Scared

“The West End Partners, the redevelopers of the area along West Main Street, are planning a large market space to be built out over next year or so. It’s supposed to open in early 2014.

The idea is to have a dozen small-scale restaurants as well as coffee, beer and wine. There will be kitchens for smaller-scale projects, like incubators for people whose business models are too large for the cottage food law but too small for traditional commercial kitchens; a gluten-free kitchen and a confectionary kitchen.

The market part will emphasize local artisans, including a butcher shop to be run by a whole-animal butcher who moved West rose from in-house butcher to sous chef at Bouchon. Much of the food for sale will come from the commercial kitchens, and there will be a demo space as well.”

Fuck, I’m scared.  Isn’t this the perfect opportunity for me?  Is this what I’ve been waiting for?  I want to open up a gelateria downtown and here comes a space that seems almost too perfect – kitchen space, in my preferred area – and on my time schedule.  How can I ignore this?

I had placed the gelateria idea on the back burner; I haven’t worked on it in months.  I’m so easily discouraged by other’s critiques and comments – and my own self-doubt…probably my own self-doubt more than anything. In an attempt to combat it,  I’ve read dozens of quotes (and a book or two)  by successful people about how one must silence the critics to move forward, but I find it impossible to silence the voices of doubt in my head.

The first step is to admit the fear – I’M FUCKING SCARED!  Scared! Scared! Scared! Whew,  that’s out of the way.  The second step is to take one tiny tip-toe forward.  I will call the redevelopers on Monday. No procrastination.  What could it hurt?

Weekend Procrastination

Oh no, I’ve caught myself playing in the kitchen to avoid my “to do” list again.

Saturday day:  I baked up batch of apricot, walnut, orange phyllo tartlets.  Mmm…smelling like Christmas, they’re difficult to resist.  I had to limit my dinner to a 100-calorie bag of popcorn after a full day of sampling.

TartsSaturday evening,  I cooked up lemon marmalade from Susan Feniger’s Street Food cookbook. In 2011, after visiting her restaurant, II was smitten with her pucker-worthy marmalade that I found hidden under sour cream and Ukrainian dumplings and attempted my own version, which was lacking tartness and needed tweaking (it was my FIRST canning attempt).  I bought her cookbook the other day and realized the marmalade recipe was included so I had to – just had to – try it. Check out that color.

Lemon MarmaladeFinally, this morning,  I couldn’t get my mind off the final roll of phyllo languishing in the freezer – my mind prodding me with “apple strudel, apple strudel”.  One last trip to the store for granny smiths and raisins and the result –  walnut apple strudel tartlets.

Apple Strudel TartletsIt is officially Sunday evening and I can pat myself on the back for successfully avoiding all projects scheduled this weekend.  I can now walk into the office on Monday stressed over my lack of progress and my growing “to do” list.