On Pleasureful Pastry

Remembering That Scent Evokes Memory…

On November 26, 2021

The taste of poetry borne of its own fragrance,

a line of citrus unfurls sweetly over the tongue through the senses

connecting the intoxicating language of place and time

Scent, not taste, evokes memory. What memory do you have that’s attached to the scent of a particular food? The earthy, spiciness of baked pies at your grandparents’ house? The intoxicating scent of freshly baked bread in your own kitchen? The shared experience of rich, sugary cookies you bake with friends at an exchange?

The pleasure of French press coffee has taken on new meaning for me as I have placed it in my diet exclusively on the weekend. On Sat morning, the anticipation of dark roast sets the stage for the scent that’s activated while the beans are grinding and the coffee is steeping, then adds to the pleasure of sipping it. Scent goes directly to the brain’s smell center, known as the olfactory bulb, triggering detailed memories of time and place.

Remembering that scent evokes memory, the way to seed a permanent association to you with friends and business associates is through a gift that etches you indelibly in your recipients’ minds.

Our guests tell us that one of the most notable pleasures of Essential Douglas Fir Shortbread™ is how the scents of fir and lemon linger in the nose and on the palate. Another striking feature is the shortbread’s tender, luscious texture.

Wouldn’t you love these qualities be those that attach you to your relationships with the people you care most about?

The Dec order window for Essential Douglas Fir Shortbread™ and both varieties of Essential Panettone™ opens this weekend and runs through Sat, 4-Dec. Second-day shipping for both products will be no later than the 13^th – 15^th of Dec – well in advance of Christmas. If you live in Oregon and prefer to forego the delivery charge, please note that you may pick your order up. Simply email me directly with your order details, and I’ll bill you from Square’s secure website.

Know that we do have a sense of humor at Essential Confection. If you’d like a break from the planning and stressing and cooking, have a look at our blooper reel here. The third time was not quite the charm. I consider the error a sign of the time. The finished video with our new branding is here.

May the simple pleasures of appreciation and gratitude be yours this season – however you celebrate.

www.EssentialConfection.com

#EssentialConfection #EssentialDouglasFirShortbread #EssentialPanettone

Here’s How to Host a Holiday Event This Year

By lindanaylor

On November 8, 2021

In Shortbread

Gifting instead of holiday travel this year? Choosing to host a holiday event – perhaps, an open house – to connect safely with a very limited number of friends? Dropping gifts at friends’ doorsteps in lieu of traditional communal meals?

If you’re considering a casual, sparsely populated indoor event, why not stagger guests’ invitation times and create additional comfort by offering each guest a holiday mask?

Creating new Thanksgiving, Hanukkah or Christmas memories can not only forever memorialize the gifts you give but can give rise to new holiday traditions we may then honor year after year.

Most people I know want to deepen the meaning of the time they spend with friends and family this holiday season. Consider dropping off Essential Douglas Fir Shortbread™. Calling ahead to drop off a gift is more fun than you can imagine! That fun is compounded when you spend an afternoon visiting additional friends, family and people in your personal sphere.

Unique; beautifully gift-sized; amazingly economical. If you’re in Portland Metro, we can arrange for you to pick up to save local shipping fees.

The Nov order window for Essential Douglas Fir Shortbread™ to ensure delivery for Hanukkah or Thanksgiving closes tomorrow. The Dec order window for delivery prior to Christmas opens on Sun, 5-Dec.

The excitement of the season – seasonal challenges notwithstanding – is upon us. Challenge brings innovation, yes?

With delight, we announce our first press release of Essential Douglas Fir Shortbread! Here’s the link.

Thank you for your support of Essential Confection.

www.EssentialConfection.com

#essentialconfection

The Propellant that Creates Lift is… 3, 2, 1

By lindanaylor

On October 25, 2021

In Shortbread

In a rocket launch, liquid propellants are the fuel in the engine that help create lift. Propellants in a product launch are conversation, personal recommendation and marketing. The propellant that creates lift – our success – is you, our customer, our advocate.

Essential Confection’s fundamental purpose is three-fold:

To innovate and create unique, elegant and texturally luxurious products that create pleasure and have meaning in time and place;
To build a culture of value that includes all our stakeholders: our team, our guests, our community; and,
To use the resources you help us create to stamp out food insecurity while supporting the expansion of equitable food systems.

This season, we have strategized to lift – to elevate – our ability to deliver delight. In so doing, we have created easy order minimums to assist in your gift-giving, and to create a product-to-shipping value ratio. Here’s how:

Essential Douglas Fir Shortbread™ will be available for purchase in increments of 3 | 6 | 12 | 20
To sustain product freshness in the face of the national shipping malaise, all shipments – whether to yourself, or gifts to friends, family or co-workers – will require 2-day air. Your shipment will receive priority handling by the carrier resulting in timely delivery and peace of mind.
Essential Douglas Fir Shortbread’s™ retail price is a super-affordable $20. So, an order of three tins is $60 + flat-fee 2-day air shipping.
As an example, flat-fee shipping in Oregon and/or Portland Metro (including Vancouver) for three tins will be $12. Flat-fee shipping outside Oregon anywhere in the continental U.S. for three tins will be $23. Reasonable shipping fees increase incrementally with the purchase of the other available increments.
For orders larger than 20 tins, please contact us for a custom quotation.

