Every year ,about this time, I get it into my head that I can make money by running a stall either at a shopping Centre or Christmas markets selling non food items. Last year , I put my thesis to the test by bulk buying ladies fashion items like handbags , jewellery and scarves.I made no money. In fact I still have a giant suitcase filled with all and sundries that I could not shift from last Christmas occupying a much needed space in my flat and I am sure they are so last season now. My daughter has taken to helping herself to the fashion jewellery and scarves .In the last couple of months ,she has helped herself to two sets of hat and scarves for her friend,s birthday presents. You know your business plan needs serious reviewing when family members begin to help themselves to your stock without any qualms.Despite this, I have been going through the catalogues sent to me by wholesalers I purchased from last year and wondering if I could perhaps make a better go of it this year. The boyfriend has already made it clear he would not be helping me sell these under any imaginative circumstance.Suffice it to say that I am on my own here. I quite rightly decided to ignore the urge until my my baby toddler, whilst playing with my phone, inadvertently phoned continental markets. A couple of years back, I had a successful stall at their Christmas market at Ealing shopping centre but I sold food.I am superstitious. I take this to mean that a higher power is keen for me to run a Christmas market or stall "Who is this ?" the voice at the other end barked probably pissed at being called so early in the morning. I sought to perform some sort of damage control and put my best voice forward. "How are you Shar sorry for ringing this early in the day but are you running any Christmas markets this year?" No absolutely none at all this year came the reply.Perhaps I should organize one myself I thought. Oh but for the very high financial risk involved in paying to hire a shopping centre space for weeks in a row and pay the fees upfront. Thing is, hard up street traders are reluctant to pay all that money in advance even for an established market and less so for an untested Xmas themed one.I decided I won,t be seeing my bank manager any time soon to discuss the possibility of borrowing to fund one. "Fool" my entrepreneurial alter ego taunted in my head . I ignored the naughty little voice.
But the hypothetical profit I can make from making a killing as it were, has refused to leave my thoughts. I find myself browsing through the latest catalogue I have received , of a job lot of 100 assorted ladies shoes for the price I paid recently for 2 pairs of winter boots at TK MAXX and before you think it is a job lot of substandard rubbish,methinks not so. The pictures and the quality guarantee tells me they are sourced from a reputable high street retailer which has gone bust. So by my calculation if I bought 10 lots of these and sign up to one of the promising Xmas markets currently flooding my inbox,and decorate my stall cheerily and price my items right,I might just kill it. Easier said than done though. The reality is that I am rubbish at selling anything else but my food. I am my own most severe critic and I know that I have not taken any stellar retailing course to buck the trend and it is hard for me to be passionate about something unless I genuinely believed in it. And perhaps that may be partly to blame for my inability to shift last years gear. But like one friend said when I lamented my dilemma to her. What has passion got to do with it? It,s Xmas . Everyone has got to buy a present for someone .Now if only that was true of my experience last year.
The shops are not letting up. The season of unrelenting Xmas ads have begun and the trader in me find it impossible to just sit there and make merry.I,ve got to get in on the action. There,s got to be something I can sell to partake in the festive windfall. I need inspiration before all the Xmas markets get fully booked. As I write this ,my phone pings. It is Busy bee candles advising me to take advantage of the 10%extra offer on Xmas orders. Now there,s an idea!
Saturday, 16 November 2013
Friday, 1 November 2013
I AM PUSHED TO WRITE A RECIPE BOOK
So the boyfriend wins. We have fought and debated.Him pulling his hair out trying to understand why I choose not to write a cook book. Our customers have since long tired of asking if and when a recipe book will become available. "Sometime in the near future" was always my hazy reply. If the truth be told , the reason I haven,t done so in the past can be attributed to ill discipline. In all the years that I have cooked for this street trading business,and weddings and huge parties and festivals and ran my own restaurant, I have never measured anything. All the ingredients that I have used in my recipes and the quantities are neither measured nor written down. I suppose this attitude stems from coming from a large family and a culture where you never really know how many people you are cooking for but must ensure that food is available should a guest arrive. Woe betide you if it be known that an unexpected guest arrived your home and left on an empty stomach!"How can I write a recipe book without first determining what quantities of ingredients the readers will need"? I,d fired back at the boyfriend who,d been on my case from the moment we met.Lately I,d taken to telling him he was putting undue pressure on me.A case of the best defence being attack and attack even if unfairly. So let me be fair. Without my miserable Angel, I would still be struggling to understand why and how the goldmine that was Camden lock market came to disappear before my very eyes and my nostalgia clinging thoughts would still be holding me prisoner in that now desperately conditioned market. I would still be trading there stooped and draped in clothes best suited for the North pole in the winter and praying for the summer to last long enough to recoup all the losses we had incurred during the cold weather.Camden had become an albatross but I refused to acknowledge it. I summoned the courage to leave after many months subsidizing its existence with takings from Greenwich market only because the boyfriend forced me to do the unpalatable maths."Wake up and smell the coffee" he continuously nagged. The heartache and high blood pressure inducing stress that I have suffered from being removed from first, Greenwich Market,then Shephereds markets (more on all these removals in later blogs) and lately UCL has meant that the the boyfriend has taken the brunt of my misplaced anger but he has also been a constant reminder of the futility of trading at individual run markets.According to him,I should only now trade at my own self organized markets or festivals. I finally agreed to start writing my recipes down and to work out what quantities after I received a letter from Her majesty,s court services,advising that a charlatan market organiser I am suing for a return of the exorbitant fees my company paid to attend an event he fraudulently misrepresented is contesting my claim. Such is the nature of London street trading now that a new age market organiser can call a lunch time market a festival and refuse to return the fees paid by traders even when it is so obvious that he was pulling a fast one and blatantly ripping traders off .On the same day, I receive an email advising that It had not been possible to refund a payment I made to cater at the cancelled Ring Master festival at Hopton Court. The life lesson here is always to pay for purchases especially those of not immediate consumption with credit and not debit card.My bank assures me it will try to get me a refund from paypal if the event organizer won,t cough up.
