Pity the poor bank tellers and others who have to decipher forms with dates like today’s date: 1/10/10.  Or should that be 10/01/10?  However, I’m stymied easily enough by my own life so don’t need to add more puzzles to it.

Nicky’s been driving around with summer tires.  When I pointed this out to him and told him to get winter tires, he grunted.  A couple of weeks ago, after it had snowed, I said to Denis, “Doesn’t it worry you, being the Transport Safety Inspector and all, that your son is a hazard on the road?”  He grunted.

Imagine everyone’s surprise on Monday when Nicky piled into the maple tree at the bottom of our driveway!  His precious, newly re-built car was a smoking mess.  Denis and Luke went out and helped him tow it up the driveway and into the carport.

For the next two days, all I saw was Nicky attacking the car with some sort of an electrical tool, sparks flying out behind him.  Once he’d cut the fender off, he went on-line and decided the car could eventually be fixed.  But, this will take a while, so you know what happened, don’t you?  His car is tarped, and now sits beside the tarped Nissan van and the broken fridge.

Thus began a whole week of angst on Nicky’s part as he needed to bum rides like a real student does.  He didn’t like it, and managed to wheedle a thousand dollar Honda Accord out of Denis!  Don’t even get me started.

Then Luke came home and announced that he and his co-workers are all being laid off in two to three weeks.  I felt terrible for him, but it was short-lived.  Once again The Boarder came through, and Luke may soon be off to Alberta to make his fortune in the oil patch.

I could never have predicted 2010 would see yet another vehicle come into the yard, or that Luke would be leaving for Alberta again.  Life is so funny that way, isn’t it?

More predictable is how the fat remains no matter what one does.  I just finished reading the book, You! On a Diet and am trying very hard to do what Dr. Oz says.  If for no other reason than he is just so adorable.

I got a couple of panicked phone calls from people who had blithely skipped into the stores to pick up fruitcake, only to find that they’re no longer available.  I delivered one to a nice man and six to a dear woman who said she and her mother were addicted to them.

I find it’s better to avoid topics such as Dr. Oz’s book when making small talk with these customers!

Thank God all of the ‘season’s greetings’ are behind us!  I had a large salad for lunch today and am slowly feeling my blood sugar levels return to normal.  There are still a few Quality Street chocolates and After Eight mints left, but I’m forcing myself to stay away from them.

Most people are wise to the old, ‘oh, here’s a few cookies I made for you’ gag after Christmas. They know you made them weeks ago, and that you’re now trying to pawn them off to avoid diabetes.  We also still have a few blubber-building cookies around but I  was quite fortunate to be able to unload a couple of dozen in Osoyoos.

I drove down last Wednesday and mom, Gerry and I met three other friends at the new Watermark Resort in Osoyoos.  We had lunch in their very upscale wine bar and all remarked that we felt as though we were in Manhattan.  The food was great, and the ambiance really unbelievable.

The next day I made one of Gerry’s favourite foods, steak tartar.  It’s really just raw hamburger, but that sounds so foul, doesn’t it?  I also made herring salad, which mom loves.  Try that out the next time you’re having someone over.  “We’re having raw hamburger and herring salad.  Would you like to come?”

Actually, the herring salad is quite good, but only if you like pickled herring.  The herring is chopped up and added to cooked potatoes, diced beets, chopped hard boiled eggs and pickles.  Then you add mayo to the whole thing.  Think potato salad with herring and beets.

I drove back to Kelowna on New Year’s Eve and did the usual: I was asleep by 9:00 PM.  Denis had had to greet the New Year on his own for the past 23 years, so is quite used to it.

One of my resolutions for this year is to stop being resistant to things I’m already committed to doing.  For example, I’ve told the whole world that I want to build a fruitcake business.  It is therefore both stupid and counter intuitive to fight with myself about going downstairs to start baking.

Plus the method for getting me to do things has got to change.  Every time I do something difficult I can’t go to Winners and buy something.  I’ve put myself on a strict austerity program, so there will be no more shopping going on around here.  There simply has got to be something I can do that’s as rewarding as buying useless stuff.

As soon as I find this magical thing I’m going to write a book and make a million dollars.  Or, should I perhaps just stop fooling around and write?

In last week’s blog I had written that the season had pretty much wound down.  How wrong a person can be!  On December 21st I received orders totalling 200 fruitcakes.  Because I hate to be prepared, I was packaging and delivering for the entire day.

By December 22nd  it was all over, so I used the time to hit the stores early and do the last bits of shopping.  It’s so easy to get help and be able to do things if you’re in the stores just as they open.  I did hours worth of shopping in mere minutes.

