Arts & Craft Show at Root's Market

I was a food vendor at the Art's and Craft Show at Root's market, but I was outside this time, not selling my pizzas, I normally make inside the market on Tuesdays.

This was my adventure.


Well, I made it through two days of the Arts and Craft Show at market.  Although I have always loved to be a food vendor at different places, I am almost positive this will be my last year to try something like this.  I guess I forget how much work there is to prepare, load the van, unload the van, set-up and then go through a day of selling food and drinks.  Yesterday, I had to tear everything down, load the van, then unload everything again this morning.  After I was set-up, I went and talked to Frank of Francesco’s Pizza.  The food vendor manger had moved him from the spot he had yesterday, to two stands away from where I was set-up.  Frank is really a nice man, and we talked about pizza for awhile again.  I told him I was a member of pizzamaking.com and told him how I like to study pizza and also experiment.  Frank was making calzones to put in his case and gave me a fresh calzone right out of the oven. Frank turns his calzones in the oven with his bare hands.  Frank has been in the pizza business for 32 years, working 7 days a week.  He said soon he is only going to work 6 days a week.  I asked Frank if he minded if I took a few pictures, and posted them here on the forum.  He said he didn’t mind.  We talked about flours and deck  ovens. Frank said to come back when he was opening up dough for regular pizzas, because he wanted to show me how he twirled his dough, but I didn’t have time,  I had to go back to my stand, but I did go back to talk to Frank near the end of the day.

Since yesterday was the first time I sold milk kefir smoothies, (the same milk kefir I had used to make some pizzas), I thought I would include a few pictures of what a strawberry milk kefir smoothie looks like.

The second time I went to talk to Frank we talked about his Baker’s pride oven he had on his truck and what kind of oven he had in his pizza business.  I asked Frank how big his pies were and he said 20”.  I asked him why he made 20” pies and he said so customers get bigger slices.  I also asked Frank how much his dough balls weighed and he said 18 oz.  I also asked Frank what temperature he kept his oven at and what he said sure surprised me since his pies didn’t look like they were baked at that temperature.  He also told me that his oven at his pizza business loses heat faster than his Baker’s Pride on his truck.  He is looking for a Baker’s Pride oven for his regular pizza business.  Frank uses a Blodgett oven at his regular place of business.  I invited Frank over to market some Tuesday to talk about pizza, and also see what he thinks of how my pizzas taste.  Frank said he did also own another pizza business awhile ago and had a Brick oven in that place.  He said the Brick oven pizza didn’t go over well, but that business still has his name, but someone else operates it.  Frank said he would come to market some Tuesday.  Another thing I found interesting, is Franks doughs sat in his dough trays all day long without being refrigerated.

Today was really muggy and sticky.  In the middle of the day to the end of the day it sure felt hot! Although it is hot at regular market, at least there are fans.  I know I am getting too old to do this type of stuff, but for some reason, I still find it enjoyable, even with all the lifting and dragging stuff around.  I did take a lot of my stuff into my stand at market to wash, but I also have a lot to unload out of the van, clean and put away.

Norma