You might wonder dear reader why if I have such wonderful recipes and street trading is such a fuss, do I not open a restaurant?. Thing is, been there, done that. Would not now touch it with a barge poll. Then, I was younger and had only a teenage daughter to mummy but yet the stress of running it made my hair fall out in clumps . Currently, as you are aware, I have 2 blessed toddlers who demand all of my sleep deprived attention. Therefore, I must cook and perhaps write but with a flexibility that curls around their routine.
So, no rest for the wicked then. I must not only keep trading at markets this winter, I will also be diligently working on my first recipe book. Now if only I can find that measuring jug!
You might wonder dear reader why if I have such wonderful recipes and street trading is such a fuss, do I not open a restaurant?. Thing is, been there, done that. Would not now touch it with a barge poll. Then, I was younger and had only a teenage daughter to mummy but yet the stress of running it made my hair fall out in clumps . Currently, as you are aware, I have 2 blessed toddlers who demand all of my sleep deprived attention. Therefore, I must cook and perhaps write but with a flexibility that curls around their routine.
So, no rest for the wicked then. I must not only keep trading at markets this winter, I will also be diligently working on my first recipe book. Now if only I can find that measuring jug!
Friday, 4 October 2013
I GET LITERALLY KICKED TO THE KERB AT UCL (2)
I got to trade at UCL again during freshers week 2011.Unbeknown to me, I was already trading with the organiser of the Monthly market there,John Shephered but was never invited.I put the reason down to my stall being only a recent addition to his long list of traders.I remember when Zack my neighbour at the industrial unit where I prepared my food who was already trading at his markets,passed his contact details to me. He,d said "just call him but not too often.He can be strange in his ways . Maybe you,ll get into one of his markets maybe you,ll get into all" I however did not take Zack,s advise and rang him incessantly. The poor old bloke must have thought a tornado hit him and perhaps allowed me to trade at his market in Regents Place just to stop me from ringing his phone number.
John Shephered is arguably the most important name in London Street Trading scene and has markets in prime spots like St Katherine,s dock, Canary Wharf,Victoria,Duke of York Square in Chelsea et al. Before long, he would invite me to trade at St Katherine,s dock so ,I did not want to rock the boat .I was also on the verge of loosing my stall at Greenwich market and nursing my tenderly aged son.Besides, I observed that other traders who were invited to his very busy markets had one thing in common;they were mostly very subservient indeed and asked how high ?when Mrs Shephered asked them to jump. I mention the Mrs because It was an open secret that if the Mrs took a disliking to you, You were Kaput , a gonner, your days at Shephereds markets were numbered. I decided to turn a new leaf in his markets and stifle any strong opinion I may have.I am not a shrinking violet by nature but why have an opinion and hawk great food and not get invited to his markets when other traders with less popular food than yours but who are meek do not feel the bite of the recession because they were offered more great markets than they can handle? I had a baby to feed and bills to pay.The trouble was that I neither look nor sound meek. I am one of those people whom you meet and the word FEISTY! screams at you. Anyhow, so as we were invited by him that freshers week, I sent the boyfriend to trade. The University contact for the market bought our food and enjoyed it and wondered why we did not come more often. The boyfriend does not do protocol and quickly launched into the reason he thought we were not invited to the monthly market. The boyfreind has gone and not only put our feet in it, he stirred our financial feet in it.We will now definitely get kicked out of John,s market because word will get back to him that we tried to get into UCL behind his back !I lamented the wisdom in sending the boyfriend in place of a staff to trade that day . If we were never to get another chance at this uni I might as well write the contact. So I carefully worded my email to the contact applying to trade there. Lets just say that the email did not get us in but it was the catalyst to my inclusion to trade at the new KERB run ensemble from January of 2013
During the university,s 2012 Christmas Fair some student officers approached me and offered regret that despite their efforts ,Mr Shephered had refused to invite my stall and others that they had chosen to trade at the monthly market. By now I had organised successful markets in Kingston and Highwycombe and suggested to them that I would be willing to run the market with their chosen stalls and mine.Fair game then when Media Savvy KERB got the gig.Part of the deal was that my stall and two other stalls were included in the trader line up.
So, come January, I was glad and willingly offered advice on parking, average sales, trading times and more when KERB colonels emailed and called me before the first market seeking advice.But like a festering wound, the ugly head of envy and pettiness you would not expect from an outwardly professional outfit like that, reared its ugly head. The manager of the market on the day constantly went up to the boyfriend saying "You are busy aren,t you "?The next month , I got email advising myself that I was not welcome to the market for the February event. There was no precise date for my return.In essence, I had to either curry favour with them, or be subservient in order to continue.Why were all these market organisers ego trippers and petty? I have yet again become a victim of my own success.
