A Peek Into My Work Week

I haven't shown you much of what I do at work these days... my time is split between helping customers in the front and lending a hand in the kitchen. I really enjoy the balance of doing both, but recently I've been spending more of my time in the kitchen and I really don't mind that at all. Here's a peek at some of the things that I've made lately.


vanilla bean macaroons


pear frangipane tart


rustic apricot tart


chocolate mice


individual tarts of all kinds

...Are you salivating yet? :)


P.S. I posted my favorite waffle recipe over at Between Three Kitchens!

Piece of Cake Pie

We ate/made a good amount of food last week. I have a few iPhone photos to share with you:



beef stew, chocolate pudding pie on pi day
spring colors, blackberry thumbprint cookies
multitude of muffins, fudge-licious brownies
The thumbprint cookies, muffins, and brownies were all made at work, just so you don't think we indulged overwhelmingly! Although I did make some peanut butter - chocolate chip - m&m cookies at home that aren't pictured...

And in honor of Pi Day (3.14), I made a chocolate pudding pie on Wednesday. I didn't want to make an apple pie because I prefer berry pies, personally... but it's not the season for berries, and I wasn't really feeling the heaviness of a custard pie. After a bit of searching I found a recipe for chocolate pudding pie over on Smitten Kitchen. Deb always has the best recipes!




To be honest, Shawn and I aren't the biggest fans of pie. He's a cake guy, and I'm a tart girl- I'll take a chocolate ganache tart or lemon tart over a slice of pie any day... but it was Pi Day! So I had to make some sort of pie, and what's better than chocolate pudding pie?! Especially topped with a generous amount of whipped cream... I don't hear anyone complaining. And there's still more than half of it left over... this is why I rarely make big desserts at home; we can't finish them between just the two of us. It is exceptionally light and delicious though!




Did you indulge in a slice of pie for Pi Day?

Hot Chocolate Love

Putting some love into a hot chocolate like it's my job....
...oh wait, it totally is my job!

The other day, I made a lovely latte for a lovely woman. It was my best heart-art yet! (But I didn't get a picture because it wouldn't have been right to make her wait for her latte...) When she saw it, her eyes grew wide and she exclaimed "Oh, how beautiful! Did you know that I'm a heart specialist?" I did not know that; but it was seemingly appropriate that she would get my best heart yet :)

Sketched At Work

When I started working at Town Hall about a year and a half ago, we were displaying beautiful paintings of Philadelphia area landscapes done by local artist Bill Ternay. We've since gone through many other art displays, but he still stops in on a semi-regular basis. I recently learned that he enjoys discreetly sketching his surroundings. The other day he showed me this sketch he did of me at work:


(Click on the image to see it on a larger scale)

He asked if I'd like a copy and of course I said yes! I can't think of any other time I've been sketched (certainly not to my knowledge, anyway...) The other person in the sketch is another one of our regulars, sipping on a cappuccino.

You can see more of Bill's work here.

September floats on by...

Lately my posts have been more photo-heavy and less wordy...
But you know what? I'm ok with that. There's not much to say these days anyway.


Shawn's birthday was last week. He never likes to make a big fuss about it but this year I made him a big cake (yellow cake with chocolate sour cream frosting, to be exact) and got him a few unexpected gifts. He was pleasantly surprised!



We also made meatballs with a side of tortellini for his birthday dinner - quite possibly the best meatballs Shawn has made yet!



I realized I never talk much about what I bake at work. Honestly, I always forget to bring my camera in with me! Here's a peek at what I'll usually make on a weekly basis.... cookies, muffins, scones, and some sort of loaf. And yep, that's all the workspace I have. Hey, you don't need a whole lot of space if you keep it organized properly!



Oh, and pies! I made a lot of pies this summer using up all sorts of fresh fruits, but I'm really excited about making some pies for autumn!



Zucchini bread gets its close-up. I honestly had never made or really even eaten zucchini bread until this summer, but now I think it's absolutely wonderful! It's a lot of fun to bake with vegetables too.


...Of course, what's a post on here without some gratuitous pictures of what we made for dinner?


Mini pizzas made on naan bread! My parents made some the last time I visited and I thought "What a genius idea!" Indeed. We used Trader Joe's frozen naan (warmed in the oven before adding toppings) topped with tomato sauce, red and green peppers, onion, mozzarella and cheddar cheeses, and a sprinkling of fresh parsley.



This week we also splurged and bought some steaks which we paired with homemade sour cream mashed potatoes and green beans. Yummy! Shawn cooked those steaks perfectly!



Oh, I know that's not food up there, don't be silly! But I was too proud of myself not to share a photo of this pillow case I 'fixed'. There was nothing wrong with it to start, it was just made for a bigger pillow that we no longer have, so I sewed it down to fit this smaller pillow. It was a simple sewing project, I can't believe it took me weeks to get motivated to do it! I'm so proud of myself every time I look at the bed now though :)

Expect an onslaught of photos on our flickr soon; we went to Longwood Gardens yesterday and took over 200 photos each! We're so excited to share them once we sort through them all.