Then, like every year of my life, on December 24th at 5:00 PM the balloon went up, signalling the beginning of Christmas.  Mom and Gerry arrived along with their poodle, Schwartzie.  We sang Christmas carols around the piano, which I played rather poorly, as always.

While eating hot shrimp h’ors d’oeuvres and sipping wine we opened a pile of gifts.  Gerry particularly liked a U-shaped pillow I got him for the flight to Nicaragua, but which he decided to use immediately.  He basically kept the pillow hung around his neck so that he was able to nap at the drop of a hat.

Nicky gave Denis a wide assortment of specialty beers, all individually wrapped.  This amount of beer instantly put Denis into a good mood.  In this mood he decided that drinking half a bottle of gin was a good idea.  However, on Christmas Day he looked a lot like the characters from the movie, The Hangover.

We watched that movie on Christmas Day, so it was very fitting.  When the camera pans in on the dentist who wakes up minus a tooth, that’s what Denis looked like.  He was kind of sweaty, pasty-faced with red-rimmed eyes and tousled hair.

Nonetheless, we were all able to consume the turkey dinner I’d made.  The dogs also got a bunch of turkey, which they certainly don’t need.  All three of them are obese, but dachshunds always try to convince you that they need more food.  They have baleful eyes which makes it really hard to say no.

However, I believe from the girth of everyone that it’s probably time to say no to the kind of consumption that’s been occurring over the past week.  It kind of reached its peak on the evening of Christmas Day. 

On Boxing Day I got up and was puzzled to find a frying pan with badly burned food in it on the stove. When Nicky got up he proudly announced that he’d made himself French toast the evening before. 

This was after having a huge plate of turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberries, yams and Brussels sprouts.  For dessert he ate half a chocolate orange and half a box of Pot of Gold chocolates.

Unfortunately, the entire family is off for the next week, so I’m planning to go to Osoyoos for a couple of days to get away from it all.  Then they can drink beer and eat kilos of food without me having to witness it for 48 hours.

You’ll recall that last week I was ever hopeful that Phil Johnson would come out here and do the morning show.  I couldn’t cajole him into it, but I did have a very funny and long interview on Wednesday morning.  He started out by telling the listeners about some wretched site called the I Hate Fruitcake Hate Page.  He then went on to quote rude suggestions for uses of fruitcake.

After his rant, my first words were, “Do you always bait guests before you have them come on?”  We then went on to discuss why my fruitcake is actually edible, and he very kindly had two staff members comment on-air about how much they love it.

AM 1150 has quite a large listenership, so sales were good in the Kelowna area as a result.  I was also contacted by someone from the Lions Club because they sell fruitcakes for fundraising.  I’ve tried some of their so-called fruitcake, and they really do need a new product.

On Friday morning my fruitcakes and I were mentioned again, this time on and off for two hours on Phil’s show.  He was auctioning off two pairs of Olympic mittens with the money going to the Food Bank.  I had dropped off a couple of fruitcakes after the Wednesday interview, so he decided to add them to the mittens for the successful bidders.

I was then thrilled to get an order for 100 more fruitcakes at the Quality Greens in Kelowna, as well as another order from my friends at Discover Wines and Okanagan Grocery!  Media is just so important to the small business person.  There’s no way I could’ve afforded that much radio coverage.

However, in spite of those orders, things have definitely slowed as we get closer to The Big Day.  This has allowed me to bake my gramma’s cookies and do some Christmas shopping.  It’s all so difficult these days, as everyone has everything, so it’s almost impossible to think of stuff to buy.

Not surprisingly, many of my gifts are homemade food items.  As many people no longer make beautiful delectables, I find a homemade product is always welcome.  For mom’s 94-year-old boyfriend, I’m going to make chicken liver pate as well as some of his favourite cookies, the Zimtsterne.

Zimtsterne, or Cinnamon Stars, are to-die-for delicious cookies.  In the past two days Nicky and I have easily eaten 48 of them.  The recipe’s in my December newsletter, and you should really try to make them as people adore them.  There’s something about the chewy quality, as well as the cinnamon flavour.

As the 2009 fruitcake season draws to a close, I’d like to wish all of you a wonderful Christmas, involving all of your favourite people and things.  Eat, drink and be merry!

Twelve days remain before Christmas, and I plan on imbibing: 12 Spitzbuebchen, 11 Zimtsterne, 10 shortbread cookies, 9 cups of egg nog, 8 butter tarts, 7 pieces of fruitcake, 6 bottles of wine, 5 chocolate truffles, 4 marzipan chocolate bars, 3 Kahlua and creams, 2 boxes of Lowney’s chocolate cherries and a Stollen.  Kidding.

