Thankful

Well, we did manage to pull off Thanksgiving, if just barely. Usually my family goes to my Aunt and Uncle's home in Cincinnati for Thanksgiving, which is a blast and a half, but this year between half of us being in Mexico, my mom and Stephanie working, and jb and I being so busy with opening the cafe, we weren't able to get away. Steph worked 12 hour days the day before and the day after Thanksgiving. My mom is a flight attendant and didn't come back into town until Thanksgiving day at 5 pm. Jb and I didn't even realize Thanksgiving was sneaking up on us until Sunday. So it was looking like we might have to cancel Thanksgiving dinner altogether, but at the last minute jb managed to find the last hormone-free, grass-fed turkey in the tri-state and whipped up a spur of the moment feast.

Stephanie, jb, and I headed over the Burgan house in the morning and everyone pitched in to throw together stuffing, apple crisp, mashed potatoes, chocolate pecan pie, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and all the fixins. It turned out really nice, you'd have never known we threw it all together that day (gives me a lot of hope for the cafe). My mom got home around six and we had a great dinner. The one drawback is that my grandma and other family in the area couldn't join us (apparently my Aunt planned her own dinner that we weren't invited to- ouch). We had a lot of fun, ate tons, played Apples to Apples, and it was great to be frantically working on something aside from the cafe.

As soon as the we slept off the meal, we were back to work with the help of the Burgan clan. After all our worrying about should we or shouldn't we get professional painters - they never showed up. Story of our freakin lives. So we took advantage of the small army that is jb's family and got a solid first coat up. We also managed to get the rest of the furniture for the dining area. We've had to piece things together from thrift stores and sales, but hopefully it will look cozy and eclectic rather than a bunch of cheap garbage thrown together.

I've refrained from blogging about the kittens lately, to avoid the "crazy cat lady" label, but this picture was just too cute not to share. They are more than TWICE the size they were when we got them. We will most likely only have them for another week or so. If anyone is thinking about adopting, these are just the best kittens (and they are great with dogs!).

Root Vegetables

Well, I did tackle the mystery that is carrot cake this weekend and it was a rather pleasant experience. I like carrots, I like cake, and I LOVE cream cheese icing.

I grated the carrots by hand which wasn't anything compared to the hand-whipped meringue incident, but still, next time I think I'll use the food processor. The recipe calls for 3 cups of grated carrots and after about a two cups I started to hit a rhythm, but then after two and a half cups I started to get cocky and nearly grated my thumb into the batter a few times. Luckily, tragedy was a averted. The carrots turned the batter a gorgeous shade of orange.

While the cakes were baking I made the icing, which was surprisingly easy. Just cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar. I cut the sugar in half and I still think it was sweet enough. Next time I'd even use less butter. I like my cream cheese icing to have a little bite to it.

My weakness when it comes to cakes (aside from the eating large amounts of them) is that I'm never patient enough to let them cool before icing them. So once the cakes came out of the oven, I placed them on cooling racks, waited approximately 90 seconds and then began icing them.

I dyed a little of the icing orange and green to paint a carrot on the top. Forces me to forfeit labeling it "No artificial colors", but I thought it was cute.

Only today am I realizing that Thanksgiving is this week and I'm having a bit of a panic attack about it. I've really been wanting to try my hand at a sweet potato pie, but I don't know if I want to be trying something new when we've got the whole meal to take care of. If my mom makes it home for Thanksgiving and can work her feast day magic I'll take care of desserts.

Don't Sweat the Tile

Yesterday was full of important, but mostly boring meetings. Payroll, Security, Credit Cards, and a POS system. The POS system was the neatest of the bunch, but it is quite pricey. We are torn over whether or not we should get it because while it's not something we NEED, it would make our lives much easier and save quite a bit of time. I suppose it all depends on whether or not we are able to get the technology grant we applied for.

The counter is moving forward again - The countertop and drink bar are up. The mini counter by the ice machine is also up. (Don't worry, the hideous cafe curtain isn't staying.) The most exciting development is that the tile is being laid. We agonized over the tile choice - not too ugly, not too expensive is a surprisingly hard balance to strike. I'm really happy with the tile we went with, but in retrospect, I'm sure we could have chosen anything and made it work.

Every post lately has been about the Cafe. Which is fair, because that's pretty much taking over our lives at the moment. Still, I'm going to make a concerted effort to do something non-hoi polloi related, yet blog worthy this weekend. Perhaps I'll bake a carrot cake.

In other news, Hoi Polloi is going to be donating the cookies and beverages for Allegheny West's Christmas House Tour. We'll be open during the tour, but we'll also have a table with free hot beverages and homemade cookies for the tour goers. That's a lot of baking!!!

I'm really terrified that the cafe is going to kill the love of baking in me. I really enjoy it so much, but after a few months of having to do it everyday, it may not not be as much fun. :( Or maybe I'll just get hella good at it!

We're Famous!

:) The Pittsburgh Dish posted their article about Hoi Polloi today!

In Hot Water

I am very cranky today. Aside from feeling generally overwhelmed, we have run into some delays with our contractors (shocking, I know) so there has been no progress on the counter. On top of that, they turned off the cold water in our apartment three days ago when they moved the sink in the cafe - and it has yet to go back on. We've had to flush our toilet with buckets (ew), and have begun to smell awfully ripe. So today, our third day without a shower, we had an appointment with a photographer from the Pittsburgh Dish (yay!) for a profile that they are doing on Hoi Polloi. Getting our picture taken with three days of funk on us isn't really an option, so we had to take "splash showers". We turned on the boiling hot water, stood near it and splashed it onto ourselves, soaped up, and splashed to rinse. It's hard to describe being freezing and scalded at the same time. Not fun.

