A new career?

There was a segment on the Today show this morning about starting a second or new career, something you could do from the 'home'
It got me thinking.

This chick actor from one of the daily soap operas is baking apple pies on the side. Started with a few for her neighbors, ending up selling over 2000 on the HSN one night and it blew into a nice little mail order business.
Now...I've done some cooking and baking and some catering in the past...it's fun...it's time consuming...it's messy...and it's definately NOT a partime job!!

Today I am busy making Dutch sausijzen broodjes. (sausage in a puff pastry) Made the dough yesterday and stuck it in the fridge overnight.

Got this puff pastry recipe from an old cookbook I have. It uses sour cream and cheddar cheese, and lotsa butter!.

These pastries can be made with all sorts of stuffings, ham and cheese, just cheese, different kinds of sausage with different kinds of spices, you can also make the sweet, with stuffing like almond paste, in which case they become amandel broodjes. (almond paste pastries)

Holland has tons of these little goodies. In the olden days there were those 'automaats', where you could buy stuff from these wall dispensers with little windows. Little cafetarias everywhere, selling fresh French fries (served with mayonaise, not ketsup, and geesh they used to cost 25 cents a bag without, 35 with), and the stuff I am describing here.

Other goodies that come to mind are croquettes (chicken or pork), nasi ballen (fried rice balls, breadcrumbed and deepfried) macaroni/ham/cheese balls (same idea)
I remember my brother making these sometimes when he would come home (late) from where ever. He would make a bunch of them and eat them all, at the same time nipping on the bottle of cognac my dad had 'hidden'

So...my thoughts were drifting towards the idea of starting a little Dutch pastry business on the side, nothing huge, just something small.

But then I thought of the hassles you'd have to go through, getting a business license, having the health inspector come over. I'm not even sure you could use your own kitchen for business anyway.

The health inspector in this part of the world brings goosebumps to our skin, and terror in our hearts as Bugs encounters them at work all the time. Since a few months ago the health department has changed the rules a bit, and they now look over your business with a whole new set of eyes.
Not fun at all. And it creates much stress!!

Back in the days when I was in between jobs (I left Macy's to do some serious volunteer working and taking care of my mother in law) I was asked to provide lunch for the managers' monthly (?) meeting at Macy's. The operations manager was a good friend of mine and he wanted me to do a vegetarian "healthy" lunch.
So I rolled up my sleeves, made my famous veggie lasagna, tossed a humongeous salad together, made yoghurt smoothies, and had strawberry stuffed crepes for desert.

It was a huge success. After that I provided lunch for the staff every time the store had a big One Day Sale, when the department managers weren't able to take a lunch break.
One of my oldest and dearest Macy's friends ran the Cellar Cafe at that time. So I was able to use her wonderful ovens for the lasagnas, which kept getting bigger and bigger. I would assemble them at home, cook them in the Cellar's kitchen. Perfect!

I catered a friend's parents 50th wedding anniversary, and another friend's son's engagement party.
Then the Macy's manager's Christmas dinner. The largest beef tenderloin you've ever seen, and my famous chocolate mousse.

In between these 'caterings' I would bake cookies for all kinds of events.

At the time I worked as a volunteer for a home for people with AIDS here in Atlanta.
You guessed it, I usually provided the food for the volunteer meetings. As I got more duties there over time, I was asked to be part of the volunteer training group at the Red Cross offices in Atlanta. Of course I dragged my tubs of fruit salad, and sandwiches along there too.

Looking back, it was a lot of fun. But I had a lot of help. My husband was able to do many many things for me then.

This whole business could have turned into a huge to do, but at one point it just got to be too cumbersome. I did have a nice large kitchen, but after catering the anniversary party for 100 people, I realized that this could not be done in a home kitchen, big or small. And that's where we got stuck, and my short lived career as caterer was over.

Watching that segment this morning brought back the memories though. And it would be very tempting.....
Who knows....perhaps when Boo-Boo goes to school...

With this family you never know what's going to happen next.

Never a dull moment!

:>)

Have a super day y'all! It's going to be 70° here today! And when Boo-Boo wakes up I'm going to go for a nice stroll.

SGMKJ!