as a teenager, and after a long career as a butcher here in the states spent 20 years teaching the meat class at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) in NY.  He had visited most of the big slaughterhouses and meat processing facilities and peppered his slaughter and butchery demonstrations with stories about how they do this on the largest scale. Such a wild comparison to slaughter and butcher one pig and compare with how facilities that process thousands in one day must do it!

Hans teaching us a thing or two about what to look for in a liver...

8. Boston - I did manage to still sneak up to Boston even though all our plans changed.  Needed to meet Helen Marrow and Mike Redd's two kids and see Dan Hatfield and the rest of Boston crew before a newborn makes it tougher for me to get back East for social visits.  Loved Cuchi Cuchi, dinner with everyone at Cambridge Brewing, cupcakes in Davis Square, Peruvian chicken, Dan's Mom's chocolate ganache cake (wait - how did this many meals fit into two days?!)  Love you guys!

9. Non-Traditional Chicken Coops.  As part of our upstate NY week of programming, Fleisher's sent us to J+D Farms, which is owned by one of Fleisher's investors, Mark Justh (Princeton class of '87 - so I was able to ask him how cool Brooke Sheilds and Dean Cain were.  Evidently both were friends...love a good Princeton round of the name game!!).  Mark toured us around his very impressive farm - he raises a lot of livestock and is the biggest producer of organic hay in the area.  I had two favorites - the first were these chicken coops - he's got an old RV, an old horse trailer, and an old school bus that he's gutted, painted red, and outfitted with chicken coop amenities for the layers.  He drags them to new grass every day, and these chickens are living the life.  So creative, Mark!!

10. Baby pigs. Enough said.

11. Slaughter Day - Shiloh, Andy's primary teacher in this butchery apprenticeship arranged for the guys to join him at a farm in New Paltz to have a chance to each slaughter a pig.  Some of you will think this is really gross, so I guess try to not look at the next picture, but the reality of this day was that it was a real coming of age moment for Andy.  Any of you who are hunters have experienced the power and responsibility that comes with taking another animals life.  It's both awesome, and humbling at the same time.  Andy did an amazing job (he kind of did it perfect, first try), so I'm really proud of him.  This was a big deal.  Ok, just one picture - close your eyes if you're not cool with it!

12. East Village and Williamsburg - we discovered that via the L train it's really easy to get to these two awesome neighborhoods from Andy's apartment.  I'm pretty sure Andy is going to make me jealous on a weekly basis by eating at awesome restaurants with his NY friends while I sit at home enjoying the best of Vacaville, which is pretty much my home cooking...just kidding Vacaville, I know there are some good restaurants here!

Dessert after a delicious dinner at Northern Spy in the East Village.

13.  Getting a hug from my pup when I got home.  Man, I missed this little guy.  Now I need to get used to missing Andy instead of Jack.  Hopefully Andy will surprise me and come out for a visit since I'll be too far along in the pregnancy to fly pretty soon!

Jack sleeping on Andy's pillow, keeping me company.

Good luck in the apprenticeship Andy, and chime in with a post one of these days to tell us what you've been learning.  Or, maybe you can share with our readers a few tips from the diet you've been on since you started working at Fleisher's!

Movin' On Up!

I've been sidetracked a bit over the last few weeks by the more typical and mundane aspects of making our transition from corporate life to ranch living.  Organizing.  Packing.  Real Estate Negotiations.  Home Inspections.  Yada, yada, yada...

But, there's one thing about our move that is anything but typical.  As Americans most of us subscribe to the theory that "bigger is better" and we progress throughout our lives accumulating nicer stuff and bigger homes to enjoy that stuff in.  When I think back on the tiny bedroom I shared junior year of college with Kate and Laurie, where we literally had to build a custom loft in order to fit all three beds in the room; how did we do it?!  Then my first post-college apartment with three roommates, my next with two roommates, before I finally I got my own apartment!  Followed quickly by buying a townhouse, then upgrading to a luxury condo, before Andy and I bought this beautiful 2,000 sq ft Tudor Home built in 1940.  Hardwood throughout, granite counter tops, even a koi pond.  It's perfect.  The obvious next step would have been to wait until we had a few kids, then upgraded to 3,000+ sq ft home with some bonus rooms and a pool to keep everyone entertained.  But, we veered off this track.

