I’m so glad April is over.  It sucked.

Anyway, on a positive note.  We are still making vegan cheese, our children are still healthy and my mom is still awesome.

There are a couple of updates I am going to add, like other stores we are currently in, what new services we are offering and just some all around house cleaning.  Things were getting a little dusty around here.

In the meantime; I found the cutest vegan couple: http://www.meettheshannons.net/ Please check them out!  In the spirit of Julie and Julia, they are veganizing the Betty Crocker cookbook!

Speaking of veganizing.  I have veganized many of her recipes, but I am so unofficial about it…lol

Thank you for being awesome!

You know who you are…

P.S. Someone goes vegan with Ste Martaen cheese!

http://planetverge.com/2010/03/going-vegan-episode-6-whats-cooking/

And the Winner is…well, you’ll have to read a little bit more. This past weekend, Sunday, December 13, 2009…a date that shall live on in our minds and taste buds for eternity. Julia, aka the Snarky Vegan, had the most brilliant idea that culminated in the Vegan Pizza Smackdown at Delisi’s Pizzeria and Bar. The premise of the smackdown was to compare how two vegan cheese’s would compare side by side. The competitors were Chicago Soy Dairy’s Teese and Canada’s own Daiya. These two vegan cheeses have been regarded as the best “melty” vegan cheeses in the country. Well, Chicago has put them to the test.

Delisi’s is basically a dive bar on the north side of Chicago. It’s a no frills, no top shelf kind of joint with super friendly service and enthusiastic local regulars that don’t mind drinking and buying you drinks. The perfect spot to find Vegan Pizza, and deep dish pizza at that. In my experience, joints like this are the jewels of the culinary world. Forget the chandeliers, cloth napkins, Grey Goose, 100 year old scotch and dudes uncomfortably dressed in tuxes. Give me a place that forsakes posh, serves well drinks and puts all of its energy into creating delicious food…in this case, Vegan Deep-dish Pizza! It’s my understanding that Delisi’s just recently started serving vegan pizza and it has caught Chicago by storm. As you know, once a vegan finds a great product, word spreads like wildfire. The most effective form of communication known to man…not the the telegram or the telephone…it’s Tell-a-Vegan. Within days, the whole world will be up to speed.

See, a place packed full of Vegans! Anything to do with pizza, you know I couldn’t leave the children at home. If I did it might have been the last time any of y’all had seen me.

Look how serious Lil’ Z is. Now imagine if I had left him home! He would be posted up at the house ready to use that knife and fork on me.

Baby boy ridding his slice of any vegetable content. Just cheese and crust please. Well, he did add ketchup…does that count as a vegetable?

Our lion cub, pretending to eat with sophistication and patience.

Father, this deep-dish pizza is extraordinary. I am thankful for you allowing me to accompany you on this outing.

Yeah right! Believe me, once the camera went down, so did the fork and the pizza at a record setting pace.

Don’t forget about me. Pizza, in my mouth? Pizza, in my mouth?

Sorry, not this time, baby girl.

Awww . Don’t worry, she got some of Chicago Soy Dairy’s Temptation pineapple ice cream and was very happy.

Alright, stop the yapping, can we eat? Yes, let’s all dig in.

Here’s the scoop from my perspective:

Both Teese and Daiya were similar in how they melted. Both claim to veganly emulate the stretchy, gooey, meltiness of dairy cheese. They both melted, but I didn’t see any close similarity to dairy cheese. Maybe right, right, right out of the oven. Hey, that’s not my hang up though. I’m all about taste.

So the winner, according to my taste buds, is….?

That’s right, Chicago’s finest…Teese from Chicago Soy Dairy! Why Teese? I felt it had a milder flavor that combined much better with the other ingredients on the pizza. Teese did not over power only enhanced every bite. Now Daiya, on the other hand, had an after taste. Maybe its from the tapioca or arrowroot flours, maybe the cultures. I don’t know. All I know, that after taste was more dominant than the flavors of the pizza as a whole. Daiya did seem a little creamier than Teese, but that wasn’t enough to take the crown.

So Teese it is for me. Also, the unsung hero of the day has to be Upton’s Naturals faux meats. Along with the vegan cheese, Delisi’s offers a variety of faux meat products produced by Upton’s. My hands down favorite was the vegan pepperoni. So next time I get back to Delisi’s (next time being every week), I’ll be getting my deep-dish with Teese and Upton’s pepperoni.

Who ever said being a vegan lacked taste, has evidently never been to Chicago. Chicago is producing some of the best new vegan products on the market. I looked forward to when the rest of the world catches up with what we know.

