BLOWING UP

It's been a rough several weeks. I had the opportunity (thanks to my friend Ameena) to rent a space in Tribeca to open up M.S. APOTHECARY (which has been a virtual store up until now). It has been kicking my ass trying to carry the two businesses right now (Beauty By Mary Schook).

That would explain why once again I have neglected this blog, BUT I have been staying true to the organic as usual. The only time I caved was when we hosted Gordon Ramsay's baker for our Holiday Grand Opening. I had to taste test the product for our upcoming events. I'm such a snob when it comes to cupcakes and up until now I never liked a cupcake in the entire city of New York!

So anyway back to my strategy that I was going to tell you about. I had joined Organic Liason, Kirstie Alley's new weight loss/lifestyle company. I was looking forward to my product kit which includes 100% USDA certified organic supplements. One product is a beverage you drink which contains chromium. It just made me pee like crazy all day. Then it has a beverage that you drink in the evening that reminds me of a product called CALM. To top it off they have a product called Nightingale which I'm not a huge fan of. I researched the L-Tryptophan in there which seemed to give me some problems and decided I couldn't do it anymore.

All-in-all the supplement portion of the program is not something that suits my lifestyle right now. I'm dealing with 2-4 hour interrupted sleep nights because there is too much work that has to get done and when I rely on other people to help me they have been dropping the ball which only doubles my workload!!!

Despite the fact that I can't really use the program with my current lifestyle I felt it was important to still be a part of the Organic Liason system. They have a geolocator where you type in the zipcode on their site and they will tell you where you can find restaurants and stores that are organic. Brilliant right? I'm currently at 10013. I punched it in and found out the bar, Walker's within 100 yards of the store was listed. I just came from Walker's and NOTHING was organic. I think the wait staff had to try their best to contain themselves when I asked! They double checked with the chef and the chef said they will carry organic chicken at night. Sorry, but this is unacceptable. I had a limited amount of time to try to grab something to eat and this just made me very unhappy! I don't have time to now go and research other restaurants that they have listed. When I get a moment after the holiday season I will definitely be looking into this. Again what a bummer.

Part two of this entry is about the fact that now that the weather has changed I have noticed many menus have not. While many restaurants say that their food is organic I have a hard time believing it. I keep getting reactions after I eat certain foods.
Many would argue that the lack of sleep that I am getting is the source of the problem, but my response is I never got much sleep before. The stress has definitely increased, but it's good stress and lots of exciting changes that I live for!!!

I go back to the interview that I did earlier in the year with the Alberto, the owner of Gusto Organics. He told me that many restaurants will buy a certain number of organic chickens and then they will buy the rest of the chickens from the industrial companies while still claiming that they are organic. I trust his opinion only because I have seen Gusto Organics run out of their skirt steak for weeks which is probably their top selling dinner!!! Now that is loyalty to the customer and hopefully it pays off for him eventually!

So for now I will have to pray that I don't gain too much weight from trusting people when they say something is organic. It makes me sad and reminds me that there is such a long way to go.

Back to work! Got a store to run!!!