The strangely spelled words in the previous paragraph are German, as you probably know.  The first two items on the list are cookies that my gramma made each Christmas, and now I make them.  She was born in 1899 and learned to make them from her mother, so the recipes are very old.

And then of course Stollen is that German raisin bread that’s filled with marzipan.  This must be eaten accompanied by a cup of coffee and then you get ‘zee whole experience!’  I can say that because of my heritage.

Suffice to say by January I’ll be thanking God I have my size 12 – 14 clothes to fill.  Maybe by February I can return to the 10 – 12 range, but we’ll see.  You’d think from the nervous prostration caused by the fruitcake business that one would lose weight.  Much to my chagrin I’ve found that not to be the case at all.

Here’s something really spooky:  I know how many fruitcakes I have on hand.  The basement is under complete control, and I’m totally ready for whatever happens.  I’m not sure what it all means, and I’m a little worried.

However, here’s something that may be happening which would blow all of my organization out the window.  Phil Johnson, the host of 1150 AM’s morning show e mailed me that he’d like to come out and do a show from here!!  I hate to even mention it because it may not happen, but if it does, look out.

They’d just have to ignore the fridge which is still out in the yard, as well as the tarped vehicles.  I guess we’d have to muzzle the two small dogs, but Arnie would be okay because he’s deaf and blind.  Once in the basement the crew would have to be careful not to slip as they walk over Nicky’s clothing.

I want all of you to think positive thoughts so that this will happen.  I really want to be kibitzing around with Phil, live, on the radio.  Can you imagine the traffic that would be driven to the stores carrying my fruitcake?

Now I just have to put it out of my mind for the remainder of the day as I continue to bake my German Christmas cookies.  I always make them for my sister-in-law Margaret, my brother Freddie and his wife Wendy, and of course my sainted mother.

The other day the women at the gym had to point out to me that I was wearing two different earrings!  That pretty much sums up my ability to concentrate these days.  Fortunately, sales are going well, but I’m almost going crazy right now trying to keep up with everything.

Last week Marilyn and I baked 340 fruitcakes in two days.  That meant a full day of follow-up to process all of them.  I also did a few hours of fruitcake sampling on Saturday at the Quality Greens store here in Kelowna.  It was a bit livelier than the one I did for them in Penticton the week before.

At the Penticton store there were two women in their 80’s.  One told me a story about how years ago she’d made fruitcake.  She put it in the cupboard and after three weeks decided she’d better go and check it.  When she did, she found that it was all moldy.

She then sampled my fruitcake, thought for a moment, and then said, “I should give you my recipe.”  To which I slowly said, “yeessss” but wanted to say, “But I don’t want a reciple that makes moldy fruitcake.”  The public is always so interesting.

You’d think that someone who goes to the gym as religiously as I do would be somewhat thin, but such is not the case.  We’ve been in a bit of an egg nog mania around here, which is very bad so early in the month.  It doesn’t bode well for the week around Christmas itself.

However, I’ve always used food as medicine during stressful times, so it makes sense.  As you know, I’m almost completely helpless when faced with those Lowney’s maraschino cherries and syrup in chocolate.  Most people run screaming from them, but I’ll eat an entire box in an evening.

I’ve managed not to buy one yet, but if this insane ordering keeps up I’m going to have to get a few boxes.  Yesterday I had an order for 4 cases (96 fruitcakes) which I then had to put in their little white boxes.  Two hours later, I was ready to drive them down to Quality Greens.

That would’ve been fine, had someone not ordered fruitcake with no chocolate, so I had to bake those as well.  Then there were the on-line orders that had to be packaged, addressed and driven to the post office.  For some perverse reason, however, I can’t seem to stop marketing.

I sent samples to a journalist in Vancouver, so we’ll see what happens.  As well, the kind women at Discover Wines here in Kelowna will be interviewed by Mike Roberts of CHBC-TV this Thursday.  They’re featuring a mulled wine with my fruitcakes, so that will surely drive sales.  Oi vey!

As you know, I’m a huge fan of CBC radio.  Every day I prepare dinner while listening to Jo-Ann Roberts of All Points West.  It’s on weekdays from 3:00 – 6:00 PM.  Once a week or so she has a man named Troy Townsin on, and he pairs wines with various foods.

I thought it might be nice for her listeners to hear Troy pair wines with my delectable fruitcakes, so I mailed two to Jo-Ann with a letter.  Imagine how wonderful it was today at 4:55 PM to be slicing onions, and hear her say, “Today Troy’s going to pair some wines with a fruitcake we received from a listener in the Okanagan.”