I had indirectly traded with KERB once during the Olympics and had applied to be on their list before UCL but that was before I became aware of the sometime percentage rule which I detest. They never approved my application and I never followed it up. Because market organising is unregulated, and majority of the traders are foreigners, traders are invariably treated with contempt by almost every market organizer. These organizers know that there is no real representative body for traders. A lot of these recession -regurgitated new breed market organizers are blatantly getting away with murder!. There really is no need for any market organizer to be ruthless. The world of street trading is fickle enough. Methinks that Markets held at university premises, should be run by scrupulous individuals with the determinant of attending stalls being how busy they are. Students decide which stalls they favour by vote if possible and the organizer is informed. It is reprehensible to remove stalls favoured by students with the ones you think they want because the busy stalls do not belong to your fraternity or the stallholders refuse to fan the organiser,s ego. UCL has produced great minds and leaders and is one of the world,s top ranked universities.Ought it continue to allow an outfit that have behaved with impunity to continue organizing its monthly market? I am happy that on the 25th of September , I went to the market and demonstrated with a lone placard,just me myself and I.To whom it may concern, I never for once believed that I was granted a perpetual right to trade at UCL but the contract with KERB is still ongoing .Why should KERB unilaterally amend or alter the terms of the contract by removing the three stalls it was told to include monthly?. And why should such a bastion of western civilisation allow such autocracy as KERB have displayed, in its university campus?
I ,thank the students who on the 25th,of September, curiously came ,inquired why I was demonstrating and enraged, signed my petition. I am inspired not defeated by my experiences at UCL and at other markets and I will now harness this experiences to set up an organization to fight the corner of the long suffering London street trader We must have good some litigation lawyers though.Hands up any offers?
John Shephered is arguably the most important name in London Street Trading scene and has markets in prime spots like St Katherine,s dock, Canary Wharf,Victoria,Duke of York Square in Chelsea et al. Before long, he would invite me to trade at St Katherine,s dock so ,I did not want to rock the boat .I was also on the verge of loosing my stall at Greenwich market and nursing my tenderly aged son.Besides, I observed that other traders who were invited to his very busy markets had one thing in common;they were mostly very subservient indeed and asked how high ?when Mrs Shephered asked them to jump. I mention the Mrs because It was an open secret that if the Mrs took a disliking to you, You were Kaput , a gonner, your days at Shephereds markets were numbered. I decided to turn a new leaf in his markets and stifle any strong opinion I may have.I am not a shrinking violet by nature but why have an opinion and hawk great food and not get invited to his markets when other traders with less popular food than yours but who are meek do not feel the bite of the recession because they were offered more great markets than they can handle? I had a baby to feed and bills to pay.The trouble was that I neither look nor sound meek. I am one of those people whom you meet and the word FEISTY! screams at you. Anyhow, so as we were invited by him that freshers week, I sent the boyfriend to trade. The University contact for the market bought our food and enjoyed it and wondered why we did not come more often. The boyfriend does not do protocol and quickly launched into the reason he thought we were not invited to the monthly market. The boyfreind has gone and not only put our feet in it, he stirred our financial feet in it.We will now definitely get kicked out of John,s market because word will get back to him that we tried to get into UCL behind his back !I lamented the wisdom in sending the boyfriend in place of a staff to trade that day . If we were never to get another chance at this uni I might as well write the contact. So I carefully worded my email to the contact applying to trade there. Lets just say that the email did not get us in but it was the catalyst to my inclusion to trade at the new KERB run ensemble from January of 2013
During the university,s 2012 Christmas Fair some student officers approached me and offered regret that despite their efforts ,Mr Shephered had refused to invite my stall and others that they had chosen to trade at the monthly market. By now I had organised successful markets in Kingston and Highwycombe and suggested to them that I would be willing to run the market with their chosen stalls and mine.Fair game then when Media Savvy KERB got the gig.Part of the deal was that my stall and two other stalls were included in the trader line up.
So, come January, I was glad and willingly offered advice on parking, average sales, trading times and more when KERB colonels emailed and called me before the first market seeking advice.But like a festering wound, the ugly head of envy and pettiness you would not expect from an outwardly professional outfit like that, reared its ugly head. The manager of the market on the day constantly went up to the boyfriend saying "You are busy aren,t you "?The next month , I got email advising myself that I was not welcome to the market for the February event. There was no precise date for my return.In essence, I had to either curry favour with them, or be subservient in order to continue.Why were all these market organisers ego trippers and petty? I have yet again become a victim of my own success.
I had indirectly traded with KERB once during the Olympics and had applied to be on their list before UCL but that was before I became aware of the sometime percentage rule which I detest. They never approved my application and I never followed it up. Because market organising is unregulated, and majority of the traders are foreigners, traders are invariably treated with contempt by almost every market organizer. These organizers know that there is no real representative body for traders. A lot of these recession -regurgitated new breed market organizers are blatantly getting away with murder!. There really is no need for any market organizer to be ruthless. The world of street trading is fickle enough. Methinks that Markets held at university premises, should be run by scrupulous individuals with the determinant of attending stalls being how busy they are. Students decide which stalls they favour by vote if possible and the organizer is informed. It is reprehensible to remove stalls favoured by students with the ones you think they want because the busy stalls do not belong to your fraternity or the stallholders refuse to fan the organiser,s ego. UCL has produced great minds and leaders and is one of the world,s top ranked universities.Ought it continue to allow an outfit that have behaved with impunity to continue organizing its monthly market? I am happy that on the 25th of September , I went to the market and demonstrated with a lone placard,just me myself and I.To whom it may concern, I never for once believed that I was granted a perpetual right to trade at UCL but the contract with KERB is still ongoing .Why should KERB unilaterally amend or alter the terms of the contract by removing the three stalls it was told to include monthly?. And why should such a bastion of western civilisation allow such autocracy as KERB have displayed, in its university campus?
