Hi again friends!  Are you on facebook?  I'm not.  I learned that if I'm on it, I don't get anything else done.  Too...many...cute...baby....pictures...!!!!!  :)  

But, SweetPotatoMayas made it on the cover of the February issue of Beaverton Resource Guide, with a little cover story inside!   The online version can be viewed on facebook, if you would like to check it out.  SweetPotatoMayas on Beaverton Resource Guide

Photo by Sammy Gould

As always, thanks so much for stopping by, and happy food tidings!

Here we are again lovely people, already at the end of another week.  How are you?  I hope everybody's been healthy, safe, and feeling good stuff inside :)

Photo by: Yoshiko Wong

Welp, last week I applied for an account at a local produce distributor, and I was approved.  I have no idea how - I'm just teeny tiny small business - but I'm gonna go with it!

This was my next strategy in the quest for the right sweet potato variety.  I'm gonna start ordering each variety, one case at a time.  I haven't given up hope that I'll be reunited with my favorite sweet potato to bake with!!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend, and sending you a intergalactic cyber space internet world **HUG**

Photo by: Sammy Gould

Sammy Gould,  is a local food photographer I was lucky enough to meet through a mutual friend.  She recently gave me the honor of working with my pies.  She takes amazing shots of food, animals, stuff...just about anything!  I especially love browsing through her wild life shot.  Seriously - they are absolutely lovely.  You can check them out on her website at:  www.nekosam.com

She also has a super fun '365 Project' going on at her blog at: www.nekosam.com/blog

I got back from the East Coast yesterday, and tonight, I got right back to baking SweetPotatoMayas.  It feels good :)

If I may, I'd like to share kind of an unrelated story today.  The last couple of weeks have been kind of rocky for the sweet potato and I, and I've been yappin' at you a lot about my sweet potato woes - perhaps you would enjoy a little break from it :)

The Mr. and I are heading back East this weekend,  to see an old friend get married!  I'm so excited to attend our friend Eddie's wedding.  AND we get to stay at our cousin's place, and it will be so great to see him and his lady too.  I really love traveling.  Traveling, and visiting seeing people you love?  Even better!

The Mr. and I have a special connection with our friend Eddie.  The three of us met at a community college in 1995 - that was 18 years ago.  We all auditioned and were cast in a production of A Little Night Music ( best known for the song Send In the Clowns).  So we were stuck with each other rehearsing, whether we liked it or not.   And 5 years after that, in 2000, when the Mr. and I got married, Eddie performed the ceremony for us.

Man...we were kids!  We were in our mid-20's, and Eddie lead our wedding in front of 100 guests that day.  He had all of us laughing, smiling, and feeling emotional...  I was too young to realize what a huge thing Eddie had done for us.  So you can understand my excitement right?  I'm just all smiles thinking, that in just a couple of days, we'll be sitting there watching Eddie get married!!

Being the travel loving geek that I am, I looked up where I was going.  I looked at maps, I looked at the facilities where the events will be held...it's too much fun!  The ceremony is going to be held at St. Patrick's Church in Yorktown Heights, and when I saw a picture of this place, my jaw just dropped.

So beautiful.


And after the ceremony, the hardcore celebration will take place at the Glen Island Harbour Club in New Rochelle. Looks like a spectacular location to celebrate the newlyweds.

I'll be away from my kitchen and all the 'SweetPotatoMaya-ness', and I'm feeling a bit nervous about leaving my post.  But I can't imagine a better reason than this, to step away for a couple of days :)

Well...thank you for letting me share my excitement, and for taking a look here.  I really appreciate it.  And I hope your weekend is a good one too.

We're on our way Eddie!!

Well hello again :)  I hope everyone is off to a good start this week!

I have to be honest, in terms of SweetPotatoMayas, mine hasn't started off as well.  I went to another produce distributor in the area yesterday, and that seemed like another dead end.   One nice shipping manager from a California farm I spoke to last week, told me they were shipping two kinds of the sweet potato variety I was interested in, to a distributor in my area.  And it was to arrive Monday.   So I went there yesterday, but by the time I got there, one of the pellets had already sold and was all gone.  And the other pellet that was still left, carried the sweet potatoes I didn't want.

This shipment and the distributor was the one lead I got after calling 4 or 5 farms, speaking to numerous people at each farm, trying to explain what I'm looking for.  I'm wondering if the sweet potatoes I'm looking for, even exists anymore.  I kind of feel like a detective on a case that's gone 'cold'.  Except my case isn't really that cool - it's just about spuds that grow in the ground.

