Stephanie's posterous

Kindred spirits...Siggi's, Icelandic style skyr

My dear friend Holly just sent me a link to Siggi's website! I am convinced that this company is Portoviejo Food's kindred spirit! LOVE this form of storytelling about an otherwise pedestrian product. The story elevates the product. Also love the commitment to simplicity, sustainability and how the company has retained a certain under-produced quirkiness. So excited to go out and buy some Siggi's!! Check out the site!

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Another Satisfied Non-Customer

The world wide web is a wondrous thing. It allows for mere mortals like you and I to simply fire-up Google and search to our little heart's content for answers to such life's most meditative subjects. Things like: the meaning of life, the validity of global warming, was Tupac really spotted on the Vegas Strip OR, more pressingly, why in the world doesn't our yuca bread recipe produce the perfectly chewy and delectable rolls that we remembered from childhood!?

My new friend Xavier from Florida was wrestling with the later quandary a few weeks ago. After a few attempts at recreating his mother's pan de yuca recipe, he turned to the web to find a solution to the dry crumbly dough he was producing. His random internet search led Xavier to this here blog and, in the spirit of social media, he contacted me to see if he could get some thoughts on where he might be going wrong.

I was happy to oblige and provide Xavier with a few pointers (in the process I learned that our parents are from the same province in Ecuador-- small world.)

Xavier got in touch with me over the weekend and had the following positive report:

"I have to admit I was a little nervous about making them since I had so many consecutive failures. I took your advice... and...ready for this?!?!?! It worked! ... I have no idea how you knew because I would have NEVER been able to solve this on my own.

While I was at this Latin grocery store, I asked if they had the Tropical soda that is very popular in Ecuador. They did and so I bought a couple. I remember being a kid and vacationing over there and drinking a bunch of those. It's been a very nostalgic day for me and I have you to thank!"

Xavier, if you are out there, it was my pleasure!

Anyone else out there suffering from yuca woes, feel free to drop me a line! Anyone local suffering from yuca woes (withdrawals, nostalgic or otherwise), drop a line or save yourself the elbow grease and drop an order -- $8/dozen ;)

In the meantime, here is a pic of Xavier's yuca breads posing next to the "sabor nacional."

xo

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Sanford, FL

Proof is in the Pudding

Its been a long silence for the YucaSoulBread blog but I'm happy to report its been worth the wait. Yes, I've been quiet but I assure you I've been hard (only slightly hyperbolic) at work crafting my yuca bread strategy AND finally selling some of these suckers!

While the unique distinction of being my first paying customer goes to the one and only Ms. Jessica Blackstock of Edmond Oklahoma (the dough traveled with me in my luggage all the way to Santa Fe, New Mexico where Jess, Panda and I had a girls weekend), it is the incomparable Mrs. Karolyn Fujimoto (mother of dear friend Karen Spearrin) who is my first non-peer, adult paying customer!

Karolyn and I chatted briefly about my new endeavor at Karen's bridal shower back in April and, to my surprise, she hit me up on Facebook shortly after her daughter's nuptials to place an order. She has been so supportive and enthusiastic of what I'm doing and went to all the trouble of sending me this short video clip with her family's reaction after tasting the breads at her niece's graduation party last weekend.

Karolyn, you are THE BEST!!!

Also attached is a pic of me, Jess and Panda at the Santa Fe farmer's market. The breads aren't pictured but plenty of them were consumed on this trip. Panda describes them as "Latin mochi"!! Might be on to something here. Hmmm...

Enjoy!

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Making the rounds (pun intended)

Yuca bread has had a string of social engagements this week. It started off last Saturday night when Kristin was in town and we made the requisite batch for any out of town visitor. Then, last night I went over to a friends' house to cook up some Ecuadorian dishes and, of course, the breads. The perfect accoutrement was the homemade spicy guava jam I made earlier in the week.

Then, unbeknownst to me, Kristin (now back home in Denver) made the breads for her group of gals last night, too. Judging from the pictures, the future of these little dough balls looks promising.

xoxo

P.S. Rhema coined the name "Glooties/Gluties" Like instead of asking for the yuca breads you say, "please pass me the gluties." I think the term has some marketing legs.. =)

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Remember that time...

"Mija" meant "pee" in Portuguese? Yup, that time was today... ten minutes ago when my friend informed me of this unfortunate news. Its vulgar, to boot! If mija meant pee in Chinese it wouldn't be so bad. But considering portuguese is the official language of Brazil, and brazilian expats who miss their beloved "pao de queijo" are certain to be a prime marketing target for me, this is a real deal breaker.

My words for this entry are few because I really hate the fact that I'm back to the drawing board.

Danny and Rachel, if you are out there reading this, halt on creative production! I suck... I know.