Onto one that won't support the mindless consumption we were falling into.  Since we're going to be starting a business we're going to need all our cash to invest in that.  And, the monthly expenses that we currently tolerate (because we can afford them) won't be doable in our new reality.  So, the buck stops here!

We're not moving into a bigger house.  And prepare yourself, because this is kind of hilarious.  We're moving into a 1,000 sq ft mobile home.  Yeah.  It's a lot like the ones you see in those trailer parks you drive by, but probably newer and nicer.  They don't do wood paneling on the inside anymore - it's just drywall.  And for the record, granite counter tops were an option, but we declined.  Went for the laminate (but with the rounded edge.  Clutch.)  For those of you who are curious you can check out the floor plan (see below).  We opted for the master bath, and also added on a front porch coming off the end with the kitchen.  It may not look like much on paper, but wait until you see photos of the views.  I know I've been slow to start sharing photos of the ranch, but stay tuned.  We'll be there in a month, and we'll all get our fill!

Home Sweet Home - all 1,000 sq ft of it...

One of the biggest things I'm preparing for is that there is literally no extra storage space.  There are closets in the bedrooms, and a pantry, but no hall closet - no 400 sq ft basement like the one we have filled with stuff in our current house.  Which means, my work is cut out for me.  Craigslist and thrift stores are my friends, and we're going to have to learn to live with much less.  Funny enough I'm excited for the challenge.  Andy's the king of frugal living, so this challenge was made for him!

If you have a chance, share any tips/tricks that you've found help you live lighter.  Do more with less.  Or, any organization/storage ideas that might be lifechangers for us!

And, please don't start collecting "trailer trash" jokes to use on us.  Actually, I take that back - we'll probably get a kick out of them.

Another Whirlwind Tour

I bet you've never been to TEN butcher shops in a day.  And if by some stroke of crazy you have, I bet you were really pissed that you couldn't find whatever obscure ingredient you were looking for!

Andy and leave for Seattle tomorrow morning to go to the funeral of my absolutely amazing grandma Hilda.  (As an aside - check out this blog that my cousin made that shares her story.  What an inspiration she was to all of us!)  Since we're getting into town a day early, we thought we could maximize the trip by scoping out the Seattle meat scene.  Hopefully we'll pick up some ideas that we like and can incorporate into our store! 

We're going to head straight up from the airport to:
1. Bob's Quality Meats
2. The Swinery
3. Salumi (this is our planned lunch break - the sandwiches and the charcuterie plate sound out of control!!)
4. Don & Joe's Meats 
5. BB Ranch Butcher (4,5 are in Pike's Place Market I think)
6. Rain Shadow Meats
7. A&J Meats and Seafood
8. Bill the Butcher (Magnolia)
9. Cascioppo Brothers Italian
10. Better Meat Inc.
11. Bill the Butcher (Wallingford)

Seattle folks - are there any gems that I missed?

I did a similar tour of San Francisco a few weeks ago, and to be honest it gets pretty monotonous by the end - just another butcher shop, you know.  But, I learned a lot about what works and what doesn't.  Some of the key things I noticed was that a bunch of shops had display cases that were completely foggy - you couldn't even see the product!  I couldn't believe it.  And, almost none of the shops I went to told the story about the meat - where it was from, how it was raised, etc.  Exceptions to that complaint in SF were Olivier's Butchery and Marina Meats, but most the rest made you ask, and even then many didn't know.

When we get our shop up and running we want to really tell a story - as a new customer walks in we want them to leave from their first visit with a pretty good idea of what we're all about.  Funny that's the biggest lesson learned.  Totally Business School 101; Have a vision/mission and build your business incorporating that purpose into all aspects of what you do.

So, what's your favorite butcher shop and why do you like it?  Or, if you don't have a favorite, is there a horror story?  Leave it in a comment here on the blog - I can't wait to take your recommendations and put together our next market survey!

New York, New York!

Just when I thought I had used up my last juicy tidbit of news, Andy and I went and made more.

No, we're not having twins....

Andy is going to New York!!  He has been accepted as an apprentice at Fleisher's Grass Fed and Organic Meats in Brooklyn.  It's a three month program and he'll be starting in September.  Over the three months he'll graduate from lamb to pork to beef.   Throughout the apprenticeship he'll also be learning about sausage-making and other products Fleisher's makes (they're adamant about using the whole animal so they even sell homemade stocks, soap, and liver treats for dogs).  From ASU MBA Finance Student of the Year to butcher apprentice in just two years.  It's amazing how life pulls and tugs us in different directions!