In happier news, the Pittsburgh Dish is covering our progress :) and everyone we've spoken to there has been very nice. Also, we met with the sign people today about the hanging sign that will go over the front door. If it comes out the way I'm picturing it, it should look rather sharp.

Tonight jb and I are taking a break and going out to get some Thai food. It may be the last date we go on for a long time.

Counter Culture

Framework for the counter - isn't it gorgeous? I don't think I've ever seen anything so lovely.

We've also been trying to decide whether it would make more sense for us hire painters to do the painting in the cafe (high-way robbery) or to have a painting party with 20 of our closest friends and put everyone to work. Initially we thought the painting party was the way to go - free labor, right? But the more we think about it, it might make more sense to hire the painters. A party would still be costly - buying supplies for everyone to paint with, pizza, beer, etc - not to mention that it would be at least one whole day (possibly two or three) that we would have to give painting our whole attention, and at this point there's so much to do, it seems like jb's time is more valuable than the extra money it would cost to hire the painters. We'll still pitch-in to make it go faster (since they charge by the day), but it will be great to know they have it under control if we need to run errands or focus on other things.

Messy

So, remember this wall? Well, it's gone. And the sink behind it has been moved back into the kitchen. Today was full of Home Depot and Ikea trips. We picked out tiles and a countertop and construction on the counter starts tomorrow.

Currently the cafe space looks a frightful mess, but it's so great to see things changing. It's getting easier to visualize the space we want and it's not seeming so insane that we open in 24 days. Don't get me wrong, it still seems pretty insane - but not quite as "what on earth were we thinking; this just may kill us" insane.

There's so much to do - the construction, painting, ordering appliances, inventory, signs, furniture, curtains, rugs, scheduling, finalizing the menu... it's enough to make your head spin, especially on top of a full time job, community organizations, day-to-day life, two dogs, four cats, and trying to keep in touch with friends and family.

I feel like I'm just treading water from one day to the next and we haven't even opened yet. I'm not even the one in charge! Poor jb is losing her hair in spades. And to think it's only the beginning. I will miss jb so much when she starts working 16 hour days. We've had quite a run - living together, socializing together, working together - it's been over two years now of 24-hrs-a-day, 7-days-a-week, still not sick of each other yet wonderfulness. We've survived intense and demanding schedules before, but I haven't been exactly itching to relive those days. Still, it will be different this time around - we're working for ourselves, investing in our future, and if all goes well, this will be the last time in our lives that we are working the equivalent of two full time jobs. And let's not forget that I can run downstairs to see her whenever I need to.

I'll be sure to post pictures of the counter as it goes up.

First Signs of Progress

We put up homemade signs on butcher paper in our windows to hide our growing pains. The one on Galveston says:

"Hoi Polloi: [hoy-puh-loy] 1.) n. The common people; the masses, the ordinary folk. Derived from the Greek phrase meaning 'the many' 2.) Allegheny West's newest cafe and gathering place coming in December"

And the one on North says:

"Coming in December:
- Coffee/Espresso
-Fresh Juices
- Sandwiches
- Soups
-Salads
-Smoothies
-Homemade Baked Goods."

Slightly cheesy, yes. We don't deny it. Still, people seem excited. We went to help label the postcards for Allegheny West's Christmas Tour (which we hope to be open for) and so many people were asking about the cafe - the hours, the menu, etc.

We also managed to sell the ugly tables and chairs that came with the building. So now not only do we have them out of our way, but we have some extra money to take to thrift stores to try and pick up some mismatched, but not hideous replacements. Good riddance!

We've been getting bids from contractors and hope to start the dirty work on Monday.

Relations Out in Moon

JB and I attended the meet and greet with Rep. Barney Frank today and it fulfilled all expectations of being depressing and disheartening. I just backspaced about 8 different sentences because I don't even really know what to say. Let me leave it at that I left even more disgusted with the ENDA situation.

On our way out the door I was chatting with Tara and she introduced me to John Musmanno who is running for retention judge. I introduced myself and he said, "T-E-L-E-P? Telep? Do you have relations out in Moon?" I responded, "Yes sir, Theodore Telep was my grandfather." Well, what do you know, my grandfather was his homeroom teacher. Nuts.

Good Things about this week:

• We bought a gallon of organic milk at the co-op on Tuesday that was past its sell-by date for $0.99 - and it's still good! Seriously - I just had a glass.
• We are officially an LLC and have an EIN. We are so incorporated - and we close on the loan next week!
• The kittens have done the impossible and gotten even cuter. This week they got super active and curious.
• I'm currently sitting in bed eating nutella and graham crackers
  

Bad Things about this week:

• We were supposed to start demo on the wall where we want to put the counter in the cafe, but we have not had any luck getting any of several contractors to show.

• I started to cover the windows (so that we can keep our renovation growing pains under wraps) with these awesome "Imagine Peace" posters that we got at the Hirshhorn. We grabbed a stack the last time we were there before we moved and I thought we'd have plenty to cover the three windows, but we barely had enough for one. I guess the other two need a plan B.
  

• I'm currently watching Herbie Fully Loaded.