Nothing Better Than Fresh Bread

A French-style bakery opened earlier this week less than a mile and a half down the road from us. As anyone who knows me well can imagine, I am pretty darn excited about it. If there is one thing I could wish for in this world, it's that everyone should have easy access to freshly baked bread. It's just one of many things the French got right when it comes to breakfast and food indulgence (along with cheese, champagne, and dessert), and I've never been able to understand why here in America people just can't seem to wrap their brains around buying freshly baked bread on a regular basis instead of heavily preserved 'bread' loaves that are made to last for weeks on end. Needless to say, I am beyond excited about having a bakery that can provide such things within walking distance.

I took a walk up there earlier today but was saddened to find that they had already sold out of all their buttery pastries (I was really hoping for a pain au chocolat!) and opted for a baguette instead. Can I just comment on how silly I felt once I realized I was walking down the street, baguette in hand, with a striped shirt and hat on? Way to perpetuate ridiculous French stereotypes, Marine!


By the time I got back to the apartment, half of the baguette had already been consumed. I must confess though, I shared some of it with my very happy co-workers when I stopped in there for an iced tea break on the way home. Then I sliced it up and spread a little honey on one slice, and some strawberry preserves on another... absolute deliciousness. I may not have gotten my pain au chocolat, but dammit, I made a point of enjoying myself none the less. The bread was crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and still warm too... I can't think of anything better for an afternoon snack.


Other than walking nearly 3 miles, I've spent most of my day off relaxing. I did a short yoga sequence upon waking up this morning, after eating some cereal with strawberries and catching up on some reading. (Yes, I'm still working my way through Life of Pi, but I'm almost done, I swear! Then it's on to something else.)

Here's a little collage for anyone who's curious about what I do at work:


(all photos except for bottom left are from yelp.com)
A few weeks ago we had a customer who drove a pretty long way to come to the shop because she had heard so many good things about us. Well, we gave her a demonstration of what we do and she took some really decent photos on her iphone which she proceeded to post on Yelp. So yes, that is my arm and hands in those photos! ...can you pour hearts on top of people's lattes? I can! And I can bake things too! Man, my life is pretty sweet.

Not to rub it in or anything... :P

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I have been working in the service industry for as long as I can remember. I've served people coffee, waited on tables, made food behind the scenes, and I've even worked a little retail. I've seen the better ends of customer service, and some of the worse ends too. What I've learned over the years is that it's easy to teach an employee how to deal with customers in an appropriate matter, but some customers still need a little refresher course on how to handle themselves in public too. What I'd like to share with you today is my take on customer etiquette.

What customer etiquette boils down to is respect. As a customer, when you walk into an establishment you expect decent customer service. What is considered decent customer service? Attention to detail, knowledge of product, eagerness, and above all, respect. We strive to give you these things and all we ask of you, the customer, is a little respect in return. So today, I strive to teach all of us (because we're all customers somewhere) four places where we could all use a little improvement, or re-education, in customer etiquette. (These do refer more specifically to a coffeehouse or small food retail type of interaction, although I believe most of these points could be applied just about anywhere.)

1. Say hello. It's not difficult and it barely takes a second, but for some reason, plenty of people still forget this. I can't tell you how often a customer walks into the cafe and I greet them with a cheerful "Hello! How are you doing today?", expecting at least a smile in return, only to be run down with a hasty "I'll have _____, and I want it to go". On one occasion I even had a new customer question one of our regular customer as to why he greeted me with 'hello' - he asked him, "What, do you know her or something?" - of course the regular customer was puzzled and said "only by association", because he understands that when you walk into an establishment it is customary to greet the person(s) inside, regardless of whether or not you 'know' them.


2. Keep your cellphone conversation out of our interaction. Everyone has a cell phone these days, whether it be the newest iPhone or something much less fancy, there is no denying that we are all living in a wireless word. And yes, it's great that you can call your friends up while you're walking down the street and tell them all about the new coffee shop that just opened up, but please, don't have that conversation while I'm trying to interact with you. It's rude to me, and it's rude to the person you're on the phone with, and that's just too much disrespect all around, so while you're at the counter, please put your phone away.


3. Clean up after yourself. We try our hardest to make you feel at home while you're in the store, but please don't make yourself too comfortable. Remember to keep your feet off the seats, put your dirty dishes in the bus tub and your used napkins in the trashcan, and if you make a spill - let us know so we can clean it up immediately! We know you wouldn't appreciate walking into a dirty store, so we invite you to lend us a hand in keeping it clean so that we can focus on the rest. It only takes an extra few seconds of your time, and it really does make a difference.


4. For the love of man, leave a tip. While this does fall under etiquette, everyone knows it's also pending on the situation. I'm not saying you should tip the guy at Wawa who hands you a cup of pre-brewed coffee and doesn't say anything more than the price, but I do believe you should always leave a tip if there is a tip jar and a moderate amount of interaction occurs. You don't even need to leave much - just dropping your change in there makes a difference too! Who really wants 48 cents jiggling around in their pocket anyway? A tip is just rewarding someone for a good service rendered - so tell me, is 48 cents really too much to give someone for a smile, a hand-poured cup of coffee, and a little conversation? Hell, I'll even throw a little love in there for free.

We are all in this world together, so lets lend each other a hand. Thank you!

Another Day on the Job

Town Hall Coffee Espresso Lab (Counter Culture)

...still perfecting my latte art.