These people get it!

Recently, I drove down to Olathe to pick up some cheeses from Rocking W Cheese & Milk.

We had been doing our 'Pop-Up/Flash' restaurants in Grand Junction and Palisade for a few months, mostly with our 'En Fuego' theme.. Yes, Heat.. with flavor! At one of our 'En Fuego's', a fan of ours came up to me in the kitchen and asked me where I was getting my Habanero Jack cheese, which we use on top of our Flamin' Burgers and I answered, 'At the grocery store'.

He told me about this small, family-owned, dairy and farm down the road a little in Olathe, CO, Rocking W Cheese and Milk and how great their products were and that they made a Habanero Jack.

Curious and knowing how our En Fuego Fans have a such great tastes, I took a drive down there in March and picked up some (along with some of their Chipotle cheese) and started using it with our pop-ups.

The folks who run this could not be nicer, great little store and many, many varieties!

In early November, I had to go down to reload on the Habanero Jack and took some samples of our newest product (our first offering in our Shelf-Stable line of product), our Colorado-Style Southern Chow-Chow as I thought that they would make a great addition to what they offer.

They absolutely loved it (and now carry it!) and Angie (the office and store manager) aid I had to meet someone and she went and got Dan, their cheese maker, who came out, tried it and also loved it!

Now Dan had never met me, did not know me, but as we discovered, Dan was a PepperHead just as I am. We talked about heat and how it had to have flavor as heat without flavor just doesn't cut it. We talked about Ghost Peppers, Scorpion Peppers and more and said.. 'Hold on for a sec.." went into the back and came out with something new he was working on,. a Ghost Pepper Jack Cheese!!

It was GREAT!!! Heat, with Flavor!!

He said that he also wanted to play around with Scorpions in a cheese (which I subsequently sent him some of ours) and then mentioned that he would also like to play around with using our Chow-Chow in a cheese, so you know I had to give him a few jars to play with. (We will let you know what comes out of this!)

As I drove away and headed back up to Grand Junction, I started thinking about this meeting and aid to myself.. These folks get it! In the food business, while there are many people that are good at what they do, not all of them 'get it'... these folks do!

Putting one's soul into what you produce, intermingling with both your customers and your suppliers, going that extra mile... yeah, these folks get it!

Life on The Road

For the past year and 1/2, I have been on the road, at least half the time!

As many of you know, we expanded our business, Decadence Gourmet Cheesecakes, into Virginia last Spring and I have been bouncing back between VA and CO since then. Two months there, two months in CO, 3 months there, then back again and so on.

For many years, I thought that life of the road was 'all that', but as I get older/smarter/worn-out, I do miss the days where I did not spend as much time on the road. Heck, I have put over 50,000 miles on my truck since this endeavour started!

Don't get me wrong, I love VA, it is great, but Western Colorado is my home and where I feel I belong so we are now looking for people and investors to run the VA and the rest of the expansions.

One of the things that sustains me is discovering new foods, new food places and being able to morph that into what we cook. Example being our newest product, a Colorado-Style Southern Chow Chow.. (think Southern Chow-Chow meets HEAT!). A great combination of a traditional Southern Food meeting Southwest Heat!

And I really do love Road Food! I do look at Diner's Drive-in's and Dives, Man vs Food and other sites to seek out new places and, for the most part, they are really, really good!

But the road is getting weary!

As we start to wrap up 2014, things are looking really good and 2015 looks like we will be lowing the doors off, so until I find the right people and investors...

Keep on Keeping On!