I ,thank the students who on the 25th,of September, curiously came ,inquired why I was demonstrating and enraged, signed my petition. I am inspired not defeated by my experiences at UCL and at other markets and I will now harness this experiences to set up an organization to fight the corner of the long suffering London street trader We must have good some litigation lawyers though.Hands up any offers?
Sunday, 22 September 2013
I GET LITERALLY KICKED TO THE KERB AT UCL (1)
As the holiday period for Students drew to an end, Yours truly was really looking forward to returning to UCL . No, I am not a student there, neither is it my Alma Mater. I have had a market stall at the monthly food market currently run by KERB Foods since January. However, my association with the Great institution began much earlier. In December 2010 to be precise. Then,my company was was invited by a market organizer named Angela Cash to trade at the Christmas Fair and It was love at First Trade!
I now reminisce . Ingrid, my friend and fellow trader who sold Falafel at Camden market had phoned me on Monday following a very bad weekend trading at Camden to ask if I met the "the woman" hunting traders for her event at UCL. I told her to expatiate. And she did. During the humdrum that was business in Camden that Sunday this woman had come armed with pen and paper taking details of Stallholders and their numbers and inviting almost every trader from the West Yard to what she promises will be a very busy event.But you had to pay up front and the fee equalled what we paid in Camden but the fair was to be held on a weekday. This was new territory for us. I had taken the leap and expanded to Greenwich market when the management at Camden began flooding it with so much food .So ,Ingrid wanted to know if I would be brave enough to take the risk. I said it depended on whether" the woman "contacted me as I was sure my staff would have given her my number but that It was more likely than not that I would do it. Food markets rarely do well at Christmas because Tourists are less about and visitors to markets favour Arts and Craft stalls as they search for presents for their loved ones.So, it made sense to find more trading opportunities.
Later that day I got a call from the market organiser. I said I will be happy to trade at UCL. I rang Ingrid back"I am doing UCL" I said."Me too but do you think Falafel would sell there?" I don,t know Ingrid but you make the best Falafel so I wouldn,t worry about not selling. I am in the same boat as you.This is uncharted territory for me as well.
The weather forecast the week before the Christmas fair was bleak. It was going to snow continuously for 3 days was the prediction. We prayed that the forecasters get it wrong as they were prone to do.They,d got it wrong on so many occasions that we were hopeful that it will only snow for one day max. I remember one August bank holiday when storm was forecast and I,d decided that I was going to trade at Camden, storm or drought and the storm never came.But damn! the forecasters got it right this time. 3 days before the event,it was still snowing and London,s streets looked as white as The White company,s Linen sheets!.Our worry transcended the students bothering to walk the slippery pavements to patronise the market. We the traders work with various heavy cooking utensils and propane gas that we carried with us.Even I, who rarely cancelled markets was beginning to wonder how to cut my impending costs. Should I go to this Fair ? Should I not? I wrestled with my thoughts and decided to minimise my overhead should the students and staff not bother turning up because of the adverse weather condition. I will not attend with any staff. I shall blackmail my daughter into coming with me!. She wanted a Blackberry that Christmas and that sort of Berry did not grow on trees! I could already here her protest about the freezing conditions and why she couldn,t come along but I was certain that the thought of owning the new phone will trump her fear of working in the snow .
I gave myself 45 minutes to get to UCL on the day of the Fair and hit an almighty traffic jam on the A40. The road was gritted but motorists were being very cautious as every travel update warned us to be wary of black ice. Ingrid rang while I was still stuck in traffic. "Where are you Kiru? Everyone ,s set up and the woman is calling for your blood" "She can have my blood when I get there but till then, I am stuck in traffic." I replied "You are always stuck in traffic" she said sarcasm in her voice. "We didn,t get here by helicopter you know we all had to drive to this place and we all made it in time" "Is it busy then are you selling?"I asked ignoring her lecture. "No and my feet is drenched. The snow has not been cleared where the stalls are set up so that if you are not wearing insulated waterproof shoes , it is really atrocious" I wondered again whether to turn back.My daughter advised that we did but I carried on. I arrived an hour late.
"What time do you call this Ms Cash barked as the security at UCL reluctantly allowed my van through the gates. ".I told her to check her phone as I had left messages for her because I was trapped in traffic.She gave me 10 minutes to unload.
As we unloaded, I gladly noticed that the students were braving the adverse weather and were indeed coming out and queueing up in front of the food stalls and that the Sausage stall especially was very busy. This may yet be worth it I thought.
From the moment I was ready to sell, I had a queue. Now, dear reader, this was how my love affair with UCL began.The weather was nasty and I was late but I was fairly busy regardless.This is the litmus test every seasoned trader set themselves before deciding on continuing to trade at any market. If you break even on a day like this , GRAB that market with both hands . The uni loved my food. I made a mental note to love it back.Now if only Ingrid was having a ball like I was. Ingrid suddenly appearead. I took one look at her face and noted that she wasn,t and her words that followed confirmed it. "I cant believe it Kiru you mean you came late and you got the best spot? You have an almighty queue.! I want to leave now .It is dark where we are.I have only sold 6 portions of Falafel. I wish I hadn,t come. I wanna go home now"! She whined. I couldn,t say anything to her as I was busy attending the queue . Moments after Ingrid walked back to her stall, I could hear her demand a return of her fees from Angela. But I had a different kind of worry;How do I become a regular feature at UCL?
