I had a bit of an epiphany on the weekend. We had a brunch for Andrew’s family and for the better part of Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, I was busy happily making my famous (in my mind) candied bacon, cranberry scones, sticky buns, 24 hour bread, and molasses muesli bread. When the hubbub of conversation at the brunch reached cocktail party levels, I thought about how much I enjoy making and serving food that makes people happy – the bottom line reason why I opened Prairie Girl in the first place.
Because of the batch sizes done at PGB, I’ve never baked at the bakery and my customer service time is pretty limited. There’s a saying that is something like, “a business owner should work ‘on’ their business, not ‘in’ their business”, and I do think that is right: the beautiful packaging, the up to date website and photography, the advertising, new avenues for growth…all those parts of the business that are so important require my time and attention, and I have really great people making the recipes and serving customers in the manner I want that to be done.
But still. It is true when they say that a person opens a business because they love something – and then they don’t do it anymore. I’m not sure I have a good answer to this, other than to keep finding ways to do whatever it is that got you into the business in the first place. Like baking sticky buns. Or “brioche” as cousin Joycie from Montreal called them.