The Wiktionary says it all: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mijar

Why doesn't this baby want to be born??????????

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The little name that can?

Dear adoring public,

Apologies for my descent into blogosphere silence. I'm pretty sure in the last month I've broken every codified and and unspoken rule about being a blogger. Its been busy, though! Not that you could tell from my posting schedule. The month has included a trip to the Natural Products (and foods!) Expo in Anaheim, correspondence with county and local farmers markets officials, research on local (and not so local) commercial kitchens and a ton of brainstorming and mindshare on the NEW name of my yuca bread company.

Arriving at a name that captures the essence, spirit and experiential component of something that largely only lives in my head has proved hugely challenging, particularly because I'm so close to the subject.

Break through happened when my dear friend Maurna came over a couple of weeks ago to do a little baking and name brainstorming. By the end of the night, we had arrived at something that I liked right off the bat and liked even further as the night progressed (fyi, no alcohol was involved to impair judgement =)

Several friends and confidants have already been keyed in to the new name but I wanted to put it out there for the general (but greatly appreciated) blog public. Your two cents are welcome!

So, without further ado, here it is:

Mija's

Before you decide if you like it or not let me explain why its resonating....

For those of you that don't live in Cali., have never worked in food service or don't have a conversational knowledge of the Spanish language, "Mija" is a contraction that combines the words "my" and "daughter". So, "mija" literally means "my daughter."
From a usage standpoint, mija has taken on a meaning beyond "my daughter" to be a general term of endearment. Husbands can call wives mija. Girlfriends can call each other mija, etc.
I like that mija's delivers the same sweet, homespun, comforting feeling of calling something "mother's" or "Auntie's" something-or-other, BUT that fact that its daughter makes it a little more fresh and less stodgy. The comforting touch to the brand is important because, at the end of the day, I'm selling cheese bread not apparel or a product that is technologically or philosophically sophisticated. The name needs to resonate with people on a very basic level, which is something that I always struggled with when the name "yuca so(u)l bread" was on the table.
From a cause perspective, I like all the various concepts and brands that could branch off of "daughter." From the outset of the idea, I've always known that the project in Ecuador would directly help young people, specifically girls. The possibilities that can branch off from this basic mission are endless and I really like that kind of flexibility.
From a marketing perspective, I think enough people are familiar with Spanish (at least on both Coasts, which are the primary specialty food market areas, demographically speaking) to be able to pronounce it correctly and "get it."

Is this it? Have I arrived at something that meets and excels my initial wish list, something that communicates:

Heart
Vitality
Humanity
Warmth
Comfort
Simplicity of joy
Mission
Wholeness
I would add to this list wholesomeness, too!

No name will ever be perfect and infinitely more important to the branding process than the name is the soul of the product, right?

Any thoughts before I take the plunge and buy a url? Speak now or forever hold your peace...

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DISPATCH FROM OKC

It's noon and I'm barely recovering from a very FULL weekend.

Thursday saw me hopping on a jet plane, courtesy of Paula Blackstock, and heading to my favorite mid-western tier 3 city-- Oklahoma City.

The reason for my trip was none other than the 27th birthday fete of my dear friend Jessica Blackstock, known to YucaSoulBread readers as "Token Midwest Friend".

As tends to happen with soul sisters, time meant to celebrate them and their lives, invariably turns to a celebration of friendship and all that is good and great in each other's lives! This is the story of my extended weekend with Jess.

As the coordinator (and creator!) of Oklahoma's sustainable tourism certification program, Jess is completely keyed-in to all the must-see and must-eat things in OKC and Norman (about 45 min. south and home of OU's Sooners!).

Highlights of the weekend included:

Welcome night meal with Jess and Paula at The Wedge -- the artichoke tapenade was off the chain!
The friendly service and hearty white meat chicken chili at Cool Greens in Nichols Hills was tres bourgeois
Perusing vintage and re-fab boutiques in the once-dicey/now hipster Plaza District
Parting through the cloud of smoke emanating from the cigarettes smoked by the hipster-heavy crowd at Electro Lounge to some very fine tunes mixed by DJ-extraordinaire Young Beau Blackstock and his roomie Brett. No better way for Jess to enter 27 than by dancing the night away in sequins accessorized by glow-in-the-dark Shutter Shades.
Vicariously living my slice of collegiate Americana by doing a driving tour of Norman, OKC and the OU campus! Very beautiful and very different from the scenery at our alma mater. After visiting the Gray Owl coffee shop, I'm now officially a convert of the Mate Latte! Other Norman tid-bits included a visit to the all-things-sustainable flower, clothes and home wares shop Birdie, a Fernando Botero sphinx sculpture drive-by outside of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and Jess hitting on the adorable cheesemonger at Forward Foods.
A perception-altering, raw meal at 105 Degrees, the new outpost and raw food academy by culinary GENIUS Matthew Kenney. Yes, genius. Anyone who can make a silky ricotta cheese out of cashew nuts counts as one in my book!

