There is nothing more fun to celebrate in America, than the hopes and dreams of a young entrepreneur with the whole world in front of her. This particular young lady, all of 10 years old, happens to be the daughter of our General Manager Heather and her husband Gabe. We affectionately call Olivia our G-baby because we are her proud G-mama and G-papa.
Olivia gained attention at the recent Red Poppy Festival here in Georgetown, TX, itself a rapidly growing small town steeped in American traditions of parades, baking contests, farmers markets and live music. For the past 3 years Olivia has entered the baking contest with recipes that feature Poppy in the baked goods and has come away as the only child to both enter and win. This is a blind taste test with no one knowing the age or gender of the applicant. Her first year, she took 3rd place for a lemon, blueberry poppyseed cupcake. The second year she entered a lemon raspberry cheesecake with gingersnap crust that did not win (though it should have!) and then this year she won the 1st place blue ribbon for her Summer Sandwich, a homemade lemon berry ice-cream with a lemon poppy seed cookie. YUM!
Miss Olivia wasn’t satisfied to have to wait another whole year to keep playing with her cooking talents and decided she wanted to sell her ice cream sandwiches and offer new flavors every month. So, she helped design her logo and went to work creating more unique recipes like her peach ice cream sandwiched between 2 oversized snickerdoodle cookies and her new s’mores chocolate marshmallow ice cream in a graham cracker cookie. She has videos of her whipping up her creations in the kitchen and she now has a full fledged summer business called Flour & Ice. I hope you’ll go and “like” her page and support this family dream.
We all dream, don’t we? Don’t you wish you had the convictions and the inescapable and relentless drive of an insistent child? You actually do. That same childlike wonder is what allows us to fall in love, and to dream that life could be exactly that exhilarating and full of joy. Seize the dream. Work the dream. Don’t listen to the naysayers. Surround yourselves with cheerleaders and be one yourself, for someone else.
Then watch the fireworks take off! Happy 4th!
Elaine
