Thursday morning, and I have just finished a cup of tea and breakfast. Breakfast was an exciting South African Feurte avocado on toasted baguette. I know I shouldn’t be buying fruit and vegetables that costs the atmosphere gazillions of a carbon footprint, but the idea of a perfectly ripened Feurte avocado from home was just hard to resist. I’m not going to tell you what it cost, although having just said that, I don’t imagine it was anything more than a perfectly ripened, but out of season Woolworths avo. I paid 1.16€. 20 ZA Rands each. But, that was cheaper than the other ones that have been on the market recently, so it was worth it.
It’s raining out today- hard, drenching rain, but most welcome after a week of fairly high temperatures for May. We had a long weekend last week, and the sun shone brilliantly every single day of it. I collapsed in bed on Sunday night with pink arms and a pink nose. I am trying to take in as much as we can, given the winter holiday back home.
But the real reason for my writing to you is to tell you that I am testing the waters of an income earner. I can’t officially state that I AM WORKING, because this isn’t a proper job. It’s a rather typical ‘work from home, earn your own money’ kind of thing.
Let me give you all the background stories.
I have been casually looking for work. I’ve weighed up a list of expectations that need to be considered, and fortunately I can be a little bit fussy about what I am happy doing. By all accounts there is a fairly big need for English speakers at the bilingual creches, but the hours and the wages don’t make it worth our while. And I also will despise myself for giving babies and toddlers attention while ignoring the social-development needs of my own two girls. Because let me be honest… I feed them, I wash their clothes, and I fetch and carry them to school. Besides that, I’m just Shouty-Mommy who likes to read from her iPad all day.
For a while I considered getting proper restaurant work, but then I chickened out because the idea of joining Soochef became a possibility.
Soochef is quite simply, an on-line agency for a meals service. It’s like Uber of the food world. Except, as a vendor, I don’t have to buy myself a car. (Although it has given us an extra reason to buy a new fridge).
It runs on the suggestion of a home cooked meal being delivered to your door, and given we are in France where it’s socially taboo to be seen buying fast food, this is an alternative. Deliveries are made on a bicycle, (which is kitted with a refrigerated box) within a specific radius of the office, and only at regular meal times.
Naturally, Soochef doesn’t actually cook the meals. They don’t even have exclusive selection of the menu’s. They have a network of chefs- like me- who have time to cook at home. The chefs decide what they are able to supply, and when. The chefs ask what they want to charge. This is not to say the chefs rule- Soochef has the end game to deal with. If I put up for sale 5 salads for 5 days, they might only buy 2 salads for 3 days, depending on what other chefs have to offer, and what Soochef feels is a suitable selection for the days’ menu. If they buy too much from chefs, they could end up with surplus stock that they cant move. Given that Soochef supplies packaging of the meals (including recyclable plastic containers and cardboard branded sleeves), they also print labels with best before dates on, thus they can’t try flog old stock.
Soochef runs a pretty efficient ship. For the most part, everything is done on-line. Communication between chefs and Soochefs is via a personal web page. Chefs receive sms notifications of orders, and a Soochef employee collects the orders 3 hours later on a bike with a refrigerated box.
In order to standardise their web profiles, one of the directors physically goes to the homes of the chef to take photos of the meals they would like to sell. By doing this, he is able to do a random spot-check on kitchen hygiene and cleanliness, determine the quality of the meal on offer and then photograph the meals. This ensures that all photos that are used on their website are standard. Can you imagine the variety of random photos if we were all bale to submit our own? Naturally this means I can’t rustle up a new dish every second day-any new selections I can offer have to be accepted and photographed before I can sell them.
I am pretty impressed with this set up for now. I don’t have to invest any real amount of money that could be a risk. I can ‘work’ at times that suit me. (And if I need to be away, or have to deal with sick kids, I don’t have to excuse myself). I can do what I’m good at. I am not under huge pressure to be fluent in French. And I am not going to be earning that much that I will need to declare the additional income for the time being.
It will be slow to start with. We won’t be able to move into a bigger apartment any time soon, but in time I hope to establish a more successful process and just get better. And we have time, don’t we?
Of the 3 choices I initially offered up (a grilled vegetable salad as an entrée, chicken braised in white wine with shallots and new potatoes s a main) the Chocolate Brownie was the first ‘sale’ I made. Chocolate desserts, particularly the dark and bitter variety- are immensely popular up here and in the last few months I have had reason to make my Brownies often. It’s been delightful to know why they were always such a hit for various events I have taken them too. These brownies are rich and moist, and I often find that bitter fruit is a great accompaniment- raspberries are great!
If you’re keen, I’m attaching the recipe here if you’re keen to print it out for your own purposes.
Anyway, that’s me for today. Bon appetite et a tout a l’heure.
Xxx
Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals 