A Christmas Message-including a HUGE list of "thank yous"
Thank you to everyone who has bought Xmas stuff this year....the 4th year for the Boxing Day hot sauce.....the third year for these 3-bottle boxes, the third year for the cheeseboard set. Great stuff!
And yet, I feel a little ***dirty*** joining in the massive consumer-fest that is Xmas. Everyone buying stuff they don't need, can't afford, paying off the credit card bill in March for stuff you bought in a frenzy that you can't even remember in December. It's just weird, innit?
In the first week of October, some of my chilli colleagues started mentioning their christmas stock and taking orders....even before I had made my small run of Halloween sauce. Good grief.
I try to make a rule of no xmas stuff on the HOWL website until 1st Dec. There's plenty of time between then and the postal cut-off to sort out orders. We don't need to go crazy, right?
And then I look in envy at people posting instagrammed pics of bulging post bags...."oooh! stop it! We can't pack any more! I've been to the post office 4 times today!"....could I do that? Do I want to do that? HOW do you do that?!
Whatever, I guess I'm too old to change. Do I really want to sell 200 packages in a day? Deep down.....probably not.
On the 30th November I bought 450 bottles from my long-time bottle supplier (first thank you, Stu from Sen5es.co.uk) and enlisted the help of my Mother-in-Law (second thank you, Anne Brennan)....we prepped and cooked for three nights and two days and filled all 450 bottles and jars, then I did my first Xmas market on 3rd December at a 6th form college in Northwich (Thanks for the invite Joe Haddock, thank you #3)...and it felt good to meet people who'd tried my stuff before, and new tasters and Joe's family all bought my stuff, and he told all the school staff to come try it. I got a free mulled wine, too.
I did 4 more markets....thanks to Unity theatre, Good Market, Baltic market and the Millenium Green....but I didn't do my heavy advertising like the year before, I didn't do my hare-brained Xmas Eve local delivery scheeme and I let a couple of the shops run dry...because I just couldn't cook again (apologies #1 and #2 to Notcutts in Widnes and the ever patient Monk's deli in Runcorn.....and Whitmores in Frodsham, come to think of it...I'm terrible, I really am). I DID manage to get some xmas stock to Mattas on Bold St....who have stocked me from the very start, and so more Thank Yous go to Deepak and Dalip and the rest of the staff there .
In the end nearly all those 450 bottles have gone, and I did a mini-cook just now to hoover up some last local sales now the post has ground to a hault under the sheer weight of our seasonal consumerist desire. I've just finished bottling it on 21st Dec, and it's 3am and I'm a bit hyped up and wired and full of insomnia and trepidation for the family xmas and covid cancellations and whatever this next year will bring.
SO I say thank you to everyone who has helped me this year, like they do every year: Chris and Paul at Prism printing, for the last minute xmas stickers for the gift boxes (TY #5, apology #3....it's always last minute..I know that), my wife for putting up with the kitchen and hallway being constantly full of the magical sound of boxes of empty bottles crashing under the weight of cats (TY#6) design genius Gary Mcgarvey for the xmas labels artwork and all the labels and logos before that (TY#7) and all the family and friends who buy my stuff constantly, including every year when they give the gift of HOWL to friends, in what has become a spicy annual tradition.
The list of HOWLERs who buy my stuff all through the year, who keep me going when those bastards at the Great Taste awards fail to recognise the culinary genius of HOWL on a yearly basis...... Richey Feathers and his brother. Andy Grice who claims that the Halloween sauce is the REAL "most wonderful time of the year", the vegan couple in Widnes who wanted to have Breakfast Sauce at their Wedding Breakfast, but couldn't because COVID meant that they could only have 3 people at the ceremony (whilst Boris had "work meeting garden parties" with more people than were allowed at weddings and funerals)......that lady I've never met who runs a dog groomers and buys 5 bottles of the bourbon sauce every 4 months without fail, year after year....the family in Newcastle who made a family outing to come visit me at a chilli festival, and each time the kids get taller and they all each want their own bottles (TY #s 8, 9 and 10 and 11, etc, etc).
Final shout outs to the late night support crew of Jay Jones, Dave Rowlands, Dan Reed and Ste Cooley who get the FB messages at 3am asking if it's all worth it.....and should I REALLY make a hip-hop concept sauce based on the first Wu-Tang album...with 36 different chillies in it....and also to Steve from Pasture Fire for selling me 18 kilos of 36 different chillies. Mike and Vicky who put me up when I do the London markets, and help on the stall with horrific hangovers the day after I arrive. Rory and Collen at Posivibe festival who joined in the HOWLING with a crossover sauce this year.
Local support from Monks Deli (again) and Society Taproom who sold the HOWL online with takeouts during the first lockdown, and wouldn't take any money for it, and then employed me in their kitchen during the second or third lockdown when I was teaching online about 4 hours a week and earning buttons from it. Saved me, to be honest.
You know.....some people really ARE good folk.....and maybe, just maybe, that IS a nice bit of Christmas....to look back and say thank you to everyone....and it's not all about reminding everyone constantly that there are still 4 days to go before xmas eve, and I can drop off some of the gift boxes if you are local, and I've got some smoked cheese too, if people don't like chilli and I need to get rid of those red and green tote bags that seemed a good idea at the time....it's not ALL about that.
But it is a bit about that.
It can be quite a lot about that, if you're not careful, to be honest.
Much love if you've read this far, then YOU deserve thanks as well.
See you next year. Maybe I'll make 600 bottles next year.
Yeah, I'll do that. Just a few more and that's it.
No more than that, promise.
X
