Whoa Whoa Whoa!!!
I had no idea all of this was going on!!!
First, thank you all for the response and Sharon... thanks for letting people know and twitting with me!
I haven't made any announcement regarding Artisan Geek yet because it is still in "soft launch" mode. That means the site is public and you can use it but I am still missing about 180 products and there are many descriptions and photos that are not yet posted. Aside for a few cosmetic issues, all technical bugs are gone and anyone can shop using credit card or PayPal, from wherever you are in the world.
I expect to launch officially in 10 days and I will announce it here. Please send me private messages for any special requests.
There has been lots of work put into this. It's not just what you see on the site; much of it is behind the scenes: Arranging logistics and customs compliance, testing packing materials and cold shipping, warehousing and lab packing practices, relationships with vendors and manufacturers, as well as farms, retailers, and culinary institutes. A lot has been going on. The entire purpose of this site is to enable anyone, from the hobbyist to the commercial producer to do creative, imaginative, high quality projects without breaking the bank -while taking true joy at it. To that end... my pride and joy here is really the sourcing of products from all over the world. Not just your standard Tomme mould and Flora Danica, but some very unique items such as spruce bark straps for Vacherin, Thistle rennet, Dutch presses that are actually hand-made in Holland, interesting authentic moulds... etc. etc. etc. There will be some very exotic cultures from small boutique producers too. So be patient... it's all coming!!!
To those of you who thought I disappeared... I haven't. I miss the forum very much but with all this work I haven't had enough time left in the day to check in over the past 4 months. As soon as the catalog is out I will have much more time for this. Well... in some other exciting news, it looks like I will be making some cheese commercially starting this very spring as well! The creamery will also serve as sort of a public experiment space and education center for Artisan Geek so it is all coming together finally after a year of planning.
And oh yes, another reason that I haven't been visiting the forum as often is that I turned a new daddy on January 2nd! Her name is Elenee and she amazes me every day. Some of you may remember on the forum when I proposed at the Marais in Paris? Well Marais is our daughter's middle name. What a year!