Hockey Friday: Olympic Hockey!!!

Happy Opening Ceremonies day to everyone! The 2010 Winter Olympics are about to get underway and we wanted to share this great Vanity Fair article we discovered the other day via the NHL’s Twitter feed : The Five Biggest Olympic Hockey Moments. The videos are awesome and the whole thing is chock full of the charm of the greatest game on ice.

Kate IM’ed me: “It warmed my heart to watch the fans sing ‘Oh Canada’ in the closing minutes of the gold medal game in 2002.”

For my part, I could barely contain my glee upon learning that the Czechs have named an asteroid after Dominik Hasek and have written an opera about their triumph in Nagano in ‘98.

Seattle is close enough to Vancouver that my husband and I are going to attend a couple of events over Feb 20-21, including Sweden vs. Finland men’s hockey. I can’t wait!

Candy Thermometer

An important tool in candy making is an accurate thermometer that can measure temperatures up to at least 300-310 degrees F, which is the “hard crack” stage for syrup.

At home when I’m making super small batches for flavor and color research, I use an old-fashioned glass tube thermometer that clips on to the side of the saucepan. It’s accurate, but it’s slow for taking readings if it hasn’t been submerged in the syrup the whole time.

When I’m in the commercial kitchen making the candy we sell, I use a fancier digital thermometer that takes temperature readings pretty quickly, although my hand still gets hot from the gas burner. Hey, it looks like this batch of Sweethearts is ready!

Indie Banditas on Saturday

This Saturday, February 13th, you can find us selling lollipops at the Indie Banditas Bazaar on Bainbridge Island. Hop on a ferry and enjoy the island after you shop indie crafts! Admission is $1 or free if you donate a canned good. Not that enticements are needed, but there are giveaways every hour of the day. I don’t really know what they consist of but I’m sure they’ll be cool :-) Hope to see you there!

Love Triangle: Black vs White Sucker Sticks

We giggled ourselves silly posing the Love Triangle lollipops as stand-ins for Twilight’s Edward, Bella and Jacob. You’ve probably seen the main picture we use on Etsy:

What you might not know is that during the “prototyping” phase of developing the Love Triangle flavors and colors, we experimented with using our usual white paper sticks but rejected them almost right away when we fell in love with the darker and moodier appearance that the black plastic sticks gave to the trio.

Check out this photo from the vault, which shows what the Love Triangle characters lollipops would look like with white sticks:

It’s funny how *terrible* these look to me, when normally I love the white sticks for every other flavor.

The Handmade Olympics

Our lovely, wonderful Pomegranate lollipops are finalists in the Favorite Handmade or Vintage Item That's Fun category in the rikrak studio's Handmade Olympics!

The Handmade Olympics is a series of competitions for handmade items. They've got all sorts of categories, like innovative design, goodies for kids, and blog with a handmaking focus. We're up against some stiff competition -- that elephant, in particular, is adorable -- so please go vote for us now!

Voting is open until Feb 17th; you can only vote once.

Sweetheart: Outtake

We never use the flash when taking product photos. Well, more accurately, we never intentionally use the flash! When taking photos of the heart-shaped Sweetheart (honey-jasmine) flavor for the Sweet Valentine collection, the flash went off on the first picture:

On the one hand, the purple looks bright and lovely and you can easily see how shimmery it is. But with our solo photos we’re generally trying to capture both the lollipop and its colorful shadow:

The white-balance is also better in this second photo, in our opinion. The lollipop stick isn’t glowing too crazily white and the brick wall looks less stark and clinical. What do you think, did we make the right choice? Or should we have embraced the flash and used the top picture?

Photos by Kevin Keeker