Sunday, June 28, 2009

Entrepeneurship and The Last Weekend In June

This weekend I was finally back to my old self and no longer felt tired no matter how much I slept. I didn't jinx myself with a crazy weekend but it was a busy one nonetheless. On Friday night Josh and I headed to Provincia. A common mistake among foreigners is to mistakenly call the city we live in Buenos Aires. We actually live in Capital Federal which is in the province of Buenos Aires. Everywhere outside of Capital is called Provincia de Beunos Aires and can be easily translated as the suburbs. To narrow it down for you we headed to Quilmes, the home pueblo de Ulises y Santi, for a birthday party. Gigi, a friend of Uli's from his old job has a lover who manages a swanky bar in town. We took colectivo 22 all the way there for free food and good music. The beers weren't free but they were delicious.



from the left: Josh, a friend of Gigi, Gigi, Uli


sitting with our jackets because it was cold in there!!!!



awesome chocolate mouse cake = too much for my tummy

Saturday I slept in and Josh and I spent the morning going food shopping and eating a delicious salad and too much Dulce de Leche. MORE IMPORTANTLY!!!!! we found out there is a new Frutigran flavor!!!!!!!!!!! Chocolate chip, soy and oatmeal team up for the tastiest Frutigan yet. I'm obsessed. I repeat, obsessed.

An old favorite, but avena (oatmeal) and pasas (raisins) does not compare to the new and improved but not yet documented on the internet avena, soya y chips de chocolate!!!

After I sufficiently stuffed myself with carbs and salad I headed to Frisbee alone and played all afternoon. It was cold and I played well, and then later poorly but I still had a good time. I also felt better about how many churipans I ate that night. Ok, I ate too many, but at least I did get exercise before I clogged my arteries with two and half of them. Saturday night we were supposed to have a Cadillacs churipan dinner but it was a party fail and I never sent out an invitation and only Nick and our new friend Alex showed up. Santi also had invited people from work so there was no fewer people than normal in our house and we drank beer, ate churipan and spoke in a mix of Spanish and English all night. The music wasn't too loud and the strobe light was only on for a little. It was a great night.
This morning I woke up early (11:30) and cleaned the house while I waited for the house to wake up. Erin came over for brunch and we made Shakshuka again as well as French Toast and fruit salad.

Shakshuka cooking on the stove

Nick came over as we were getting ready to eat to watch a disappointed US v. Brazil final and Erin and I headed out to sell Banana Bread.

I've been thinking for some time now that I would like to sell food at a market or an event because I always see people doing it and it would be a fun way to make some extra pesos. Banana bread seemed to me the perfect thing because I'm guaranteed to be the only one out there selling it and its dirt cheap to make.

Two kilos of very ripe bananas: A$R 4
Two eggs: A$R 0.80
Flour: less than A$R 3
Baking soda: less than A$R 1
Salt, Vanilla, Butter and Sugar: less than A$R 1
This photo: Priceless


Yes we went out in these hats and our sign reads: Banana Bread Casera (homeade) de Los Estados Unidos

We sold two pieces for five or six pesos and one for three or four depending on the client and spend about two hours walking up and down Defensa. Today is a big election for the Congress and voting in Argentina is obligatory. Because of this the fair was relatively empty, yet in two hours we sold all but two pieces of bread and made a profit of A$R 50!!!! Of course we already spent almost all of it on earrings on the way home, but what fun to see something you want and to buy it. A sensation as foreign to me as my feelings about this weekend when it arrived (explanation in previous post). The downside to our light schedule of course being that we are pretty broke and we were exhilarated by our purchases as we headed back to our warm house for some maté and discussed how much fun we had talking to all the vendors, tourists, old men and the abundance of creepy vendors who said that while they weren't interested in our banana bread but in us. I wonder how much we could have sold some besos for. Probably a lot more than our banana bread. Let's not find out.... In the end it was an enjoyable two hours and much market research was accomplished and next week should be even more successful. A few things we will do for sure are to begin earlier (many people had already eaten a lot of food) and to make more banana bread so we can make the squares bigger. Also, targeting old men worked really well, and I think the hats really helped. One man also criticized our packaging, but I though paper towels added to the whole homemade aspect.


Uli was wearing all of his scarves when we returned


I finally bought a feather earring!!!!! Bit by bit I will fit in here!!!!!! This photo is dedicated to Jessica who inspired me to shop around for a feather earring for months until I bought this one today.
Now we are hanging out at home and everyone is making gnocchi. I think I'll go help.
Tomorrow I begin hanging out with Erin as much as possible seeing as I received the shocking news last night that she is leaving me in a week, but more on that to come.
I can't believe its almost July!!!!!!

3 comments:

Patrick Hennessy said...

hey with that feather earring you can fit into Williamsburg too!!!!

:)

Ann Behar said...

You two look as cute as can be in those hats! My little entrepeneur!

Austin said...

Banana Bread Caseroooooo!!!

De los estados unidossssss!!!

I would buy that in a heartbeat. Good price discrimination, too.