The weather forecast the week before the Christmas fair was bleak. It was going to snow continuously for 3 days was the prediction. We prayed that the forecasters get it wrong as they were prone to do.They,d got it wrong on so many occasions that we were hopeful that it will only snow for one day max. I remember one August bank holiday when storm was forecast and I,d decided that I was going to trade at Camden, storm or drought and the storm never came.But damn! the forecasters got it right this time. 3 days before the event,it was still snowing and London,s streets looked as white as The White company,s Linen sheets!.Our worry transcended the students bothering to walk the slippery pavements to patronise the market. We the traders work with various heavy cooking utensils and propane gas that we carried with us.Even I, who rarely cancelled markets was beginning to wonder how to cut my impending costs. Should I go to this Fair ? Should I not? I wrestled with my thoughts and decided to minimise my overhead should the students and staff not bother turning up because of the adverse weather condition. I will not attend with any staff. I shall blackmail my daughter into coming with me!. She wanted a Blackberry that Christmas and that sort of Berry did not grow on trees! I could already here her protest about the freezing conditions and why she couldn,t come along but I was certain that the thought of owning the new phone will trump her fear of working in the snow .
I gave myself 45 minutes to get to UCL on the day of the Fair and hit an almighty traffic jam on the A40. The road was gritted but motorists were being very cautious as every travel update warned us to be wary of black ice. Ingrid rang while I was still stuck in traffic. "Where are you Kiru? Everyone ,s set up and the woman is calling for your blood" "She can have my blood when I get there but till then, I am stuck in traffic." I replied "You are always stuck in traffic" she said sarcasm in her voice. "We didn,t get here by helicopter you know we all had to drive to this place and we all made it in time" "Is it busy then are you selling?"I asked ignoring her lecture. "No and my feet is drenched. The snow has not been cleared where the stalls are set up so that if you are not wearing insulated waterproof shoes , it is really atrocious" I wondered again whether to turn back.My daughter advised that we did but I carried on. I arrived an hour late.
"What time do you call this Ms Cash barked as the security at UCL reluctantly allowed my van through the gates. ".I told her to check her phone as I had left messages for her because I was trapped in traffic.She gave me 10 minutes to unload.
As we unloaded, I gladly noticed that the students were braving the adverse weather and were indeed coming out and queueing up in front of the food stalls and that the Sausage stall especially was very busy. This may yet be worth it I thought.
From the moment I was ready to sell, I had a queue. Now, dear reader, this was how my love affair with UCL began.The weather was nasty and I was late but I was fairly busy regardless.This is the litmus test every seasoned trader set themselves before deciding on continuing to trade at any market. If you break even on a day like this , GRAB that market with both hands . The uni loved my food. I made a mental note to love it back.Now if only Ingrid was having a ball like I was. Ingrid suddenly appearead. I took one look at her face and noted that she wasn,t and her words that followed confirmed it. "I cant believe it Kiru you mean you came late and you got the best spot? You have an almighty queue.! I want to leave now .It is dark where we are.I have only sold 6 portions of Falafel. I wish I hadn,t come. I wanna go home now"! She whined. I couldn,t say anything to her as I was busy attending the queue . Moments after Ingrid walked back to her stall, I could hear her demand a return of her fees from Angela. But I had a different kind of worry;How do I become a regular feature at UCL?
Friday, 13 September 2013
FARA MY OLD FRIEND AND EX STAFF GETS ON MY NERVES
It was a very wintry cold January morning, when I agreed to test drive a neighbours van round the industrial estate where I cooked. I,d lost my van to agents of DVLA last july(more on this at some point in the future).I decided to quickly head to the local Asda .There were loads of bargain to be had probably saving me more money than my local cash and carry on many items. I cut out the engine and decided to start the engine impromptu again and as I revved the engine again and again, I saw from my mirror a woman carrying grocery loose her balance and drop to the ground, her shopping scattering all around her. Another motorist got to her aid before I could. As the motorist helped her up I noticed she looked frail and harassed but her face rekindled a warm memory in me . I soon reconciled the face. It was Fara . We had worked together at my first job as a student in the early nighties. Why? I thought had she not aged into a vintage beauty. She used to be very pretty with huge brown eyes and a mass of unruly curly hair that cascaded down her back. Whatever happened to my old friend I thought. Life must have been cruel to her as she looked a shadow of her old self." Fara you ok? remember me Kiru from St Martins.?"
"I remember you she said" and burst into tears.
We both thanked the good Samaritan and after gathering her groceries, proceeded to Asda,s Cafe so she could recuperate before continuing on her journey home. I found that Fara had been injured somehow at the old factory where we worked by over exposure to freezing working conditions. During our conversation she continued to be very teary and this concerned me." Can I come and work for you"? She asked" I don,t want any payment you can pay me whatever you want I am not greedy." she continued. She laughed when I suggested she might yet regret that no payment offer as January was always the most difficult time for our business in terms of cash flow.
Hastily and forgeting that cardinal rule of business, I offered her a job that I really didn,t have to offer. I hated cleaning and having fired my kitchen assistant on the day I had my baby last year, I had been waiting for business to pick up before hiring another help.
Fara brought Sparkle into my kitchen from the moment she handled the mop head.I didn,t think my good old Cookworks fryer could look any newer. she meticulously and patiently scrubbed new life into old and tired equipments. I was tempted to ring my nemesis at my local environmental health office and invite her for an inspection so I can gloat. She always complained of my unwillingness to throw away old equipments and declutter my unit. But caution reigned over premature exuberance. And rightly so. For of course, though I paid Fara money the company couldn,t really afford ,for Job I needed done, she did not see this as proper work and talked far too much about every single thing relevant,important or not and this of course impacted on my ability to work quickly and efficiently.Yours truly is currently permanently sleep deprived owing to my two beautiful toddlers bless them! Any one who has ever worked with me including and especially the boyfriend knows that I hate being spoken to when I am cooking.How do I get fragile Fara to shut up? Worse still she knew my work time table so that even when I told her that I didn,t need her she would still turn up and help and I would be obliged to pay her.
