Imagine how surprised I was on Wednesday when right in the middle of a batch of fruitcakes the faithful old floor mixer decided to stop working!  It’s about fifty years old, and has an on/off switch and some sort of device for controlling the paddle speed.  It was this lever that started to sound funny, and then the paddle stopped turning entirely.

I had to wrestle the huge steel bowl onto the table and go upstairs for a whimpy hand-mixer.  I then laboriously mixed the dough as best I could, and added the fruit.  Finally I had to get in there up to my elbows to incorporate everything, but I did it.  Once I got that batch into the oven I allowed myself time to panic.

When you own a fifty year old machine, and when it’s broken, it’s easy to imagine the hell that awaits one in finding a replacement piece.  However, luck was with me as when Nicky opened the top, he quickly found that a belt was broken.  He removed it and the next day I was actually able to find a replacement very easily.

Imagine the shock, then, when Denis put the belt on the machine and the faithful old thing started to work again!  I wasn’t too shocked at the machine, but at the fact that Denis had actually fixed it.

To celebrate I skipped down to the garden and harvested a bunch of broccoli, carrots and beets.  Then I went out and picked several pounds of very ripe concord grapes.  I made jelly, which should be called ice jelly as the grapes have already been through a cold spell.

Our old friends from Vancouver, the Lynch’s, came for a visit this weekend.  I made a Mexican dinner, which involved a new rice and bean salad that was very good.  You put cumin seeds in a frying pan and gently brown them first, so the flavour is really wonderful.  These are added to lime juice, oil, and chopped pickled hot peppers for the dressing.

For dessert I made a four-layer chocolate chunk torte that everyone appeared to like as well.  I ate some of the leftovers today, and it almost made me want to give up on dieting forever.  However, if I would ever do that, I’d soon be giving Kirstie Alley a run for her money.

Orders are coming in from my stores such as the Cookbook Company in Calgary, Stong’s and Edible BC in Vancouver and Discover Wines here in Kelowna.  I’m packaging and shipping daily, and so never have to wonder what there is to do.

As well, I made the scary trip to Staples with some discs to get some promotional materials printed to enclose with orders.  Stapes is scary because it involves a computer, hence many chances for mistakes.  That’s why my mixer is not so scary.   An on/off switch and one lever are about all I can handle at this stage of my life.

Now I guess it’s payback time for all the people I scoffed at who suggested I may grow weary of making fruitcakes.  I find these days that I practically have to put a gun to my head to get myself downstairs to start.  Once I’ve started it’s okay, but unfortunately, my limit is now two batches a day!

Seriously, it’s all I can really do because there’s the shopping for inventory, marketing attempts (however feeble and ridiculous) and of course packaging, which is completely onerous.  The other night Nicky and Taya put labels on 500 boxes and it was wonderful not to have to do it.

So I guess that tells me that 3,000 fruitcakes a year is really all that I am ever going to be able to do.  However, that’s potentially 3,000 happy people, so that’s got to count positively toward some decent karma.

And there’s just the general good karma I must be creating daily as I run our home like a soup kitchen.  Nicky’s girlfriend often eats here, and Luke likes to invite his friends Felix or Tyson over.  The other night, after having eaten several decent meals here in a month, Felix said, “Wow!  You always make good dinners.”

Today at the Superstore I was checking out with the usual: a box of Taquitos, doughnuts, a huge bag of cookies, four different types of chips, a package of pepperoni sticks and sundry other items including eight litres of milk.  I said to the nice woman at the check-out, “Imagine how much money I’m going to save if my kids ever move out.  They’re like locusts.”

As expected, upon arriving home with all of the stuff Luke said excitedly to Nicky, “Mom did a big shop-out, so it’s gonna be a good day!”  They are 23 and 20 years of age, but one would never know it.  The oven was immediately turned on, and in went the Taquitos.

Yet I would never dream of serving this type of swill to them for dinner.  No, dinners are always divine creations that make everyone swoon.  A typical week might be cabbage rolls, chicken chow mein, pot roast, chicken enchiladas, meat pies, Mediterranean-style fish stew and lasagna.

As well, I always like to try out new recipes so that we don’t get bored.  Perhaps that’s the danger of the 3,000 fruitcakes, in that one has no leeway whatsoever for any creativity.  In fact, it’s really important to make them as identical as possible or the public balks.