There are so many other blissful moments but one particularly encouraging one for me occurred after a completely spontaneous flight of fancy by Mr. Sam "Clearly" Blackstock. After puttering around Norman, Jess and I drove back to Sam's gorgeous Heritage Hills home to bake up some yuca bread for my "mid-western word-of-mouth reps." Sam and Jeff were kind enough to let me run amok in their kitchen and even more so when they had the bright idea to march my breads over to their friend Ana, chef/proprietor of Cafe Do Brazil, a Brazilian cuisine establishment in OKC, to get her professional and personal opinion of my recipe and concept.

Walking in to Cafe Do Brazil like we owned the place, we met Ana by her bakery case and shoved a box of my yuca breads in her face. Preternaturally gracious, Ana took a bite and, with a revelatory smile, exclaimed, "these are so good! Just like in Brazil. Yours are waaaaaayyyy better than mine!" Getting praise straight from the Brazilian horse's mouth was beyond encouraging but also helpful was hearing about how Ana's own yuca bread (or pão de queijo, as they call it in Brazil) has been received in her local market. Apparently, the breads fly off the shelves and draw the local gluten-free association chapter for their quarterly meetings. Ultimate testament to the bread's popularity: Ana and her husband plan on opening a bakery within the next year.

I think I'm on to something.

Thanks Jess for a fabu weekend, through and through. Love you to pieces and I'm feeling completely refreshed.

Enjoy these slices of sustainable, hipster life in Oklahoma: Native America...

Filed under // Gluten-free Oklahoma City Pan de Queijo

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YUCA BREAD DOES SEATTLE

Confession:

If you ever want to get my trade secrets, all you have to do is twist the arm of Rachel Lund.

I shared my recipe with my dear friend so that she could make the little balls of yuca goodness for her culinary congnoscenti friends in Seattle. While the feedback from friends and "focus group" audiences here in the O.C. has been great and helpful, I was really interested to see how the breads would fare in a different city amongst people who don't love me enough to lie to me =)

In the focus group were some of Seattle's most sophisticated gourmands-- a couple of former and current staffers of the legendary restaurant Canlis, several savvy home cooks, several beer-loving husbands, and one gal who follows a gluten-free diet.

I'm happy to report the following, straight from Rachel:

"The boys loved them. They agreed that they would pair well with beer. Kellie said they were wonderful and also thought that a strong, savory pairing would be appropriate. They loved the chewy texture, the amount of cheese, the starchy-ness; the temperature right out of the oven. You have fans. Jess says you really should hit the gluten free market hard."

I'm encouraged =)

Confession #2: Yuca breads are coming soon to a Denver suburb near you. Kristin Davenport is the keeper of the holy yuca grail in the great state of CO, and will be making the breads for an upcoming gathering. When and if she gets around to serving them to guests, I'll report back the Denver contingent's feedback.

Here are some photos of the breads making a splash in Seattle (and in Danny Lund's tummy!)

SC

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Filed under // Beer Canlis Seattle

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How do you build a chocolate brand?

via vimeo.com

How do you build any brand for this matter? This very interesting and palatable video was shared by my friend Renato. He is a branding guy if I ever met one! I mean that in the best sense of the word! Nato has strong anti-feelings against Yuca Sol Bread. He has been the first voice that has not liked it that has actually been able to pinpoint some though provoking reasons as to why I may want to reconsider the name. I'm loving and feeling paralyzed by the criticism all at once!

His main point is that branding in the 21st Century has evolved so that the basis of the brand is not the product, but rather the lifestyle that of the target audience that the brand ultimately wants to reach and sell to.

Its been a Eureka moment for me. A Eureka moment that means I'm back to the name/branding drawing board.

In the meantime, precious friends Danny and Rachel have sent me gorgeous logo comps for Yuca Sol Bread. If they let me, I'll share one of my favorites in a future post.

I'm intimidated by all that I don't know and all the resource ($$$) that I don't have! I need venture funding fast.

Angel investor, where are you?

Nevertheless, check out the video for a cool branding case study. Now I want chocolate!!

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TOP 10

It has been a whirlwind of goodness since my last post! How has a whole week passed without me managing to give my faithful followers a little update??? Let's remedy that, shall we?