During that hot spell in June when Londoners advisedly ate little I ceased the opportunity to steel my resolve to gently lay her off. "Fara" I began as she peeled some maris piper with a small pen knife she,d insisted on bringing from home.(she didnt like using potato peelers!) "I think you need to take a break next week. I won,t be working because of the hot spell. We are not making any money at the markets" ." I,d been thinking of setting up my own street food company"! she blurted out in response."Wow that,s that,s brilliant I lied, flabbergasted and genuinely worried for my old friend. "You must tell me what to do , which markets to trial,how much I would need to invest, where to buy my equipments ......." " Enough already Fara THIS job is not easy and I don,t think you are strong enough to take the knocks and grind of this industry" .Despite my best efforts to dissuade her from taking this plunge ,she stuck to her gun so I gave up and cursed the day DVLA impounded my van because the boyfriend forgot to pay the road tax.I would not have test driven my neighbour,s van to Asda and would certainly not have bumped into Fara and would not therefore be party to the impending heartache she will inevitably experience especially with the charlatans that run some of markets she will trial .I arranged for her to take a basic food hygiene course and to obtain public liability insurance and reluctantly gave her details of two starter markets .Two weeks later the daily phone moans began. First it was "How very labour intensive the business was" then it was the shafting of the market organisers,then what did I think about her abandoning her original cuisine and cooking falafels instead?.
Untill further notice, my daughter is under instruction to sweetly dismiss Fara,s calls with "My mum will call you back later" surely my sanity comes before friendship.!
"I remember you she said" and burst into tears.
We both thanked the good Samaritan and after gathering her groceries, proceeded to Asda,s Cafe so she could recuperate before continuing on her journey home. I found that Fara had been injured somehow at the old factory where we worked by over exposure to freezing working conditions. During our conversation she continued to be very teary and this concerned me." Can I come and work for you"? She asked" I don,t want any payment you can pay me whatever you want I am not greedy." she continued. She laughed when I suggested she might yet regret that no payment offer as January was always the most difficult time for our business in terms of cash flow.
Hastily and forgeting that cardinal rule of business, I offered her a job that I really didn,t have to offer. I hated cleaning and having fired my kitchen assistant on the day I had my baby last year, I had been waiting for business to pick up before hiring another help.
Fara brought Sparkle into my kitchen from the moment she handled the mop head.I didn,t think my good old Cookworks fryer could look any newer. she meticulously and patiently scrubbed new life into old and tired equipments. I was tempted to ring my nemesis at my local environmental health office and invite her for an inspection so I can gloat. She always complained of my unwillingness to throw away old equipments and declutter my unit. But caution reigned over premature exuberance. And rightly so. For of course, though I paid Fara money the company couldn,t really afford ,for Job I needed done, she did not see this as proper work and talked far too much about every single thing relevant,important or not and this of course impacted on my ability to work quickly and efficiently.Yours truly is currently permanently sleep deprived owing to my two beautiful toddlers bless them! Any one who has ever worked with me including and especially the boyfriend knows that I hate being spoken to when I am cooking.How do I get fragile Fara to shut up? Worse still she knew my work time table so that even when I told her that I didn,t need her she would still turn up and help and I would be obliged to pay her.
During that hot spell in June when Londoners advisedly ate little I ceased the opportunity to steel my resolve to gently lay her off. "Fara" I began as she peeled some maris piper with a small pen knife she,d insisted on bringing from home.(she didnt like using potato peelers!) "I think you need to take a break next week. I won,t be working because of the hot spell. We are not making any money at the markets" ." I,d been thinking of setting up my own street food company"! she blurted out in response."Wow that,s that,s brilliant I lied, flabbergasted and genuinely worried for my old friend. "You must tell me what to do , which markets to trial,how much I would need to invest, where to buy my equipments ......." " Enough already Fara THIS job is not easy and I don,t think you are strong enough to take the knocks and grind of this industry" .Despite my best efforts to dissuade her from taking this plunge ,she stuck to her gun so I gave up and cursed the day DVLA impounded my van because the boyfriend forgot to pay the road tax.I would not have test driven my neighbour,s van to Asda and would certainly not have bumped into Fara and would not therefore be party to the impending heartache she will inevitably experience especially with the charlatans that run some of markets she will trial .I arranged for her to take a basic food hygiene course and to obtain public liability insurance and reluctantly gave her details of two starter markets .Two weeks later the daily phone moans began. First it was "How very labour intensive the business was" then it was the shafting of the market organisers,then what did I think about her abandoning her original cuisine and cooking falafels instead?.
Untill further notice, my daughter is under instruction to sweetly dismiss Fara,s calls with "My mum will call you back later" surely my sanity comes before friendship.!
