Welcome to this week's edition of Mad Maggie's email newsletter.

Well, the hint of fall is definitely in the air, as our warm, muggy, summer temperatures have been replaced with some cooler, brisk, comfortable nights -- good for sleeping, but lousy for selling ice cream! Business is down from a month ago, but still ahead of the same period from the last two years, so all in all, I guess that's still a good thing!

As I wrote in the last newsletter, we're already losing a bunch of our serving team to colleges and sports. As of the end of this week, five of our team members will have worked their last shifts with us for the year, and the tone around the store has definitely changed, as the younger kids are starting to take over!

Maggie and I were talking about the kids leaving us, and we mused that we get to view an interesting phase in these kids' lives. Since we tend to hire young so that they can work for us for at least a couple of summers, we get to watch them grow from awkward, tentative, kids into confident, polished, outgoing young adults. No doubt that we hire good kids who've had lots of good parenting to help them get this way, but it's rewarding to think that maybe we've helped them along in their personal growth path by giving them a first (for most...) job where they can interact with customers and co-workers in a friendly environment.

When I started investigating getting into this business, person after person whom I asked for advice warned that managing the kids would drive me crazy. Well, with the end of our third year well in sight at the end of September, I can honestly say that working with the kids has been probably one of the most rewarding parts of this business. Sure, there are times when I think I'm going to sack the whole bunch of them, when they do something completely maddening. But I'm continually amazed at the fortune we've had in finding delightful, enjoyable, hard working kids to join our team.

Just don't tell them I said that, or I'll have even *more* trouble getting them to follow my directions!

Ice Cream Radio Show

It's that time of year again -- time for the biannual "Ice Cream Special" on the Pat Whitley restaurant radio show. The show is dedicated to local ice cream establishments each Memorial and Labor Day weekend. We've been surprised to get mentions during the past few shows, and are always flattered when we're mentioned along with some of the bigger names in the business.

If you're interested in listening, the show airs this Sunday morning at 10am on WRKO, 680 AM. As always, while we don't want to unduly influence the voting, we encourage you to phone in and make your opinion known!

New Logo

I happened across someone who is a graphic designer and works on logos, and managed to convince her to do a little "refinement" to our "Mad Maggie" logo. (If you call "writing a check" convincing!) If any of you have never been involved in something like this, let me tell you, it's a stressful experience, as it's really tough to entrust the entire identity of your little business to someone else, when you've given them such descriptive directions as "I want it to look nicer".

Jess did a nice job for us though, you can take a look at our new logo on our web site at http://madmaggies.com/ I still think of this as an intermediate step, as I'd like to do another round of refinements over the winter. So if any of you have any feedback on what you like or don't like about the new logo, please email me.

An interesting side note: It's funny to me how much the new "Maggie" resembles the real life "Maggie", even though the graphic designer has never met Maggie, nor ever seen a photo of her, nor did I describe her to Jess. I guess my directions to come up with someone "who looks a little flakey, maybe a bit off her rocker" was enough.

Thespian News

One of our team had a small part in a summer theatre production, and spent the better part of a couple of weeks around the store practicing her one big line: "Hark, I hear the cannon roar!".

Maggie and I went to see the opening night performance. When her big scene came, a huge "BOOM" came from offstage, and our team member turned, startled and yelled "What the heck was that??" Yeah, she's one of our blondes.

More Fall Flavors

Last year, I made the mistake of waiting until early September to start making the "Fall Flavors" -- things like Guinness, Apple Pie, etc, which I wrote about in the last newsletter. The ice cream business takes a nose-dive after Labor Day, so most of these flavors probably didn't get a chance to shine before it was time to start closing up the shop for the winter.

So this year, I've started making these fall flavors early, so that hopefully they'll be enjoyed by more than a few die-hard ice cream fans.

Pumpkin Gingersnap is a flavor that a friend of mine submitted for the "Best New Flavor" competition at last year's National Ice Cream Retailers Association convention. I voted for it for best, although the winning entry (Wedding Cake?? -- gimme a break!) ended up coming from someone who's one of the association's board of directors (Fix! Fix!)

Anyway, this is a very interesting flavor. It has a pumpkin base (obviously), and I added spices to it in the same ratio as I do for my homemade pumpkin pie (I cook up a mean pie when I'm home in the winter time...!) using a recipe passed down to me from my mom. Then I mixed in a couple of pounds of broken up gingersnap cookies.

I can tell this flavor is a good one, because I've caught several of my serving team sneaking a cup of it when they'd normally be going right for the Cookie Dough or Cake Batter! I think it needs a bit more cookie pieces in it, but it's a very interesting taste, and the two flavors work well together.