In the interest of time and because it is "technically" a BLAZE working day, I'll put it into a hand dandy top 10 list:

The Top 10 Things in the Life of Stephanie (a.k.a. Yuca Entrepreneur Extraordinaire)

Two back to back appearances at the Newport Church YREV (youth ministry) bake sale were a success! I rolled the dough balls smaller than usual and I actually prefer that serving size. I served them in brown paper cones that I made at home for a homespun, rustic look. Gives the feel that you got them from a street vendor on the side of the road. The looked super cute and some of my most positive comments were on the presentation! I wish I had pictures to share. The first Sunday I only brought 12 cones, 3 bread to a cone, heeding my mom's advice that it would be better to sell out versus have a bunch of left over inventory. The second Sunday I brought 18 cones. Again, they sold out! Church= good little test market. Who knew but God?
Between the first bake sale and the second bake sale I drastically changed my recipe, swapping out a major ingredient for two others. I'm happy to report that the breads are BETTER THAN EVA! Nevertheless, I have a few other ideas that I want to try before I commit to a recipe. My hope is that one of them will result in a finished product that is slightly less caloric, without sacrificing the flavor or consistency. It will be tough but I'm going to try!
Leah touched base with a local friend/chef/entrepreneur and convinced him to sample my breads to a. give his professional feedback on them and b. discuss a doing a trial run at his Euro-Latin small plates bar/kitchen Lola Gaspar in Santa Ana's Artist Village. After much prodding from Leah, I finally gave the chef/proprietor, Luis, a call yesterday afternoon. He was extremely nice and agreed to try the breads on Monday anytime after 3 p.m. If anything, it will be a great contact to forge to help get the word out about the breads.
Huge headway has been made (at least in my mind) in terms of the brand's name. It has been an all-consuming, exciting and, at times, frustrating process! As it stands, I'm shying away from Yuca Soul Bread in exchange for something that I honestly think is even better! Are your ready for it? Wait for it... drumroll, please... Yuca Sol Bread. It came to me all of a sudden. Just omitting one little letter gives me a whole new word, yet something that I think is more true to the brand identity I'm going for. Sol means "sun" in Spanish. I like that when pronounced it still sounds like "soul" and it can continue to retain that meaning for me and those of you that might care but, changing the word gives the brand a definitively Latin tone and give us some cool visual imagery to play with. I also really like the symbolism inherent in the sun. It has been a significant body for every ancient culture and is an emblem of glory, brilliance, authority, joy, life, and the rising sun symbolizes hope. All good things. One of my top 5 favorite verses: "Arise, Shine, for your light has come and the Glory of the Lord rises upon you." -- Isaiah 60:1
This said, a few friends are still brainstorming name ideas and I'm open to hearing them still. My plan is to make some domain name purchases by EOW so please send in alternate suggestions or else be looking for this blog's url to change also! Good friend Ches had something along these lines to suggest: Cedeno Manna. Apropos tag line: What is it? That gave me a laugh.
Ches also pointed out that Yuca kind of sounds/looks like "yucky." Ha! To that I say, it is what it is. I can't do anything about the name of my fundamental ingredient.
I've started putting feelers out there for a good/cheap graphic designer. If you know of someone that does great logo work, is creative but has a sense of commercial viability, send them my way! Companies that I like from a visual branding standpoint include Cyclops frozen yogurt (from NZ), Pom Wonderful and Sambazon.
After several attempts, I finally got a hold of someone at the OC Farm Bureau yesterday. The lady called me at 7:30 am! No joke!! They are only open from 7 to 11 a.m. Farmer's are early risers, I suppose. Anyway, she had valuable feedback on what I need to do to get into a local farmer's market. Firstly, I will need to get a commercial kitchen. Although it is an investment I was hopping not to make, I think in the long run it will be good because it will allow me to scale up faster then running everything out of my neat-freak mom's kitchen. Love you Maria! Secondly, the lady at the bureau said that I will need to get a food/health permit from the county and they will be the final authority on how the food must be prepped, packaged and served. If anyone knows how to go about renting a commercial kitchen, let me know!
My copy of Sell Your Specialty Food: Market, Distribute and Profit from Your Kitchen Creation finally came in the mail. It takes a more traditional approach to launching a business than Art of the Start but I think it will be a good resource for the industry I'm about to enter. I'll provide a more thorough review once I get deeper into the reading.
The Yucasoulbread posterous has inspired my good friend and fellow fledgling entrepreneur Avery to start a Posterous blog of his own! Check it out at: lifeviaavery.posterous.com

I feel emotionally/creatively out of breath after this mega post. Need to keep on top of these post so I don't go into an epic every time I write!!!

Ciao for now,

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Kindred spirits...Siggi's, Icelandic style skyr

Another Satisfied Non-Customer

Proof is in the Pudding

Making the rounds (pun intended)

Remember that time...

The little name that can?

DISPATCH FROM OKC

YUCA BREAD DOES SEATTLE

How do you build a chocolate brand?

TOP 10