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
RE:FIRST CHELSEA FOOTBALL GAME :WE WENT, WE SAW , WE DID NOT CONQUER
So came last Sunday. The long awaited first market organised solely around the hype of up to fifty thousand Chelsea fans. This was going to be the first of many. I expected a massive trader turn out and the desperate traders of London did not disappoint.I will tell you who was there. There were three Jamaican jerk stalls, a Portuguese stall, Two Turkish stalls, one Pastry stall,two fruit juice stalls,one Ghanaian stall,one Thai stall, one Chinese stall, one Chinese stall not selling Chinese food Stall, One Roast Hog Stall, one Sausage/hot dog stall, one Venezuelan stall.There were many more stalls but because I arrived late, I couldn,t really take it all in but the boyfriend had rung me earlier as he went to set up."Guess what Kiru" he had asked? and I hate it when he does that. He is a die hard fault finder."No I am not guessing nothing and I don,t want you dampening my spirits .Whatever you may have found out, we cant back out now we have already paid up" " Listen to this" he continued,ignoring my reply."There are about 20 food stalls here and they include the usual suspects.You know, your friends from some of your previous markets and I have just spoken to a shop keeper and he is staggered that there are so many food stalls here today because we are not in the path of most of the fans" . A swear word involuntarily escaped my lips. He cautioned me.It was too late. I had already prepared food for at least 200 fans. Under normal circumstances this is not a an unachievable target but even Jamie Oliver would struggle to make this sale in an over clogged market with detouring fans.I cursed and uncursed the organizer. Times were hard and just like me, everyone, the market organizer and the vendors alike were all trying to make impossible ends meet.
After our food was displayed, the severity of the disaster that was this market hit me when at 5 pm,about an hour after the game started we had only taken £53 quid! We would be required to start packing up at 7pm! What if this was it? we had paid £80 to be there. My heart sank as I surveyed other traders reactions.One trader bit into his thumb .Another cupped his chin.The Chinese stall holder who was not selling Chinese food made his way towards my stall. "Busy"? He joked. The irony was not lost on me . "Yes too busy that I can,t even talk to you" We both laughed nervously as we both agreed that perhaps we should have done some more research on the route taken by the fans before blindly storming Fulham with so much food.
Half time came and we breathed a sigh of relief as I had a few sales.But then as suddenly as it had begun, the trade stopped when the game resumed. Perhaps there is hope yet I hoped.Then without warning at just before 7, I saw them. A sea of blue shirts of various heights and build flooding towards the square. The boyfriend lit all our stoves and the aroma from the heated food drew the hungry ones to my stall and we began to sell. Long may it continue I prayed.For the next hour we were kept on our toes but at the end of it all, we looked up and around and saw that all the other stalls bar the Turkish had not made any sales.
At 8pm,the Moroccan Cafe owner came over and warned us to bring our own chairs and tables the next time we are back because our customers have been using his and he was not going to tolerate that next time.Shortly after, the market organizer came back and" congratulated" us on being busy.We told him that we did not consider that mini rush that was over in just an hour as busy. Would we like to attend the next game on Wednesday and also, he was organizing a market on a square in Harrow road?. Do we care to come?The boyfriend scowled and said "No Mate" We did not exactly conquer Fulham today did we?
After our food was displayed, the severity of the disaster that was this market hit me when at 5 pm,about an hour after the game started we had only taken £53 quid! We would be required to start packing up at 7pm! What if this was it? we had paid £80 to be there. My heart sank as I surveyed other traders reactions.One trader bit into his thumb .Another cupped his chin.The Chinese stall holder who was not selling Chinese food made his way towards my stall. "Busy"? He joked. The irony was not lost on me . "Yes too busy that I can,t even talk to you" We both laughed nervously as we both agreed that perhaps we should have done some more research on the route taken by the fans before blindly storming Fulham with so much food.
Half time came and we breathed a sigh of relief as I had a few sales.But then as suddenly as it had begun, the trade stopped when the game resumed. Perhaps there is hope yet I hoped.Then without warning at just before 7, I saw them. A sea of blue shirts of various heights and build flooding towards the square. The boyfriend lit all our stoves and the aroma from the heated food drew the hungry ones to my stall and we began to sell. Long may it continue I prayed.For the next hour we were kept on our toes but at the end of it all, we looked up and around and saw that all the other stalls bar the Turkish had not made any sales.
At 8pm,the Moroccan Cafe owner came over and warned us to bring our own chairs and tables the next time we are back because our customers have been using his and he was not going to tolerate that next time.Shortly after, the market organizer came back and" congratulated" us on being busy.We told him that we did not consider that mini rush that was over in just an hour as busy. Would we like to attend the next game on Wednesday and also, he was organizing a market on a square in Harrow road?. Do we care to come?The boyfriend scowled and said "No Mate" We did not exactly conquer Fulham today did we?
Wednesday, 14 August 2013
I PICK A BONE WITH THE BUTCHER
The phone rang startling me back to reality as I contemplated my predicament. I had just realized that the cheque I had written for the butcher earlier that morning may not be honoured. I had made an unnecessary purchase for the business the day before.I had gone on a compulsive -plum tomato-buying- spree.I thought it was too good to be true- I,d seen 14 boxes of fresh plum tomatoes being offered at a farmers market for a third of what they,d normally cost and when I found it was no gimmick, I,d bought the whole lot of them without thinking and now I have gone slightly over the allowed overdraft limit . That cheque WILL not be paid.My heart sank at the prospect of that happening. Robert the butcher will kill me. Praise to where it is due,my bank has been magnanimous since the recession. They have accepted to honour cheques when there have been insufficient funds in the account in so far as the agreed sum will be debited into the account within 24 hours of the cheque clearing.But there was no such grand plan of that happening tomorrow. I had no markets until friday . It was a wednesday. What,s a girl to do now? I worried.
"Kiru"? the voice at the other end inquired. "Yes" I answered.