Can you hear how jealous I am?  I'm so bummed I don't get to apprentice, too!  But, I'm working on some more local options for my hands on experience.  Since I'll be pretty far along in my pregnancy by the fall, I need to stay closer to home (and to the doctor).  But, I'll be coming out for at least one and maybe a second visit depending on whether or not I get so huge by then that my belly and I will need to pay for two seats.  So - East Coast friends plan on making time for a visit sometime in September/October!!

So, here's where the call for help comes in.  Do any of you know someone in NY (preferably Brooklyn, and doubly preferably in walking distance to Fleisher's in Park Slope) that has an extra room and would be interested in taking on a tenant for a few months?!  Estimated timeline September 1- December 1.

Some pros/cons about renting a room to Andy:

The Andyman cutting meat!

Pros: 
Ridiculously Clean
Friendly & Funny
Quiet
Will bring home meat from the shop to share with roommates (unless they're vegetarians)

Cons:
I'll probably visit once or twice, so there will be an occasional overnight visitor, and I'm way less clean than Andy is
Your room won't be empty any more


If you think you know someone who may be able to help, please let Andy or I know.  Or, if you have any better ideas for where we should be searching other than craigslist and airbnb we'd love the advice!

Woman, Pig, Knife.

WARNING: this post has graphic description and pictures of butchering a pig carcass.  Faint of heart - read no further!

I took my second butchery class this weekend.  And, it was awesome.  Somehow I had convinced my seven months pregnant sister that she should join me - and we spent the day carving up a few pigs.  The class, taught by Bailie at The Fatted Calf in Napa was called "Woman, Pig, Knife."  I got a kick out of finding out that Bailie had created her exclusive women's butchery class as a nod to the Women's Studies degree that she had never used in her culinary career.  Perhaps some day I can write the history of American butchering and finally put that American History degree to work!

What I love about these classes is that they just usher you back into their working kitchen, hand you a knife and put you to work!  As we stepped into the kitchen this Saturday, this is what we were welcomed with:

Half of a pig and a really cute little pig head!!

So what did we learn?  Well, the first step is to cut off the trotters (feet) and the hocks (the piece that will be smoked and put in pea soup).  I cut off one trotter - still haven't tried eating one though.  Does anyone know any recipes?  I heard it is a real delicacy in some cultures. 

Step two is to cut the pig into it's primal cuts - shoulder, loin, belly and ham. 

That's me sawing the ham off the loin!!

With one of our pigs, we didn't cut the belly off, but made a porchetta roast.  Once again, I haven't tried porchetta yet, but I'm thinking this may become a family holiday tradition.  Basically you keep the belly (which would become bacon if cured and smoked) attached to the pork loin and tenderloin, debone the whole thing, season it, then then roll it up skin side out and roast it.  The outer layers of the roast are fattier than the inside layers so they keep it all moist, and the skin (supposedly) gets crunchy like cracklings.  My, oh my.  Google it. 

Professor Bailie seasoning a soon to be porchetta. 

Third step is to cut these primals into subprimals or gourmet cuts, depending how you're planning to use the meat.  A butcher shop would probably be looking for mostly pork chops, pork loins, hams, and sausage.  At our class we saved one ham to be cured into prosciutto (yum!), but we deboned the the others to chop into 2 inch cubes that we seasoned and skewered to make brochettes. 

How good does that look?  Pork seasoned with Herbs de Provence, garlic and Onion

We also deboned the shoulders from our pig and ground it to make crepinettes (a word my husband LOVES to say with a French accent...)  A crepinette looks a lot like a hamburger patty, but then it's wrapped in caul fat (which comes from around the pig's kidneys, but basically looks like a spider web of fat.  We seasoned the sausage with some Vietnamese spices and herbs, and I'm telling you, if you've never had a crepinette before, as Tommy Boy said, "Get ready to Live!"

