speaking in public
This month has brought a couple of unusual opportunities to speak in public. Last week I was asked to go to Chicago to a participate in a fundraiser for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Lisa’s involved in a wide range of excellent initiatives… check out her site.
The current and future Attorney General of Illinois, Lisa Madigan.
I was there to prepare a spread of pickled treats (some of the ones I made are here) and to talk a bit about pickle-making and what is interesting and relevant about it in a social context. I focused my remarks on the way that pickles reflect what is best about our country. We are a nation of immigrants, and practically every culture brought some form of pickling, drying, salting, canning or fermenting into the mix. When David Dinkins ran for mayor of New York, he characterized the population of the city as a “gorgeous mosaic”. It’s a phrase I’ve always liked and it certainly applies to the nation as a whole. Our gorgeous mosaic of Japanese, Poles, Mexicans and countless others breathe life into our food system with their unique forms of preserving. At Rick’s Picks, we try to reflect the wide range of influences in our product line. Our newest pickle, Hotties, will be out in about a month and a half and it features a delectable spicy brine of Sriracha and dried habanero powder. A little Vietnamese influence by way of California, and a fiery jolt from South of the border.
Rick's Picks presents Hotties. Coming soon to rickspicksnyc.com and markets everywhere.
The second speaking opportunity is upcoming. My 25th college reunion is Memorial Day weekend, so I’ll be heading back to New Haven to revisit my bright college years at Yale.
Boola Boola.
I’m going to be on a panel discussing entrepreneurship and the challenges of making a mid-life career change. Running a business like Rick’s Picks requires energy, commitment and patience, no question. But one thing that I only came to understand once I made the switch from a stable career in television to start my fledgling enterprise is the need to be comfortable “floating”. By this I mean functioning (and hopefully florishing) in a state where numerous things are uncertain at the same time. The easiest way to understand this to think about vegetables. In 2009, we made our annual production plan based on what we forecasted we would need for the next 12 months. And then it rained for 25 out of 30 days in June. Thus the growing season throughout the Northeast was delayed and/or compromised and we had to be wait for things to come, hope they would still be up to our quality standards and at reliable prices, and then make a tremendously greater number of pickles in a much shorter window. As the rain fell in June, I could see the problem coming, but I trusted it would work out, which it did. That’s what I call floating. I’ll do a second post when I get back from Yale about some of the things my fellow entrepreneurs shared.
