Hello hello from my kitchen in my bakery… who thought I would ever say that!  Not me!  But here we are and I am very happy to be here! 

Today is Tuesday, January 21 and it’s pouring rain, so it’s been a quiet, but cozy day in the bakery.  Despite the quietness, we are almost sold out of bagels and made more mullah than last Tuesday, so that’s pretty decent, right?!  There is one girl here having a café con leche and a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie, and I am taking a little break to update my blog since most of what I need to do before leaving is done.  Someone was working with me this morning and they were a rockstar- we were able to make the dough for 90 bagels for tomorrow, made a beautiful vanilla cake with chocolate icing and she made TWO types of cookies that we have prepped and sitting in the fridge and can be baked off each morning.  Yesterday was my day “off” (there was nothing off about it, but I did sleep for 11 hours between Sunday and Monday so I felt like a brand new person) and I was able to get SO MANY THINGS done:  I did the following:

• placed orders for this week from 3 different suppliers and hopefully that will be enough to cover us for the week (last week I placed orders 3 times which is dangerous because we don’t want to run out- I actually ran out of cream cheese last week and had to run to the supermarket!).  For this week, we have 24 kilos, aka 52.9 pounds of cream cheese coming my way.. should hold us over for a few days 🙂
• made dough for 90 bagels and cleaned and organized the shop after new shelves and 2 bars were installed
• paid outstanding debts 
• walked and saw the sky (I missed it!)
• updated all of my excel documents (income/expenses, orders, to do lists)
• printed new menus and made an allergy coded menu 
• printed things that need to be hung here 
• made brown rice, ratatouille, and meatballs for the week
• got my life in order so I can stop feeling like a chicken 

It was great.  And now it is Tuesday and I have been able to get ingredients prepped, spend some time answering quesions on Instagram, eat lunch (didn’t happen at all last week), organize the junk drawer in the shop, etc. etc.  I feel a lot better when things are organized and the fact that I am sitting right now is really wonderful.  I would love for someone to come in and buy the remaining 17 bagels I have, but there is still time for that.

Anyway, last week was the first week of having my own business and things went WELL!  I spent about half the time alone and the other half of the time, I had some help and things went really well on all fronts.  Tuesday was our quietest day and Saturday and Sunday were INSANE!  I am proud to say we had a line out the door both days and I am excited for this weekend so that we can implement some new systems to help move the line along faster.  It was stressful in the moment, but I am proud of how well we worked and I am proud of myself, for building something that might make people want to wait in line! 

Anyway, I learned a lot in my first week of working for myself (I worked over 80 hours!  I should have been a doctor!) and I wanted to share some of those things:

5 Things I Learned in my First Week Working at Mazál

1. ALWAYS review the products received from suppliers, and review it in detail.  There will be things missing and there will be wrong products.  I ordered sliced jalapeños, they brought whole jalapeños (smaller can).  I ordered dry yeast, they brough fresh yeast.  I ordered capers, they weren’t in the box.  I ordered yogurt, it wasn’t in the box, but I was charged for it.  CHECK THE ORDER!
2. Stay on top of the money!  Keep track of expenses and how much is earned each day.  There is SO much paperwork- invoices, copies of things, etc, that it’s easy to throw it into a drawer and have a big mess.  Stay on top of what you paid and when, and what you earned and when.  That way you know if you are earning money!
3. You will cut yourself.  Cutting bagels is a darn hard thing to do!  We have a bagel cutter- what’s it called, Dad?- but I don’t like to use it on the seeded bagels because it takes them right off.  When cutting with a knife, take it slow and move your fingers away! And if you get cut, go to the kitchen, wash it, and breath- it’s not a big deal!
4. If there is a line, say “thank you for your patience” instead of “sorry for the wait”.
5. You WILL make mistakes- you will burn bagels, you will set something on fire (#truestory), you will overcharge people.  Take a deep breath, take a step back, apologize, and do your best to make it right.

Ok, I am finishing this almost two hours later and there are just a few bagels left!  About to clean as fast as I can and get the hell outta here!