Back into the kitchen!

We hadn't planned to produce any more nougat before Christmas but thanks to our standing orders and very sucessful day at the City Market yesterday we're headed back to Blue Ridge Food Ventures to make more salty peanut and cherry almond Zouga nougat! !

We'll be at the City Market today

the last market of the season, to sell Zouga nougat together! Tomorrow we'll be back in the kitchen to make more cherry almond and salty peanut nougat because we are selling out faster than we expected! 2009 looks like it's gonna be the year of the nougat.

The BIG mixer rocks my world.

Kether working at Blue Ridge Food Ventures on a batch of Salty Peanut Nougat.

First Press Release!

"We're selling the nougat at Laurey's in Asheville and she announced our arrival in her nKether, our recent sous chef (remember, she left because she had twins?) is off and running with a new venture: handmade nougat candy. She and a friend, another new mother, have a new candy-making company. The candy is made in our local "value added" facility (not in their home kitchen).I tried their nougat at a party and REALLY liked it! These little square puffs melt away like soft a wisp of a cloud. Take a bite. Drift. Float. Dream. You COULD go to France to try the candy made in Provence. Or, if you don't feel like traveling right now, just come here. Zouga Nougat. Cool.

Thank you Laurey!

Itching to work on Zouga

We've got so much to do! The to-do list just keeps getting longer and longer and Evie's naps just keep getting shorter and shorter...
On Thursday we were working in the incubator kitchen alongside local apple farmers making fresh applesauce. There was also a local chef making vegan chili, plus a 3rd generation jam maker (Imadris Farms) working on his product, too. We traded some plastic bags for fresh applesauce, and some nougat for chili. What fun! We met with the Small Business Center Director Jill Sparks and had a really productive meeting with her about branding and wholesale contracts. Thus the to-do list. We're going back on Sunday to package again and tweak the peanut recipe a bit. The dads are getting together to watch Ian, Grant, and Evie while we work. I wish we could do this everyday!

Arrgh, my brain is mush. I am less than thrilled to work on the business plan after a 10 hour day at the office. If only we hadn't put off this meeting twice already.
Kether held a finished Zouga product in her hand today, completely sealed, with front label, ingredient sticker, and flavor sticker too. Awesome.

So much to do,

not nearly enough baby free hours to work in. Tomorrow we'll finish printing our labels, Thursday we go back to the kitchen to package the rest of the first batch of nougat as well as meet with someone to review our business plan, and Sunday we'll go back to start on batch two. Whew! We've got orders to fill, thank goodness, and we'd love to get our Zouga in stores in town by the middle of the week.