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.