Little Free Bakeries

How would you like to walk down the street, glance over at a colorful little box and see rows of cake slices, yours for the taking?

Jill Lightner—a former coworker of mine and excellent food writer—wrote up a piece on Little Free Bakeries popping up in Seattle.

From the intent and the comments over at the Seattle Times, it looks like people are happy for the generosity and openness of the bakers. But how do small bakery owners, still struggling from the pandemic and in a notoriously tight margin industry, feel about unregulated and unlicenced people cutting in on their turf? (I’m assuming everyone mentioned at least got a WA State “cottage license”, but I shouldn’t make assumptions…)

I’m thinking about diving into this topic further with a few interviews and more research. Thoughts?

Yay or nay to this concept?

A "Wonder” of a delivery startup

I found the title "Suburbanites Fight Over New Dinner Services in Mercedes Vans” an irrisistible click. It’s a classic battle for many people — how to have quality food when there isn’t enough time to prepare it or go out for it. Answer: Take out!

But this takes take-out to a new level. I’m impressed at the scale of this concept: it’s basically take an RV, trick it out to finish off pre-cooked gourmet items, and deliver to the residence hot and fresh in less than 5 minutes.

The cons? Well, they’re diesel RVs. Maybe someday they’ll be electric. I can see why this is a suburban concept because in most cities there is no way any RV could dream of speedily manouvering along streets and then trying to find a giant parking spot.

But what bothers me more is the demographic and what people already have in their homes. I saw the photos of people gleefully opening up pizza boxes in their tricked-out kitchens. Kitchens that have expensive ovens. So kitchens have truly become the showpiece hang-out spot in the suburban home: the ambiance of home without any of the work. But maybe the novelty will wear off?

What do you think?

Lorraine’s Tech Maven Note:

Nicky Case made Nutshell - a little tool for writers.

This is a tool for writers, to let their readers dive into details. Not shown in the above .gif, are two other "killer features": 1) you can embed snippets of text from other authors & websites, even stuff written years ago! And 2) you can embed interactives, YouTube videos, and the intros of Wikipedia articles.

And….Sailing Away

Cute little boat I photographed from one of our spring trips

On a personal note, I’m off on a one-week sailing adventure with my family very soon! The provisioning of a boat was quite a challenge for me, as I didn’t want to boil water while under way (sailing slang for moving) due to heeling of the boat (sailing slang for the boat is tipping at an angle). But there’s a grill, a small fridge, and lots of good cookware so I’ll talk about that adventure when I come back!

the Punk Lady Apple

Experiments in Food - Free to Pricey