The second new flavor is Merlot Sorbet. The inspiration for this came from my Yahoo discussion group of ice cream operators, where someone asked how to make this flavor. I decided to give it a try, and stopped at the wine store for two bottles of their best Merlot -- or, at least, two bottles of Merlot from the biggest stack of bottles they had in the store. (I'm not much of a wine connoisseur...)

I cook the wine down, to eliminate the amount of water that I'm adding to the batch, so there's little to no alcohol left in it (alcohol boils at around 175 degrees, water at 212, if I remember correctly from my college Thermodynamics course.) Unfortunately, I chickened out when flavoring it, and only added about the equivalent of around one and a half bottles of wine to the batch, and now that it's frozen, I think it could have used the full two bottles. Still, it's a very pleasing taste -- I could see it making a very nice after-dinner course for someone serving a formal dinner!

A final flavor is Banana Pudding, which a loyal customer asked me to make. It's made with fresh bananas, and mixed with crushed up 'Nilla wafers. (I was tempted to call it "Banana-Nilla", but the girls slapped that idea out of my head...) Banana isn't my favorite flavor, but this really isn't bad, and it seems to be selling fast.

One older gentleman who came by one night asked for a scoop each of Banana Pudding, Pumpkin Gingersnap, and Guinness. As he walked away from the window, he turned and yelled back to me that "...these are all outstanding!" Nice to hear!

Oh, one more "flavor note": I visited friends Gary and Patty Sundburg, who run a stand up in Grand Isle, Vermont on Friday, and one of the flavors they make that's a huge seller is Maple Walnut. Now, our version of this is (in my opinion anyway) very good, and I've turned them onto our walnut supplier, so their nuts are just as fresh and tasty as ours. But they use a unique maple syrup -- gathered and cooked to a special concentration for them by a neighbor who sells maple syrup commercially. They put more syrup in their recipe than I do, and their version is definitely sweeter than mine. Gary was kind enough to give me a whole gallon of his "special blend" syrup, so I'll be making a batch with this in the next day or so, and we'll be selling it as "Vermont Maple Walnut". Please let me know if you find this sweeter recipe better than our normal version!

Come on by and ask for a taste of any of these, I think you'll be surprised at how delicious they are.

Staff Profile

I'm nearly to the end of the summer here, and it doesn't look like I'll make it through profiling my whole staff, but I'll keep going in roughly the order that the kids were hired in, which makes it Katie's turn to be featured.

Katie started working for us early last (2004) spring. I was a little apprehensive about hiring her after it became apparent that she's *really* into cheerleading. (I hate the condescending way she pretends to smile when I recite to her my favorite cheer: "Rah Rah Ree! Kick 'em in the knee! Rah Rah Rass! Kick 'em in the other knee!")

My worries were quickly eliminated, as Katie has proven to be one of our best hires of last year -- and 2004 was a very strong class of new team members! She's definitely future team-leader material, in fact, I've asked her to step in for the team leaders who've left for college this fall! Katie is entering her Junior year at North Reading High, and is a member of the cheerleading squad (for both football and basketball!)

After several of our North Reading kids bailed on us in favor of other jobs, Katie was our last remaining North Reading resident (other than yours truely, and I'm an expatriate), so I asked her to scare up a couple of good candidates from North Reading to help rebalance the team, and she did, bringing aboard two friends, both named Rachel.

Unfortunately, Katie is getting a bit of a lesson about working with friends, as we're learning all kinds of interesting secrets about Katie from "The Rachels". All this time, we had thought that Katie was a quiet, sweet, innocent girl, but now we're hearing the stories about all of the mischief she gets into! Nothing too bad though!

Katie and I have a unique connection, at least among those who work at Mad Maggie's -- she's had the same English teacher at North Reading High that I had when *I* went there (Class of '78!) That teacher was a pill when I had her, I shudder to think of what 27 years of teaching have done to her!

Katie is a great example of what I wrote about above: When she joined our team, she was quiet, a bit timid, and I worried that the job might be too much for her. Now, barely more than a year later, she's one of our anchors, confident, hard working, pleasant, and just as boisterous as the rest of our team! I always feel relieved when I see her walk in the door, as I know that our customers will be in good hands for that shift.

Here's a photo of Katie from earlier this season, along with her two friends.

All in all, Katie has been a wonderful addition to our team, and we're extremely proud to have her working with us! Say hi to her if you find her waiting on you at the window.

Newsletter Coupon

Print out this newsletter, bring it to the store, and we'll play "Rock, Paper, Scissors" with you. If *you* win, you get a free small cone of your choice. If *we* win, you still win -- we'll give you 75 cents off any item.

Pretty good deal, huh?

Well, I think I've blathered long enough here, so that's it for this edition. Hope you all have a great Labor Day weekend, and I hope to see you at the store soon! Bring lots of friends with you! ;^)