And really, being the egomaniac that I am, all it will take is one bit of publicity, and suddenly all talk of boredom will be forgotten.  Maybe I need to float one of the dogs off in a helium balloon and call 911.

When I went down to the vegetable garden yesterday morning I saw that frost had killed the basil and dahlias.  However, I was still able to get huge handfuls of parsley, sage and tarragon, which I chopped and added to the stuffing for our turkey dinner.  We had it last night because The Boarder’s in town and may have to leave soon.

Nicky took the prize for eating the most food.  He had two full plates of turkey with all of the homemade accompaniments such as the cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, Brussels sprouts and yams topped with marshmallows.

He then had three pieces of pumpkin pie for dessert, laden with whipped cream.  The Boarder also ate two plates of food, but Luke could only choke down a bit due to the amount of Jaegermeister he’d consumed the night before.  Luke and I are sadly both panty-waists in the drinking department.

This week I finally decided to stop acting childish and actually confront an ugly question: how many fruitcakes do I have, and how many will I need?  I just hate things like that, as they require counting and looking at records.  Did I mention that I failed math?

Actually, the only reason I passed math 11 on the second try was because the teacher made me promise never to take math again.  I said, “Why would I?”  Little did I know that a few years later I would be in graduate school, taking something evil called statistics.  That was quite a traumatic experience for all involved.

I suppose the fruitcake count was a good exercise, as when I counted what I have on hand, and by projecting how much I’m going to need, I could see that I have to work like a lunatic for the next two months.  Hence, I have to say I’m very thankful for the garden frost, as it means I can at least stop spending time on watering.

Plus working like a ferret on caffeine helps remove me from more troublesome situations.  As I was baking away, I could hear Denis drilling into the wall a few feet away.  I hated to ask what he was doing, but did.  He said that he was putting hooks into the wall so that he can hang his hockey equipment on it when he comes home.

This was the perfect opportunity for me to smile, say nothing, and return to the safety of my kitchen.  I then took my mind off murder by practicing my multiplication tables, which I need to do anyway.  “If I make four batches a day, at 14 fruitcakes a batch…..”

When one is in small business, marketing is the kicker.  It’s really expensive to buy ads, and most of the time they do nothing anyway.  I’ve come to realize that though it may seem expensive, the best and cheapest way to market a food business is to give away product.

And certainly, when it comes to fruitcake, God knows the skeptical customer needs to taste it.  Once again, I had a few people recoil at my question, “Would you like to sample some of my fruitcake?”  This was at an event at the Kelowna Wine Museum on Thursday evening.

They were pairing my fruitcakes with some locally-made ports.  It was really lovely, as people had sharp, aged cheddar, pieces of fruitcake and a glass of nice, fortified wine.  Several people left with fruitcakes, vowing to serve them on a tray interspersed with a good cheese.

At this event I found out about a store called Okanagan Grocery Artisan Breads.  I raced right in there the next day and was amazed at the beautiful stuff the baker, Monika Walker, makes.  I instantly bought chocolate bread, made with Callebaut chocolate, and a loaf of salty olive bread.

Strangely, while I was buying these two items, I imagined myself presenting them to the family, and not eating any.  Imagine my surprise when I found myself cutting piece after delicious piece of the chocolate bread.  I went to bed bloated, but extremely happy.

I have a new customer, and again, this is as a result of the person eating the product.  Through networking at The Woman’s Place fitness centre, I was able to get samples to the owner of a store at Big White.  At first, she was like, “I don’t see how fruitcake is going to work.”  Then she ate it, and immediately e mailed an order!

I was speaking with the bakery manager of Urban Fare in Vancouver, as we were discussing my upcoming sampling session there.  As it turns out, they’re having a three-day food and wine event starting November 20th, so I’m going to be there for that.  I told her that a nice addition to my fruitcakes is sharp cheeses, so she’s going to provide them, and they’ll pair me with a winery.  Fun!

But here’s the news that made me jump up and down with excitement – a company called Nutenfru, that used to be a competitor, has allegedly decided to get out of the fruitcake business!!  So with any luck I’m going to become everyone’s favourite fruitcake.  Armed with that piece of news I’m ready to march bravely into the upcoming season.