I live on the very edge of a very small village with a school, community center, church, library, corner store and of course a PUB. My village is about 20 minutes away from what used to be a quaint village, much larger then mine (not hard to do), that has been over run with artsy trendy urbanites getting away from the ratty race of da BIG city, buying up all the great oldy victorian houses and making mcmansions out of them. Property used to be cheap but now that it is "popular" among a certain group land is no longer cheap nor is it recognizable.
Nor are the lovely shops that have been my haven up until now. Now we have the greenie shops, art gallery, handmade bread kneading bowls priced at a real bargain @ $225, do you see the workmanship and lathe work, sanding job, smoooooth as a baby's bottom, he did there?coffee shops/bistro's, the great place to have lunch is now all homey with wonders of gruyere cheese some how morphed into every second recipe, the organic children's toys and clothing shop has replaced the once excellent children's consignment shop. Ladies clothing is now for yachting and the golf club and the food, that once was soooo plentiful (and cheap) straight from the local farms is all organic, expensive and pretentious. There are even helpful little cards attached to the over priced ingredients that give you recipe ideas and what wine, liquor or Apéritifs from their stock would go best with their meal suggestions.
On the face of things I have No Problem with progress, I don't mind a change of pace and I certainly would need Apéritifs advice should I ever become an Apéritifs kinda family. Obviously these businesses are making money or they would not be there, times they are a changing. I can deal or I can just drive a wee bit further pas de sweat.
Last week we went to the Village to take a few pairs of boots at "the best dang boot repair place" in all of the valley. We are pretty much regulars. That family is genius with leather. While in New Yuppy Ville I spied a new store on the main drag that looked might interesting, so Grey being Grey I wondered on over to see what I could see. Twas a grainery of sorts, sure it was heavy on the organic , but organic isn't all bad pretension, it had scores of sprouting seeds, they even had dandelion, garlic, Quinoa, Red Quinoa , onion sprout seeds, wheat berries (jackpot!) lots of wonderful flours, baking ingredients, wonderful books on canning, baking breads et all, baking containers, it was a bakers heaven. I was in love....
Yes I am getting to the point of this post right about here: What they didn't have was Durham semolina flour. I have been looking for a good source in bulk of this flour for baking my breads and also for making my home made pastas. So I chatted with the owner and she said she would get back to me, we exchanged e-mail addresses. I was clear: Get the prices for differing quantities and I will put in an order. I left there happy and pleased at my find. So I wait...and I wait...and I wait.....no e-mail. I'm busy so I wait some more..
Today was the day to go back to New Yuppy Ville to pick up our boots at "the best dang boot repair place" in all of the valley. While I'm there I went to my new favorite grainery and see whats up with the flour I asked about. Owner all smiles, Yes she remembers me, yes she checked in to the flour for me, yes she never bothered to contact me because the flour only comes in bags of 20 KILOS or more and nobody needs 20 KILOS of Durham Semolina Flour. Giggle giggle.....
Insert visual of blinky eyed Grey right about here.
Ummm I do.
Whatever for? (looks at me as if I sprouted another head)
Baking bread and making my own fresh pasta..
But that's like 45 lbs already it would take forever to use it up. It will go bad. (Patronizingly explaining as if to a four year old)
No not really, I have a large family.
Well if you insist I could call back for the price and see how long it will take for it to come in? (somehow miffed that her physic ability to see my needs was in error)
No I won't insist, I'll get it else where thank you.
It takes a Village to tick me off....
All I can say is "the best dang boot repair place" in all of the valley had better never go out of business or I won't have reason to turn west on my road again. Sigh...
2 comments:
Oh my. She's kinda out of touch with home bakers if she think 45lbs is too much flour. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you have a fairly large family? And by large, I mean bigger than the 3 humans in my house-and we buy 100lbs of flour at a time! I will also point out I have never had any of that 100 lbs I routinely(every 6 months or so) buy go bad.
Wow, nothing like alienating a potential customer too! Had I been her, I would have gotten the price, sent an email, and left it at that. Let the customer decide if it's too much flour, or if the cost is too much. What's the 2 minutes it takes to send an email, compared to the possibility of a customer who orders in bulk? Silly shop owner.
Good evening WolfSong,
Yes I have a rather largish family, just about ten or so of us Greys gather round the table on any given meal.
Yes definitely silly shop owner. But I think her mindset is so prevalent with a certain group of folks.Outside a small margin of flexibility, They can not conceive of any one living or thinking much differently from them. My guess is that in New Yuppy Vill most of the women play at being hipply rural and back to nature do it yourselfers. I figure they still have a respectable refined number of children. They may have traded in their stilettos for sensible yet stylish boots but they still think in stilettos terms.
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