The Mercy For Animals’ 2nd annual Celebrating Compassion Gala was amazing! This has been such a hectic holiday season and we prepped ourselves for this event, however it’s been a while and we don’t get out much…together. I had so much fun being around grown ups, dressing up, serving our cheese, taking pictures, hanging with friends (Kevin & Chelsea) and spending time with my Silver Fox!

The man behind the Ste Martaen brand.

Our spread. Many people came back not only for seconds and thirds, but fourths and fifths. We were flattered!

We shared the table with other vegan Chicago local talent–Karyn’s and Great Taste Cafe. Their food was so beautifully presented!

Karyn’s Raw Sushi Rolls

Great Taste Cafe Roasted Sweet Potato with Chipotle Cream & Green Onions

So Pretty!

Early on in the evening before we were swarmed…

The decor was quite beautiful! The room where we ate dinner was amazing, however it was so dark in there I didn’t attempt pictures. The dinner meal was provided by the lovely people from Chicago Diner, dessert was Delicious Cafe, Raw Creations and Great Taste Cafe, the Late Night meal was provided by Uptons Naturals (someone stole our sandwiches) , Pattycake Vegan Bakery (They had so many vegan desserts to choose from, it was a true dessert buffet!) and Turtle Mountain.

The cast from Oh Brother Where Art Thou showed up! j/k

Kevin auditioning for the new Bond movie.

Not really.

Food, friends and fun!

This Friday, December 4th is the Mercy For Animals’ 2nd annual Celebrating Compassion Gala. Ste Martaen cheese will be there! We’re excited to be one of the vegan businesses involved in helping to honor the vegan change makers in our local community.

We’d like to take this time to thank Delicious for being awesome and so supportive of us!  We’d also like to thank Vegan Chicago for allowing us to debut our cheese and it’s been crazy ever since!  We’re so thankful for the positive feedback and amazing support from the vegan community at large.  Let’s continue to support one another.

Choose Joy!

Laviyah

My husband and I can measure our lives in one of many ways. Recently our blackberries have become the gauge. There was life before our blackberry phones which was devoid of excitement and without purpose and life after the blackberry which trumps our bebes.

We barely talk to each other anymore, we’ll just text each other. GAH.

We have moved from the stone age to the industrial age all in one jump. It’s like sleeping in tents in the forest and moving into a penthouse suite. Is this a good thing? Only time will tell. The fact is, we’re addicted now and are more interested in protecting our phones… than eating, sleeping, drinking. I think I might be dehydrated right now. But I tweeted though.

The blackberry pictured above is mine. The blackberry pictured below is my husband’s.

Aren’t we cute?

I have been neglecting my husband and my children for up to the minute status updates on uber twitter and facebook!

Aside from all that, we are excited because we get to talk to our fans on facebook, our followers on twitter and kewl people in general, ALL THE TIME. Awesome. In the end we got our snazzy new phones just to be closer to you. For real.

Choose Joy!
Laviyah

P.S. As soon as I find a WordPress App for my blackberry I will so be posting from my phone.

Yesterday was the VeganMania event in Chicago. It was a great cap to a very busy week. After months of delaying our company’s growth with my “I’m taking it slow” mantra, the time has arrived to expand. Gearing up for the VeganMania event has revealed that Ste Martaen can handle a dramatic increase in business. This week alone, we produced over 250 pounds of vegan cheese. And we did all this without breaking a sweat!!

The last month has been kind of crazy, full of hurdles. We successfully cleared all but one…getting our business cards shipped to us before the VeganMania festival. However, dealing with things has energized me out of my not-quite-ready-for-primetime stance. One of our major issues was a monkey wrench thrown at our packaging. We have been using an oval shaped container for our 1/2 lb. retail cheese. We loved these containers from first sight. For some reason I have an oval fetish when is comes to logos and containers, so naturally it seemed a perfect fit for our cheese line. The packaging stands out from other cheese producers and provides a sturdy casing for our product when transported or shipped. So a month ago, we go to restock on our packaging and our supplier is sold out with no plans of getting more!!! Now I was floored. We are nearly out of stock and the festival is coming soon. I start calling around. Come to find out, the packaging is manufactured in Holland and they stopped shipping to the US because of the cost. Great, little-ole start-up Ste Martaen gets bit by the Economic Recession beast.
Now what!? Well, we eventually are going to vacuum seal our products, so why not start now.

