Fun Food Photography

Add two more retail locations to that list where you can find our Chocolate Cashew Meringue cookies- 21 st Street Coffee and Tea. You can now purchase our cookies at both of the 21st Street locations- in downtown Pittsburgh at the Frick Building and as at the Strip District. 21 st Street is unique in that it serves direct trade coffee and tea, which means that growers are payed at least 25% above fair trade prices, providing additional incentives for farmers to follow environmentally sustainable growing practices.

On another note, I also took some new photos of the cookies the other day, to add to the website. I love photography and I think photos food especially, can be very artistic. Some of my favorite photographers include Michael Kenna, Walker Evans and Richard Avedon. Their subjects weren't food, but I find their work to be distinctive, really thought provoking, and in some cases, entertaining. It was fun dreaming up different set ups for the cookie "photoshoot." I have to admit that cookies are ideal models- they don't require wardrobe changes and they take direction really well. Below are a couple of the pics that will be appearing on the site soon.




The leaning tower of cookies- not to be
confused with the leaning tower of Pisa.




A bag of our cookies from upside down.

Next up- online retail! We're hoping to have our cookies available for purchase through Amazon.com by the end of the month. More info to come.

The Big Idea w/ Donny Deutsch - Cereality Video Clip

The video clip above is from the show "The Big Idea" that I talk about in my previous entry. The episode features Cereality, which is a store that sells all kinds of cereal to go. Think ice cream shop- but with cereal instead of ice cream and fruit instead of sprinkles- a very cool idea, since something like 96% of Americans eat cereal on a daily basis.

The Big Idea

So I've started watching a great show on CNBC that I think everyone should watch at least once if you've ever had a great idea to market something or make something and sell it, but you just didn't know how to go about doing it. If anything, I think it will inspire you to try something that you've always wanted to do, whether that means sky diving or starting your own business.

The show is called "The Big Idea" and it's hosted by Donny Deutsch, of the famed ad agency Deutsch. While the Deutsch ad agency has large clients like IKEA and Johnson & Johnson, the guests on Donny Deutsch's show are regular folk that just happen to have great ideas- big ideas. These individuals started small with one really good idea and now have extremely successful businesses.

A couple of my favorite success stories:

Laloo's Goat Milk Ice Cream
TOMS Shoes
Cereality

While Deutsch tends to place an emphasis on the millions of dollars that each guest has made at the beginning of each episode, it's not really the financial aspect of the show that I'm interested in (although I'm not going to deny the fact that they're financially secure is a bad thing!). These are people that took a risk, went out on a limb, worked hard and were handsomely rewarded. For me, I think the show is aspirational and I can relate to some of the things that these people have gone through and it helps me anticipate what's ahead. But even if you're not planning on running your own business, the show fun is to watch- you get to learn about lots of new, interesting products and hear the stories behind them.

Being Green

This past week, two more retailers agreed to carry our cookies on a trial basis- joy! The first is a great neighborhood specialty foods store called Ruggeri's Food Shoppe, which carries items like homemade pasta, meat from local farms, fresh baked bread and imported olive oils and dressings. The other location is Cafe Phipps, which is located at the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in downtown Pittsburgh. What's great about Cafe Phipps is that they're focused on being a truly environmentally friendly dining establishment- they use fresh local and organic ingredients when they can and eating utensils and dishware are made out of compostable materials.

Speaking of being green, we are doing our due diligence to try and be as environmentally friendly as possible. Last week, when we delivered our first orders of cookies to various locations, we transported them in reusable bags- the type that you can take with you to the grocery store in efforts to stop stock piling those pesky plastic bags.

Kermit isn't the only one that's green these days.

Seriously, those bags multiply faster than rabbits- one minute you have two or three in the cabinet under your sink and the next day they're so many of them you can't see anything under your sink and closing those cabinet doors are out of the question. The Blob also comes to mind.

The reusable bags are made out of recyclable materials and they're very compact. When we delivered the cookies, we just asked each of the retailers to hang on to the bags once all the cookies were sold. When we deliver the next order, we'll just pick up the empty bags and reuse them again. To make sure they don't get lost, we laminated some of our business cards and turned them into little tags, which we placed on the handle of each bag- the tags add a personal touch and they're practical too.






reBags, the reUsable delivery bags we transport our cookies in. reMember, they're a reAlly good investment!