Lemon & Almond Polenta Cake

Since opening 'Cake-Hole' we've been asked often for something for those of you who have to follow a 'gluten free' diet. I'm now pleased to say we have a cake on offer that is both gluten free and ruddy delicious, these two adjectives are sadly almost never used in the same sentence. It's been our experience with gluten free cake often the flavour is all there but the texture is dissapointing, in contrast the tartist's Lemon & Almond Polenta Cake is both zesty and has a lovely texture... come on down all you gluten avoiders!

'Cake-Hole'

It has been some time time since our last post and now we're able to break radio silence in order to reveal what we've been up to in the last few weeks. Our blog here has had to remain idle in order that we could shopfit and prepare our sparkling new venture here on Mersea Island called 'Cake-Hole', a brand new shop just two doors down from the Artcafé. Why 'Cake-Hole'? I hear you ask, well, for some considerable time demand for the tartist's homemade cakes etc. has far exceeded capacity in our little kitchen/servery at the artcafé and to be honest we've fancied having a 'deli' style shop for quite a while. so now in addition to a lovely new shop we now have an ample catering kitchen to better service the cafés, plus a dedicated office for all our admin.


'Cake-Hole'


Interior


Artisan breads, fresh daily.




Some of our olives, pistou, feta stuffed & global.


Our 'own label' ground coffees

It has been quite an effort to get this whole thing off the ground and quite a steep learning curve that we're still on having never before been in the business of retailing lovely stuff. Our ethos is to joyfully provide all manner of delicious things with an emphasis on homemade, locally sourced (or as local as possible) and good quality, with our list of stuff growing gradually each week it currently includes:- Artisan breads; fresh daily, Maggie & Jenny's homemade cakes, olives, quality leaf teas & coffee, Mersea Island free range eggs, Hadley's Farm Dairy ice cream, homemade chutney & salad dressing, plus a growing stock of stuff we can't quite describe in a word but is 'foodie' related, so, you get the gist of it so far.

We've had the name 'Cake-Hole' on ice for a couple of years now in the hope that the ideal premises would come along, and have determinedly shied away from calling our shop a 'Deli.' Not least because most deli's these days seem to by in loads of jams & chutneys etc. that are basically factory made products dressed up to look like your granny made them. Although not strictly speaking a deli., Cake-Hole is very deli-like and in the fullness of time we may not be able to resist stocking cheeses, cold meats and more conventional deli. fare alongside our olives and artisan breads already on offer.


Some of the fruits of the tartist's labours, red onion relish & honey-mustard salad dressing.

In addition to all this we've installed our old espresso machine from the Artcafé, which now has a shiny new one, so we can also make you a cappuccino etc. in our shop when things are extremely busy next door. But, of course our new shop is still in its infancy and very much a work in progress and we welcome any suggestions that would help us make improvements and extend our range to stock the sorts of things you like to buy on a regular basis.
Hopefully now this new project is up and running we can now keep our posts a bit more regular.

The Ukulele Is Good For You!

This short film confirms what we've suspected for some time. The humble ukulele can work wonders.

St. Valentine's Biscuits

Contrary to popular belief St. Valentine was in fact a humble biscuit maker from Mersea Island, so, to celebrate this little known fact our Jenny has made some rather nice homemade biscuits for today. One batch of ginger, one of chocolate and one of shortbread...that's one each, plus one to share for £1.50, lovely with a pot of tea.

SFTW ~ F-Sharp

If this doesn't make you laugh...then you're probably dead. Have a good weekend!

The Robin Hood Tax

Bill Nighy, who portrays slippery characters to perfection, in a short film in support of Robin Hood Taxes.

The Snow Returns & The Performing Right Society

The view from the Artcafé first thing this morning

As soon as we got to work this morning it started snowing again, only a dusting so far, but very pretty looking out from table 6.

Yesterday I had a phone call from The Performing Right Society, the organisation set up to collect fees on behalf of copyright holders of music, predominantly authors and music publishers. Fair enough, you might think. We've been grudgingly paying our dues since they caught up with us about two years ago, approx. £200 per café, per annum. And yesterday they called to remind us our fee was due for the next 12 months. This fee is apparently due for playing music where the general public is within 'earshot' which obviously includes cafés, shops, hairdressers, garages etc. etc. I can hear you asking what's your problem Jim? well, I have several...

When PRS first make their initial contact they convey themselves as a government style organisation who are collecting monies for all artists broadcast. Failure to do so is met with the threat of legal action. The PRS only collect and distribute money to their own members (who pay a fee to join by the way) by no means all artists. They are not connected to the government. 

Let's assume you are a hairdresser who likes to listen to the BBC on the radio whilst cutting your customer's hair, you are required to pay the PRS. a license fee each year for this. Now, when a song is broadcast, a fee is collected for the writer, performer etc. at the point of broadcast, and presumably a certain percentage of the original purchase price of the media, be it CD or digital download etc. is too. How can it be right that you, the hairdresser, have to pay a fee at the point of reception?...we don't charge our customers twice for their coffee! 

I always pay for the music I download and CD's too, I think it is only right and fair to the artist who's original work I'm enjoying, but this weird blanket license/tax on top is quite frankly 'milking it' and I don't like it. It also takes no account of how many times a particular artist gets a play, I might want to play Mozart all day and no Robbie Williams at all, yet, presumably Mr. Williams still gets a cut, like I say, milking it.

To put it crudely from a PRS. point of view, it is the same music (already paid for), same ears, different room. I don't have much time for researching all the in's and out's but there seems to to be no specific legal definition of a public performance. I'd be curious to know if anyone yet has been successfully 'nicked' for refusing to pay the PRS and it might be well worth an organiseation like the Federation of Small Businesses looking into the legality of these charges. 

I have to add that I, in no way want to deprive musicians and artists of what's due to them (I am one myself) but my instinct tells me that these charges smell fishy.