Second only to the fact that this is awesome hands on butchery experience, the best part of these classes is the food.  Through the entire class you can take charcuterie breaks to snack on the Fatted Calf''s best, then about 2/3 through the class they bring out the wine, so by the time we headed outside for a lunch of roast pork loin, served with beans that taste like cassoulet and a wild rice and artichoke salad finished with fresh strawberries most of my classmates were a wee bit tipsy.  At least they were talking louder and laughing more!!  Too fun.  I suppose now is as good a time as any to admit that the reason I wasn't drinking the gorgeous unfiltered Chardonnay that they were serving wasn't out of sisterly support - I just hit the twelve week mark, so now I'm allowed to tell you all, we're having a baby, too!!

And now, we'll see how long you keep reading this blog.  I'm fresh out of big news!  I promise I'll keep it interesting, but don't expect any more whammies like these!!!

All In a Day's Read

As soon as Andy and I started thinking seriously about this butcher shop concept, we did what all good MBAs would do; we started researching.  As I look back on this (very much still ongoing) research phase, we've had three major tactics.  Good old-fashioned book reading, market survey field trips, and hands on butchery experience.  They've all been really helpful, but for those of you who will be following along and want to know where the heck we came up with these ideas or just want to learn more about the meat that you're eating, here are a few of the first books we've been reading to educate ourselves:

The River Cottage Meat Book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

So - this book is considered to be a bit of a bible for meat lovers.  It's about as thick as the real Bible, and it takes as much dedication to get through it in its entirety, but there are so many lessons you'll learn that if you're a meat fanatic, I'm sure you'll consider it worth the investment.  He starts with a philosophical discussion about the morality of eating meat in the first place, before getting into detailed descriptions of each breed all the way from raising them to eating them.  He makes the natural, slow raised animals sound like they taste SO much better than what you can buy at the supermarket.  I'm not sure I've ever really had the kind of meat he's talking about!!  The book ends with a section of recipes that will make your mouth water.  My Dad has been talking about the Coq au Vin recipe for weeks now.  I'm thinking maybe I'll surprise him with some for his birthday. 
Honesty Note: I have not finished this book.  I'm telling you.  It's really long.

A Butcher's Guide to Well Raised Meat; How to Buy, Cut and Cook Great Beef, Lamb, Pork, Poultry and More by Joshua and Jessica Applestone and Alexandra Zissu

Awesome Freaking book.  Joshua and Jessica were some of the first to kick off this re-emergence of the nose to tail butcher.  They tell the story of how they started their butcher shop in the Hudson Valley of NY, and share their values-based but pragmatic approach to sourcing and using the entire animal in their butchery practice.  This book is a fun, easy read and is a bit of a handbook for what Andy and I are going to try to do.  We may even try to apprentice with Fleisher's to get the hands on experience in how to cut meat and run a business like theirs.

Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman, Brian Polcyn, and Thomas Keller

Did you know that you could make your own bacon in just a few days at your own home?  Seriously!  I was shocked to see how easy some of these recipes were.  Now, I haven't executed any of them yet, so I guess I"ll brag about how easy it was once I've done it successfully, but if you're a bit of a bacon fiend, or can never find guanciale for your spaghetti carbonara, maybe you can just make your own and vary the spice mixes until it's the best you've ever tried!  Now that I have some free time on my hands I'm going to start in on these recipes.  I'll defnitely be posting my results!

I'll tell you about our market surveys next time.  Off to San Francisco for one as we speak!

PS - I'm new to this whole blog thing, so please excuse my lack of technical knowledge.  I guess on my first post, the link to "subscribe" wasn't really working for a lot of people, so I added a new link on the bottom of the page where you can either "Join this Page" or "Follow by Email."  Otherwise you're welcome to just follow the links I post on Facebook!!

And So It Begins...

I quit my job today.

I suppose I should note that both my husband and I quit our jobs today.

We were two years into what was sure to be two successful MBA level careers at industry leader E & J Gallo Winery in Modesto, CA.  But, we got sick of looking at cube walls and double monitors all day. If this was what success looked like, we weren't sure we wanted it. So, we're stepping off the corporate leadership path even though every decision we've made has led us to this place.

We have an inkling of an idea of what we're going to do with all of our newfound spare time. But I'd be lying if I said the business plan was complete. My folks bought a 120 acre ranch in Vacaville, CA last year and we're going to move there and reconnect with a slower pace of life.

We may start a butcher shop selling locally raised meat.  We may start a business hosting weddings at this gorgeous property. Maybe we'll start a CSA.  I have approximately one million more ideas where those came from.

Stay tuned as I share our journey from the corporate fast track to something a little bit slower.