He chose a variety of wines, which you can check out on the All Points West site by following this link: http://www.cbc.ca/allpointswest/features.html.  Scoll down past the chicken and sticky pudding recipes until you see the list of wines.  Then under that see the wonderful link to my website!  Isn’t that incredible?

Another incredible thing is that I remain in business at all.  All fall I’ve been baking Totally Decadent Fruitcakes, as they’re the most popular.  However, at the end of last week I idly decided I should probably do a bit of an inventory of Okanagan Harvest Cakes.  Mein Gott im Himmel!  I discovered I have only 10 cases.

Fortunately, I have Marilyn coming to the rescue, and we’re spending the next two days just churning out fruitcakes until we’re dizzy.  In the midst of all this excitement I’ve had the downstairs fridge repaired.  The man came today, looked at it, and said, “That’s the biggest ice build-up I’ve ever seen.”  I shrugged.

Maybe I ignore ice build-up in fridges and funny noises under the car’s hood, but one thing I’m vigilant about is the Christmas lights.  They have to be up by December 1st.

Denis toiled for hours on the weekend, and I must say they look really nice this year.  I find with the fruitcake business that December just flies by, so I insist on a full month of outside lighting.  I also bought egg nog, which signals the beginning of the season to the family.

Luke discovered Star Buck’s egg nog lattes, and wanted to make them at home, so he said, “Can you buy an obscene amount of egg nog?”  I said sure, and then added, “In a few days I’m going to be starting the Christmas baking” to which he replied, “Sweet Jesus.”

It’ll all be fine if I can just spend fourteen hours a day on my feet.  So far, I must say I’ve been doing fine, and with the CBC perk just now, I think I might make it.

I’ve just completed the three-day gig at Urban Fare in Yaletown in Vancouver, and am both dizzy and giddy from the experience.  It’s an incredibly busy place, as I believe about 2,000 sample pieces were eaten!

I estimate that I spoke with between two and three hundred people.  I had the pleasure of hearing the famous, “This is the best fruitcake I’ve ever eaten” statement from a few.  However, each night I would arrive at my friends’ place feeling like a wrung-out dish rag.

I was lucky to be placed at a table with Dan, the really nice wine maker of Therapy Vineyards in Naramata.  My fruitcakes were being paired with a sharp English cheddar, and the wine was Therapy Vineyard’s Freudian Sip.

On Friday I had driven from Kelowna to Vancouver, arriving a bit early for the gig, which started at 3:00 PM.  I was half-dead from the drive, so walked for a few minutes along the sea wall in Yaletown.  As I walked I prayed for the Muse of Yuppie Buying to descend upon me.

As soon as the event started, though, I realized I needn’t have worried.  People flocked in eating and buying like Parisians on the eve of Bastille Day.  On Saturday there was a huge crowd of people, probably thanks to the buckets of rain pouring down outside.

When I left at 5:00 on Saturday, after starting at noon, I realized that my left knee would no longer bend.  I guess I was standing stiff-legged for so long that it forgot it was a joint.  Eventually I was able to haul myself out of the store, and scraped what remained of myself into my car.

I met a lovely food vendor at the event who makes beautiful sauces containing tequila and Grand Marnier.  Her name is Ann Kirsebom, and she owns Chef Ann Kirsebom’s Gourmet Sauces.  I tasted her absolutely fantastic sauces and she tried my fruitcakes, and we generally provided each other with a few laughs throughout the three days.

It’s funny, though, even at Urban Fare, where my fruitcakes retail for $19.99 and a package of cheese the size of a large eraser costs over $5.00, some people still act in the same way as those at the craft fairs do.  They arrive with their small kids in tow, and encourage them to just grab and eat whatever they like.

One woman grabbed samples and fed them to her toddler and one-year-old in a stroller.  Another customer came up, obviously wanting to sample some for herself.  So I said to the nice customer, within earshot of the rude mother, “The one you’re trying right now is soaked in rum, and the ones the children are trying are soaked in brandy.”

The mom then laughed, kind of embarrassed, and mumbled something inane.  The public can be tough, but all in all, I can say the three days at Urban Fare will be a huge boon to my business.  Now if I can just feeling back into my tortured body everything will be fine.

I wanted to test my sprained knee on an easy fitness class, so went to a mild cardio at 9:00 this morning.  Afterwards I delivered two orders of fruitcakes, and got home to find the entire kitchen floating in water.  Denis decided to ‘clean the kitchen’ so I decided it was best to say nothing at all.

