Cue the DVR!

Introduction
Rhino and I wanted to shake up the blog this week, so below you will find a new blog format. K means written by Katie, and R means written by Rhino (obvi). Let us know what you think! 

 

The Purple Cole Slaw
K: A few weeks back, a new Bloomy’s friend e-mailed us to share his prized coleslaw recipe. Now, if you can recall, a few weeks back was also the time during which each of the following things happened:

1. Rhino asked for my hand in marriage
2. I was struck by a massive four-debilitating-day head cold
3. I was promoted at work (I know I don’t talk about my day job a lot, or at all, but I was promoted and alas this caused some delay with the coleslaw).

So, in any case, these fairly significant life events have challenged our ability to try new recipes in the Bloomy’s test kitchen. However, the timing actually turned out to be quite well – timely, and the first official taste tester of this coleslaw just so happened to be an Emmy award winner! (See “Hosting an Emmy Award Winner” section below).

R: Now that my Katie has given you the entire history of how we came to prepare the coleslaw recipe, I feel that it is due time to get to the point of this topic.  Dan’s recipe was wicked good.  However, during the “flair” that I truly enjoy putting on any recipe, my version turned out purple.  Wicked good, wicked purple.  Fortunately, we loved the purple results and neither of us had ever seen purple coleslaw, so we are keeping it (any correlation to the MN Vikings, Purple Pride, The Purple People Eaters,  I Bleed Purple, Purple Lovers Anonymous, or Purple Rain is completely unintentional and irrelevant to any content of this blog). Thanks Dan! Katie and I truly appreciate your contributions to Bloomy’s.

Hosting an Emmy Award Winner

R: As a result of Katie’s phone conversations with our visiting Emmy Award Winner, I was pretty excited to meet him and not so nervous about the whole being interviewed thing.  However, the immediate shock of discovering that your house is not only going to be on HD television, but that you also have to prepare sample food for HD television, was slightly more intense (by slightly, I mean immensely.) Now, in all fairness, Katie and I knew that we had an entire weekend of cleaning ahead of us as soon as we found out that we were going to be interviewed by Kare11’s Emmy Award Winning Reporter Boyd Huppert on the “Land of 10,000 Stories” last Monday.  Although we should have probably been the ones to bring it up, Boyd asked us if we would have samples available to shoot.  The answer to that question was so obvious that we were instantly making a list of necessities needed to make an accurately slamazing representation of the Bloomy’s Menu and factoring the cooking schedules into our weekend plans. 

K: So, I think the Rhino does not accurately describe how FREAKING INTENSE this whole “have a local celebrity over to your house to eat your food and tape you for tv” process is. In any case, I think that we both held it together pretty well. This is also evidenced by the fact that we didn’t fight ONE time and I didn’t have even ONE whack attack. (Apparently, we are adapting to increased levels of stress – aka two full time jobs, each.)

Getting back to the subject. When we found out that Boyd was going to head over to casa de Bloomy’s for the taping, I immediately went downstairs to dig out our industrial strength cleaning product bucket and requisite superpower cleaning gloves. Beginning Friday night and ending Monday pre-11am, the Rhino and I cleaned every square inch of Bloomyland. And I mean: Every. Square. Inch. In addition, we found time to do each of the following things:

1. Stop at the grocery (we actually had to go to two places because the roast beef at the first place wasn’t up to Rhino quality and he felt “like there was some sort of trickery involved” with the deli so we had to drive 25 minutes to find the perfect cut – which we did and it was worth it)
2. Get welcoming budget-friendly flowers (see pic below)
3. Prepare a full menu (this required my “taking one for the team” and getting up at 3:30AM to put the roast beef in the oven so it could begin its evolution to pure roast beef perfection)
4. Plate said menu, and
5. Host the Kare11 crew, make them laugh at least four times, and feed them a delish Bloomy’s lunch

Ps – I also forgot that we totally went to a super bonfire during this whole deal too! But the bonfire-hosters are our close couple friend, and we needed a mental break from Bloomyland. We met a new cool dude at this bonfire too who is now a future Bloomy’s customer. I love how the world works!

>> The Rhino and I also have to take a serious moment to sincerely thank Boyd & Jonathan for taking the time to come over, share our home, and learn more about Bloomy’s. It was an awesome experience for us, and we’ll never forget it. <<

For those of you who wish to view our TV debut “live and in action,” please tune into Boyd’s “Land of 10,000 stories” segment this Tuesday (as in TOMORROW, November 1) at 10pm on channel 11.

Ok, back to it then!

Bloomy’s Gear
K: The Rhino has been tasked with identifying the perfect Bloomy’s gear that will be given to our slamazing 26 (and counting!) Kickstarter Backers  who have helped fund Bloomy’s to the tune of $3350! 13 days to go. Can we do it? Yes we can! As fate would have it, the Rhino used to work with a guy who just so happens to do screen printing as a side business. Aric (I wanted to call him “Mr. Tee” like tee-shirt but Rhino wouldn’t let me) graciously mocked up not one but four Bloomy’s logo prototypes to select from. After review and input from our talented Creative Director, Miss Jamie D., we decided to go with a washed out vintage-style color logo for our backers and a classic washed out vintage-style black and white logo for our official sponsors. Dope! I’m currently working with Jamie D. on finalizing our t-shirt and hoodie styles but I can promise you that they will be out of this world comfy cozy.

R: Aric is truly hooking Bloomy’s up for our apparel needs, and I would be doing an injustice not to recommend him for custom screen printing and embroidery needs to anyone.  You couldn’t have wiped the sh*t-eating grin off my face with paint thinner when I saw our logo on those T’s.  I realize that some business owners put too much stake in their logo and website, but let’s face it; this is a part of our dream coming true and epic to Katie and me.  I immediately put one of the sample shirts on for the rest of the evening (partially because Katie hadn’t seen them and I was ultra-elated for her to see them when she first walked in) and proceeded to strut my way around the house like a proud father of sorts.  A TV interview and our OWN clothing in one week was quenching my thirst for Bloomy’s success.

Buying a Food Truck

R: We get a lot of questions about the Food Truck itself.  The good news is that WE have fewer questions about our “soon-to-be food truck.”  For starters, we know that Bloomy’s is raising the bar for food truck requirements.  Our desire to have a true Mobile Food Truck does not follow the traditional method of “Food Trucking.”  A lot of food trucks currently either prepare their wares ahead of time in a brick and mortar kitchen or utilize a more “freezer to customer” approach to cooking.  Since Bloomy’s makes our food from scratch and won’t have a kitchen to use, we require a unique set of full kitchen equipment on our truck.  This ended up being an ultra-awesome project for me that has also been a bittersweet brain teaser.  “To be continued,” as we have a very good idea of the who’s, where’s and how’s involved in our ongoing custom food truck design, and we are fully expecting to place an order in the first week of December.

K: I don't have anything to add to that as the food truck is a vehicle and therefore something I know absolutely nothing about. 

So, In conclusion, these have been some serious days filled with serious planning and serious cleaning. But, in spite of it all, we still find time to laugh and love - and isn’t that what life is all about anyway?

Remember to tune into Bloomy’s tomorrow night at 10pm. Kare11 baby!