I admit, I went through a 'moment of funk' yesterday - nothing major, just questioning my own love and commitment to sweet potatoes.  But I snapped out of it, and I'm ready to press on!  I feel silly that I even let it get to me.   But, eh.  I'm human and such is life.    I have a new plan - I'll write about it later - and other leads I'm going to follow.  And we'll see where that takes me :)  It's all an adventure and a journey, and I am so blessed to get to experience it.

So, for anyone that's out there, thanks for letting me share my neurotic quest for the right sweet potato, and for putting up with it.  I have a feeling the saga will continue...

  

I made a New Years Resolution for the first time in my life, and I'm breaking it already.  See?  What did I tell you?

My New Years Resolution was - mind you, I made this big hoopla and even blogged about it - to contact one prospective customer per week.  In other words, make one cold call per week.  And just to be clear, in my SweetPotatoMaya world, that means showing up in cafes, restaurants, assisted living homes and any other food service facilities, and forcing my pies on people.  Who wants to 'hear' about it?  Let's cut to the chase and have 'em taste it.

But for now, that super fun expedition will have to wait.  You see,  I've run into the 'inconsistency in sweet potato variety'  issue again.  They turn out slightly different in appearance, and that is a natural thing.   But I just don't want to give - let alone sell - my pies unless they are made exactly the way I want.  I have a vision of how they should turn out.  And having the wrong sweet potato flat out takes the baking spirit out of me.

So this week, I've been on a quest to straighten this out.  I've been tracking down where I can get my sweet potatoes - direct.  I found out a farm will not, and should not, deliver to me.  For starters, I'd have to buy by the pellet, and a pellet holds about 2000 pounds of sweet potatoes.  Having 2000 pounds of sweet potatoes in my garage, might quite possibly be my ultimate fantasy, but I don't think the neighbors will share the same sentiment.  And the other tiny problem is that we live in a little cul-de-sac, and the rig would definitely get stuck in it.  So...direct from farm was out.

To anyone who was kind enough to give me the time of day on the phone, I said I was looking for a specific sweet potato: plum/purple color skin, with a starchy buttery yellow flesh.  Well, you'd think that description was specific enough, but so far I haven't  found anyone who knows which variety that is.  But then yesterday, one farm gave me the name of a major distributor in my area.  A new lead!  So today I drove out to this distribution center, and asked to walk through their warehouse so I can look for these darn sweet potatoes that are being so coy with me.  After waiting in the reception area for about five minutes, a very nice sales manager escorted me through their ginormous sub zero warehouse.  I'm certain he wanted to keep an eye on me - I definitely looked suspicious with my stretched out mom sweater and a pair of galoshes.

In the end, I didn't find the sweet potato I was looking for.  And the very nice manager said he was sorry I wasted a trip.  I told him 'No!' I told him it was actually quite the opposite.  I really appreciated his time!  And I learned so much.  And then he said he will put together and e-mail me, a list of  the farms they buy from, and the sweet potato variety each farm offers!   Isn't that so awesome?  So I'm really glad I went out there in person.  Meeting people is good.  And although I broke my New Years Resolution, I took another little step forward for SweetPotatoMayas.

I've never made a New Year's Resolution in my life.  What's the point?  I know I'm gonna break it anyway.  The thing is, I'm such a weak little cheater - I've avoided making any New Year's Resolutions because I KNOW I won't keep it, and I'm way too scared to face that kind of failure.

But lately, I've been failing in all sorts of ways, so it's starting to not feel as bad.  'Why can't I get my kid to memorize the multiplication table...she's already in the 4th grade, why can't I just stop at two glasses of wine,  good lord I haven't put the family album together for the last 5 years...'.  You get the picture.  The list goes on and on.  I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on this 'failure' thing.  Either I've developed a tolerance for failure, or I'm finally growing up and letting go of the little things.  I'd like to go with the latter 'cause it sounds much cooler.

Anyway, all this is to say, I think I'm going to make a New Year's Resolution this year.  I hope I didn't miss the deadline...I've never played this game before.  Hopefully it's not too late to jump in - and here is my New Year's Resolution:

• Contact one prospective customer a week - and blog about it.

That's it. So lets let'er rip.  In blaze of glory like a crazy mo-fo.

...I'm always late to join the party, but I'm finally learning that it's so much more fun to crash and burn tryin', than playing it safe and not doing anything at all.

So here I go, with my sweet potato love child ;)