I thought of the handful of dishes that were on the counter when I left, and marveled at the enormous amount of soap and water in the sink.  The counters were coated in a heavy layer of water.  I felt it best for my nerves to leave the area entirely.

Fortunately, I’m much too busy with orders to concern myself with these small annoyances.  Even the old, broken fridge from the garage, which Denis hauled out days ago, and left standing like a sentry in the yard doesn’t distract me.  And really, besides the broken van covered in a tarp, and an old plastic table heaped in useless crap, the fridge adds a certain je ne sais quois to the yard.

Orders are now coming in daily, and it’s wonderful.  I’m still baking, as I do the daily, “I don’t have enough product” thing.  I’m also very busy with packaging and mailing.  As well, I’m still working on printed materials and am trying to think of free ways to market.

Nonetheless, fate likes to test one during busy times.  My sister-in-law Margaret decided to attend a tourism conference recently held in Kelowna, so she and her son Brendan, plus a work colleague came.  We’ve had Brendan, now 15, here many times since he was a small kid, and that’s actually an entire novella in itself.

I thrilled Brendan with chicken souvlaki, Greek salad and roasted potatoes one night, and curried chicken and rice on another.  Foor Margaret and Tanya I made Julia’s boeuf bourgignone.  I made chocolate mousse for dessert, and they all said that they loved it.

This week I’ll be crazy with preparing for three days of hell in Vancouver.  I’m going to be at Urban Fare on Davie Street for some kind of food event.  I’ll drive down on Friday, straight to the store.  Then I’ll stand there from 3:00 until 7:00 flogging my wares.

I’ll do that again on Saturday and Sunday from noon to 5:00, and then drive home on Monday.  If I survive that, I’m going to have a rather large martini when I enter the house on Monday afternoon.  I can hardly wait to see what the house looks like when I get home.

Though grueling, the demo will be a wonderful way for me to personally introduce my product to the chi chi folks who shop at Urban Fare.  The nice bakery manager is going to supply some sharp, artisan cheese and pair me with a winery so that people will have the Full Monty.  I’ll report back next Monday, the 23rd on how it all went.

This past week I received a really nice e mail from someone who said that my story inspired her.  She’s also trying to run a business from home, and asked for some pointers.  As well, another woman  phoned me this week, asking to be connected to my mentor Prerna Chandak, who was found for me by CBC Radio.

When you’re self-employed, it’s really hard to know what to do.  I had to figure all of it out myself, though had lots of advice from great people along the way.  Some of them were friends with common sense.  For example, Alison suggested that I use mini loaf pans instead of my insane method of cutting bars from a pan.

Tracey from Discover Wines was my first store owner, so she helped me set a wholesale price.  The nice man at the kitchen supply store told me to use a food processor to chop the dried fruit, rather than using shears.  The owner of an on-line gift supplier to conferences suggested that I use a commercial sealing machine.

So here I am, armed to the teeth with advice and fruitcakes.  I’m ready to sell like a water vendor at a flea market in the Gobi desert.  My goal for the upcoming week is to market the hell out of myself, even if it kills me.  As I’ve whined many times before, it is one of the hardest things one has to do.

I met Monika, the owner/baker of Okanagan Grocery, and saw her production area in the back.  She was in the midst of making jam, and gave me a jar of her delicious quince and lavender.  Of course I had to buy a loaf of the chocolate bread, and you can imagine what happened that evening at home.

Monika was pleased to see that I had my little signs all nicely laminated and ready for her to display along with my fruitcakes.  It was so adorable when I arrived, as I walked in the front, holding a case of fruitcakes, and said to the startled girl who works there, “I’ve got some fruitcakes here, ordered by Monika.”

She did the typical nose wrinkle and said, “Fruitcakes? Uh, you’d better go and find Monika in the back.”  Once I’d returned to the front with Monika, she and I both teased the girl for being the prototypical fruitcake customer.  Yet, once she tries it and likes it, I know she’ll be able to sell to everyone entering the store.

I made 56 fruitcakes today, and it wasn’t easy.  On Friday at the end of a gruelling one-hour cardio class, the instructor had us squat.  Ostensibly she wanted us to stretch our Achilles tendons, but once I was way down there in the squat I wondered to myself, “will I ever be able to stand up again?”

Fortunately, I did manage to get up, but have since had a stiff, swollen knee that hurts like the dickens whenever I walk downstairs.  As the kitchen is downstairs, and people require my attention upstairs every two minutes, it’s been another test of my entrepreneurial mettle.