"Robert,s been cheating you he,s been charging you an extra pound per kilo for the meat and chicken and sometimes we have delivered less meat and chicken than your order"
"For how long has this been going on and why now? why are you telling me this now"? I countered. recognizing the voice . It was Stuart, the youthful butcher,s assistant at my butcher,s. "You see I am leaving him soon so either way I have nothing to loose or gain but I thought you should know" My mouth turned dry with anger.Robert was not beyond reproach. On a few occasions when we have disagreed and I have gone to another butcher,I got a larger quantity than I would normally get from Robert for a similar order. But if I had an unexpected order for catering, Robert trumps any other butcher I know in terms of stock availability and prompt delivery .I also do not operate with a written list with my orders.It is not done in a methodical way . I keep it all in my head. . I have been known to wake him up in the middle of the night to amend my order!so that upsetting as this piece of information was, it could not have come at a better time for my predicament. I sighed with relief.The universe was looking out for me. I was going to milk this piece of news for all it is worth in terms of buying me more time to do some more catering and put more funds in the account before that cheque is paid in.I thanked Stuart and hung up.
I dialled Robert,s number. "Hello Trouble" he said. Don,t tell me you want more meat" . He joked."No I don,t " I replied angry that he could cheat on my orders and still feel no qualms about cracking jokes with me." Robert" I called clearing my throat "you have been cheating on my orders" "Don,t talk rubbish" He said. Who told you that"?" I weighed the meat and I am about 7 kilos short on what I ordered." "But you don,t have a weighing machine in your unit Kiru so how can you come to that conclusion" He fired back at me."What makes you think I don,t have a weighing machine" I asked. "Cos I know every equipment in your unit" he then proceeded to mention them one after another ;"one heavy duty microwave, two Williams freezers, one chest Freezer ".." Stop" I reprimanded him getting really wound up now that he thinks I have no proof and not wanting to reveal who my informant was.This wasn,t going as smoothly as I thought it might. I must have the upper hand I thought. I am the one who has been wronged. I am the customer and the customer is always right. I have to hit the nail on the head and tell him exactly how I want this issue to be resolved though I am not sure that I can trust him again or whether I will continue to buy from him. "Listen Robert " I said,my voice an octave higher than normal .I think this has been going on for a long time and that now you,ve been found out I must be compensated.Let,s start with the cheque I gave you this morning. I have now cancelled it. You must go back and revise the bill and come back to me with an offer as to how I am to be compensated."don,t cancel the cheque I will give you credit of some sort for your order next week" I told him there was not going to be any further order and that I cannot trust him anymore. He then seemed subdued and said he wanted to come and see me in my unit.
Two hours later, he arrived at the unit bearing two square shaped cardboard boxes containing raw meat."There" he said as he dropped them on my work top. I am sorry if you think I have cheated you . "You can come and talk to Stuart and the other guys and they,ll confirm that nothing like that is going on"...... Seems like I have to oust Stuart to get a confession from Robert but in the meantime I have a few days grace to worry about a probably reduced figure cheque!
"Kiru"? the voice at the other end inquired. "Yes" I answered.
"Robert,s been cheating you he,s been charging you an extra pound per kilo for the meat and chicken and sometimes we have delivered less meat and chicken than your order"
"For how long has this been going on and why now? why are you telling me this now"? I countered. recognizing the voice . It was Stuart, the youthful butcher,s assistant at my butcher,s. "You see I am leaving him soon so either way I have nothing to loose or gain but I thought you should know" My mouth turned dry with anger.Robert was not beyond reproach. On a few occasions when we have disagreed and I have gone to another butcher,I got a larger quantity than I would normally get from Robert for a similar order. But if I had an unexpected order for catering, Robert trumps any other butcher I know in terms of stock availability and prompt delivery .I also do not operate with a written list with my orders.It is not done in a methodical way . I keep it all in my head. . I have been known to wake him up in the middle of the night to amend my order!so that upsetting as this piece of information was, it could not have come at a better time for my predicament. I sighed with relief.The universe was looking out for me. I was going to milk this piece of news for all it is worth in terms of buying me more time to do some more catering and put more funds in the account before that cheque is paid in.I thanked Stuart and hung up.
I dialled Robert,s number. "Hello Trouble" he said. Don,t tell me you want more meat" . He joked."No I don,t " I replied angry that he could cheat on my orders and still feel no qualms about cracking jokes with me." Robert" I called clearing my throat "you have been cheating on my orders" "Don,t talk rubbish" He said. Who told you that"?" I weighed the meat and I am about 7 kilos short on what I ordered." "But you don,t have a weighing machine in your unit Kiru so how can you come to that conclusion" He fired back at me."What makes you think I don,t have a weighing machine" I asked. "Cos I know every equipment in your unit" he then proceeded to mention them one after another ;"one heavy duty microwave, two Williams freezers, one chest Freezer ".." Stop" I reprimanded him getting really wound up now that he thinks I have no proof and not wanting to reveal who my informant was.This wasn,t going as smoothly as I thought it might. I must have the upper hand I thought. I am the one who has been wronged. I am the customer and the customer is always right. I have to hit the nail on the head and tell him exactly how I want this issue to be resolved though I am not sure that I can trust him again or whether I will continue to buy from him. "Listen Robert " I said,my voice an octave higher than normal .I think this has been going on for a long time and that now you,ve been found out I must be compensated.Let,s start with the cheque I gave you this morning. I have now cancelled it. You must go back and revise the bill and come back to me with an offer as to how I am to be compensated."don,t cancel the cheque I will give you credit of some sort for your order next week" I told him there was not going to be any further order and that I cannot trust him anymore. He then seemed subdued and said he wanted to come and see me in my unit.
Two hours later, he arrived at the unit bearing two square shaped cardboard boxes containing raw meat."There" he said as he dropped them on my work top. I am sorry if you think I have cheated you . "You can come and talk to Stuart and the other guys and they,ll confirm that nothing like that is going on"...... Seems like I have to oust Stuart to get a confession from Robert but in the meantime I have a few days grace to worry about a probably reduced figure cheque!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)