Do you know we do wedding favors? We’ve been doing them since our first year when a customer asked about favors, and now the hearts and pillowy packages of marshmallow cubes are the most popular favor requested. These are some recent(ish) favors we’ve sent out.

So…in exactly 2 weeks we’ll be on an airplane headed to our annual August Seattle trip to visit the in-laws, but this time we’re tacking on Northern California first to go visit my brother and his new baby (yes, I have a brother!) and some old friends. I haven’t been to San Francisco in 15 years and it was just a day stop when Mark and I drove across country to move to New York, but prior to that, the last time I spent any amount of time in the city was in 1990 during one of my many traveling adventures. We’ll have 4 full days there and no doubt will cram as much in as possible. Any thoughts on things we should hit?

We’ll be away for nearly 3 weeks which is the longest we’ve been away from the business. We’re nervous about leaving the cat, who is still hanging in there despite his illness and his occasional bad days, and we’re nervous about shutting the business down for 3 weeks and not making any income during that time (a HUGE compromise when you don’t get paid vacations from an employer). But we’ve made a promise to travel with the girls as long as it’s something we can swing financially without too much sacrifice and it’ll give Mark a nice break before we regroup for the Fall and the holidays. In the meantime, we’d like to keep Mark busy in the kitchen for the next 10 days, so we’re having a little summer sale (if you follow us on Facebook or Twitter, then you may have already heard). Use code SUMMERSALE11 on either our website or our Etsy shop and save 15% off of your total order until August 12th. After the 14th, our shop will be closed until September 2nd.

ps. thanks for all your comments on the whole ad thing. You know I appreciate your comments, right? And if I could get threaded comments to work on here, it’d be so much easier to respond to each of your comments, but as it is, I don’t always get a chance to respond back. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do about ads yet, and given my lack of motivation to do anything these days, probably nothing. How’s that for a lame answer? I think this vacation can’t come soon enough…

If you’ve been to our Etsy site in the last week, you may have noticed some of the new photos. I couldn’t bear to look at the old photos anymore and didn’t want to wait till our new site was up. Now that some of the worst offenders have been replaced (I’m looking at you, biscotti and brownies), I can rest easy on retaking some of the other products that need a refresh. Speaking of our new website, it should relaunch mid-April and I couldn’t be more excited. I don’t remember the last time I was this excited about launching a new website in like, ever, so this is a big deal.

Some other biz news (lest you forget that this blog is also about the business, and not just some random babbling from an insomniac):

We’ll be at the The Village Voice’s Choice Eats tasting event tonight in the VIP Sweets Room. The event has been sold out for awhile and no wonder, what with that lineup of restaurants on hand. Mark’s going solo, as he usually does at events, and this is bumming him out a bit because it might mean that he won’t get a chance to go and grab some food.

Some recent press: The Kitchen Conversion Poster is in this month’s issue of Bust Magazine, and Joonbug.com did a great writeup of our products which you can read here. And did anyone catch us on TV? Our cookies were on the Cooking Channel’s Food(ography) show hosted by Mo Rocca. The theme of the show was “Food and Websites” and our Etsy homepage and product shots were splashed across the screen quite a number of times. Yeah, ok, we totally giggled every time we saw our stuff.

Thanks to all of you who helped us raise money to send to Japan by buying from us in the last 2 weeks. We’ll be sending a portion from all the sales we made during that time today, along with a company match. And watch for some news on a contribution we’ve made to an exciting benefit project to Japan.

And finally….I know it took us FOREVER to decide on a cookie name (oh, what cookie? I know, you probably forgot about it, it was so long ago), but we did pick a name and despite some of the very creative and sometimes really funny names you guys came up with (“chunky mudburger”, submitted by Tin, makes me chuckle every single time and it’s what I’m secretly going to call it to myself), we decided to go simple and stay a bit more in character with our other product names. The Brooklyn Market Cookie. It fits, don’t you think? Particularly since it’s only being sold at the Brooklyn Flea for now (but maybe not for long!). So Christine, you are the winner since you coined it first (check your email!), but Miss Lauren, I know you also posted this name a few hours later, so you get some free cookies too the next time you stop by the Flea. Thanks, Ladies!

So our 3rd year of business has now officially come to a close. Did we think we were going to make it this far and for this long? I don’t know what we expected, but onto year 4…

I chuckle every time I have to photograph new marshmallow flavors (in this case, espresso, which we’ll have for sale in a few days – they all got snatched up within an hour at the BK Flea). I mean, how many different ways can you photograph a marshmallow? But strangely enough, many ways and I am becoming a bit obsessive over them, mostly because they aren’t looking like marshmallows to me so much anymore, but abstract shapes with weird textures, particularly the oddly shaped ends of the pan that don’t get packaged up.