I have a few reasons why…but mainly, it is going to be too costly and timely to start that process now. We tried it, at you can see, but the look is sloppy using low grade equipment. So, I send an email to Holland asking how much it is going to cost us to get some packaging shipped. The response…$1,300!!! That is just for shipping a couple of cases. Well, I guess that’s not going to happen. But, they did send a follow up email, giving us a contact in Ohio who may be able to help us. The contact said that several people in the US have been requesting the packaging same as us, so he is putting a shipment together. This shipment wouldn’t arrive in the US for another month or two however.
Back to the drawing board again. Searching online; no similar containers. Calling custom manufacturers; they can do it if I order 10,000+ units…uhh, no. With a week and a half left before VeganMania, our last effort was to go back to our supply store and see what we can purchase to get us through the event. Guess what? Yup, they had 4 cases of our packaging mysteriously appear on their shelves. Of course, we bought all them. It must have been all the positive Vegan energy permeating Chicago that caused these to appear. Thanks, VeganManiacs!!

The event yesterday, I would label a great success. We produced twice as much than we sold and lost some money. However, we introduced our cheeses to a ton of new people and we made some great contacts. This last week we got our labels finalized, marketing material, business cards and updates to our website. Most importantly, we now feel confident we are ready to increase our production. From our first sale to now has been exciting and we look forward to the next stage of our growth.

The lovely Marla Rose contacted me the other day, wanting to do a little interview. It’s titled Chicago’s Ste. Martaen makes artisan vegan cheese . I am impressed that she translated my incoherent babbling into an actual newsworthy piece!

Come out this weekend to Chicago Vegan Mania.  We will be sharing a table this coming weekend with our delicious peeps.  Come and have some Ste Martaen vegan cheese.  Come hang out.  Come vibe with other vegans.  Right now, we are prepping and getting ready for the excitement of this weekend!  See you shortly!

Scene of the Crime

Someone has actually confirmed that we are a business…she bought some cheese from us!  Lady R (I don’t want to use her real name because she might not want us to or sue us or something) contacted us last week after our May 2nd tasting.  She, of course, wanted to buy some cheese and we, of course, weren’t really ready to take orders.  We are trying to be professional…you know, labels for our products, a working website – those small details.

However, we were elated to have a potential sale…so we accepted, with conditions.  The conditions…meet us Saturday at Foster Park at about 1PM…we’ll take cash or credit.  That’s how all the legit companies do it…isn’t it?  Kraft, Coca-cola, Heinz…all the big boys slang their goods out of a dirty, run down mini-van at some random park.

So, this afternoon, I load the fam in the sales car, lumber up Lakeshore Drive and settle in at our parkside sales venue.  The park is full of cars, mostly soccer moms watching their kids play at one of the 300 soccer games currently being played.  The perfect cover for a vegan cheese transfer…nobody will suspect a thing.  It probably doesn’t help that of all the spots I could have parked, I park next to a police barrier that reads ‘Police Line – Do Not Cross.’  Can this sale be any shadier?  Lady R is going to see this, if she even shows, and is going to keep on driving.

I could read the potential regretful email in my mind…

• ‘Sorry for not showing, I had a last minute emergency and could not make it.  Please let me know when you will be available in stores.’

In other words,

• ‘I doubted you guys from the minute you said meet me at the park, I saw you two questionable business people in that hoopty and I got away from that park as soon as possible.  Ooh, and sorry for the 911 call, I hope the police didn’t arrest you.   If you ever do get legitimate, maybe I’ll purchase something from a store.’

Well, back to reality.  I call Lady R and she is actually on her way!  What? OK? Great!?   Hard to believe she agreed to such scetchy circumstances and is following through with it.  I guess not all people have lost their faith in humanity or believe a couple like us may make it for real one day.

She arrives as my wife and I are fumbling with our newborn.  I pass the little princess off to my wife {good catch honey} and greet Lady R.  Now the BIG moment…she gives me cash and I give her a bag with one each of Ste Martaen’s vegan cheeses.  She only wanted 3 of the 5, but I figured, she was our first customer and actually met us in the park…she deserved the other 2 on the house.

Despite the unprofessionalism of the whole sales process, we are super elated to have made our first sale.  Thank you to Lady R for having faith in Ste Martaen and enjoy your wine and cheese night.

Roasted red pepper and pepper jack cheese panini bliss!

Okay, it’s viral.  I got e-mails coming left and right.  Not only am I the photographer, I am the blogger, the homeschooler, the coder (not very good might I add), the mommy, the wife and business partner.  This company is the brainchild of my wonderful husband.  We are running this business together and today I am a little frightened and overwhelmed.  Frightened because I love this theme, I am just finding it harder than I thought to tweak the code for this theme.

To do list for the day:

• Give final approval for the cheese labels.
• Get logo up on the website so we look like professionals (instead of parents homeschooling 4 kids crazy enough to run a business from home while homeschooling)!
• Get PayPal buttons up on the site (we are in business aren’t we?)
• Respond to every single e-mail of everyone who wants a piece of our fabulous cheese
• Post pictures from our homegrown photoshoot of our cheese (photographing food is harder than I thought)!

I can do it!