The Essential Douglas Fir Shortbread™ order window opens this Fri, 29-Oct and remains open through Sat, 6-Nov. Nov shipping for Hanukkah or Thanksgiving (or Friends-giving!) is Mon, 15-Nov through Fri-19-Nov.

Your investment of trust in our company reflects the quality of who our customers are, and their intention to support the work we do for every stakeholder.

You are the lift beneath our wings.

Please visit us at www.EssentialConfection.com on 29-Oct.

Your New Holiday Tradition

By lindanaylor

On October 21, 2021

In Shortbread

Heart of fir essence,

Soul of the Northwest,

Fill us and be filled with majesty and mystery.

If ever we were to become receptive to new holiday traditions, it most certainly will have been in these past two years. In my previous work life, I had an ongoing and spontaneous practice of dropping off small gifts – often confection items – to my best clients as statements of appreciation.

During the holiday season, I offered those clients the opportunity to select luxurious buttercream tortes or elegant holiday cookie tins produced by a local high-end cakery. I ordered my clients’ gifts several weeks in advance of the pre-determined pickup date, sent reminders as the pickup date approached, and picked the gifts up on the morning of the event.

On the pickup day, I took residence in a company conference room – a room now filled with luscious cakes and cookies. Clients stopped by at their convenience throughout the day. We reconnected, caught up on family and personal events, and wished each other the best of the season.

This client appreciation event was more fun than you can imagine! I loved creating a new holiday tradition!

As a business owner – or even as a friend! – why not open your business or home for a day to the clients or friends you care most about? It’s your unique version of a holiday open house – infinitely adaptable! Gifting at Hannakuh or Thanksgiving? A “Friends-Giving” event! Your new holiday tradition!

The beauty of gifting Essential Douglas Fir Shortbread™ this season is that the product isn’t stuck in the supply chain melee… it’s here! The only unknown is domestic shipping capability, which we are mitigating to the greatest extent possible – through 2-day air.

In one week, the Nov Essential Douglas Fir Shortbread™ order window will open. Through inventive research, testing and critical tasting, we’ve hit the sweet spot of fragrance and flavor. View our new product launch video here, or click this link:

https://demo.essentialconfection.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Essential-Douglas-Fir-Short-Bread.mp4

In a season filled with shipping uncertainties and product unavailability, positioning our petite sized shortbread tins at an easy price point is an appealing, affordable, and delightfully inventive solution.

Reduce supply chain risk!! Visit us at Essential Confection.com starting on 29-Oct!

www.EssentialConfection.com

#essentialconfection

The Long and [Douglas Fir] Short[bread] of It

By lindanaylor

On October 6, 2021

In Shortbread

Tiny seed cones, awash in pollen secretly giggle

at their Douglas fir moniker – a fir, no!

Deeply furrowed brows of age;

Resin blisters secret its fragrant beauty.

His Majesty presides over dappled shade,

Filtered sunlight politely suspended over its understory.

BOUNDARIES & EXPECTATIONS

Most of us have had the experience of pushing through some imagined boundary. Nearly all imagined boundaries are malleable enough for us to slip through. Often, the result is the delightful realization that it wasn’t a boundary at all.

Then there are the super-imposed boundaries that we have the opportunity to field and negotiate. This holiday season, the boundary is shipping. It may be fair to say that each of us has had or is currently having experience with delays in product orders and/or the shipping process. I certainly am.

Our primary goal in the upcoming holiday season is to delight you with the highest quality artisan products. Our secondary goal is to support our first goal by skillfully negotiating the national shipping quagmire, swampy as it will likely be for the foreseeable future.

Testing is complete. We have created a product with the unmistakable taste and scent of our beloved Doug Fir. It has the lovely complement of sweet lemon in the nose and the succulent mouth feel that is unmistakably shortbread.

We are taking the following steps this holiday season to deliver delight:

We’ve scaled our shortbread to a petite size that makes it extremely affordable for gift-giving. Smaller product size (in weight) carries the additional benefit of lower shipping cost.

Ground transportation is rocky nationally, and the large carriers have dissolved their previous commitments to abide by their companies’ standards. Consequentially, all orders outside Oregon/Portland Metro will require 2-day air.

The Long and Short[bread] of It

To fulfill our primary and secondary goals, we have established our Nov and Dec order, production and shipping windows. They are, as follows:

Essential Panettone, both Artisan Milanese and Northwest varieties: available for delivery in Dec only. The 1-week order window for delivery before Christmas is Sun 28-Nov through Sat 4-Dec. Shipping is the 5-day period between Tue 13-Dec and Fri 17-Dec. The only shipping option outside of Oregon is 2-day air. Oregon/Portland Metro orders will ship using ground transportation unless you specify 2-day air.

Essential Douglas Fir Shortbread. Shortbread is available for both Nov and Dec deliveries. The 1-week order window for delivery before Thanksgiving and Hannukah is Fri 29-Oct through Sat 6-Nov. The 1-week order window for delivery before Christmas is Sun, 28-Nov through Sat 4-Dec, the same as for Essential Panettone. Shipping is the 5-day period between 13-Dec and 17-Dec. The only shipping option outside of Oregon is 2-day air. Oregon/Portland Metro orders will have a flat fee.

A video launching Essential Douglas Fir Shortbread as the next in our stable of signature products is now available!

We’re hoping that a bit of deft planning results in the best of seasons.

Thank you for your continued support of Essential Confection.

www.EssentialConfection.com

#essentialconfection