It’s all part in a series of projects I’m doing with the bits and pieces of materials that aren’t used but discarded from the byproducts of the biz (well, except for mushrooms which are my other photographic obsession. I’ll show you those soon).

I’ve also been toying with the idea of selling photographic prints for awhile. It’s been a long process, however, and I’m nowhere near opening up shop. It’s partly due to the fact that I’m feeling a little bit unsatisfied with certain technical aspects of the photos like sharpness and resolution, etc., but largely due to the fact that I’ve been searching for some kind of theme to unify the work – I don’t want to just throw together a collection of my favorite photos – and so this is where I’ve been struggling. I think over the years I *have* developed a certain style – the product shots are pretty minimal and monochromatic and props are used sparingly, but that may be more to do with the fact that I very well may be a lazy stylist. I am, however, becoming more and more interested in photographing food as completely abstract forms which is why I find marshmallows and mushrooms appealing, but….would anybody buy this stuff? (OK, Nichole, I know you would). I can only imagine it if they were blown up big, to take that abstraction even further with an exaggeration of size that is out of context which is why I’m obsessing over sharpness and resolution.

In any case, I’ve got some plans to push these abstractions further. We’ll see where they go.

We’re starting to book weddings for spring and even some summer weddings as well. This was a winter February wedding that took place this week. I wasn’t sure about the gold ribbon at first (a client request), but I think they came out looking classy if I do say so myself.

Even though Mark is back, the business is slow to ramp back up. For one, the oven at the restaurant broke so that is setting us back with wholesale orders as well as the Brooklyn Flea (we had to cancel on today, among other reasons to do with Mark being out of town). Let’s hope the oven got fixed today as this week has been a financial loss for us. Thank god I am working even if I’m feeling overworked. At least Mark has had lots of free time to spend with the kids this weekend. Sledding, birthday parties, a trip to the aquarium. I’ve been stuck inside.

In the middle of that snow storm, right when it started looking like a blizzard out there, Mark trekked out to Manhattan to Martha Stewart to deliver some rose vanilla marshmallow hearts after an “urgent” phone call the day before (stuff for press is always “urgent”). The next day, they were on TV. The episode isn’t online yet, but you can see a photo of them as they were shown on the air (photo 23).

Yeah, those marshmallow hearts (or again, baby butts as Mia calls them)…getting national exposure. They also appeared at a Martha Stewart party thrown by the same editor sometime last year (can’t remember if that was before or after they made their magazine appearance). They’re getting around.

Update: We’ll have a bunch of these little heart packages at the Brooklyn Flea tomorrow. I think we need a sign. Preferably inside a starburst. You know, like “As Seen On TV!”

Thanks to those blog readers who came by to say hi today at the Brooklyn Flea. It was a great first weekend (by the way you can find weekly Market Dates in the sidebar now). We are donating 10% of all sales made at the Flea today to support the relief efforts in Haiti. This goes for sales in our online shops too till the end of next week and the money will be distributed equally among Mercy Corps, Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health and the UN Central Emergency Response Fund.

And yeah, the pink heart marshmallows are back for Valentine’s Day (or as Mia likes to call them, “baby butts”). This year they are cinnamon!

I haven’t talked business in a while, but we still make cookies, remember? Here are some recent party and wedding favors we did. We still have a few more Fall and Winter favor orders to go but all in all it was an excellent first official wedding season for us.

So we’re flipping dates on the Flea this weekend, not necessarily because of the crappy forecast tomorrow, but because there is a certain guest as the Brownstoner guys are calling her – “She Who Must Not Be Named” – who will be visiting the Flea this Sunday in Dumbo instead of Saturday to shoot some footage for her show. Can you guess who it is?

These little 4 packs of maple marshmallows went out today for a baby shower in California this weekend. Lots more marshmallow favors to come in the Fall.

We’ve been getting a lot of emails on marshmallow favors from the Martha Stewart coverage and these are going to be favors for a bridal shower tomorrow – 40 personalized bags of blue and white cardamom hearts.

And after a little break from markets, we’ll be doing not 1 but 2 this weekend. We’re back at the Fort Greene Brooklyn Flea on Saturday and the next 2 as well after being away all month and on Sunday, we’ll be participating in a new market at the Old American Can Factory on 3rd St. and 3rd Ave in Brooklyn. This market is 2 blocks away from our place so we’re looking forward to an easy set up and break down (nothing beats being able to just walk over with your stuff). If you’re swinging by to check it out, Mia will be Mark’s special market helper and salesgirl throughout parts of the day. Come say hi, she’ll chat your ear off.

Page 139 in this issue of Martha Stewart Weddings (sorry for the rather crappy photo which makes the hearts look totally weird – it’s dark outside and raining again. Gee, imagine that).