Seth Godin wrote this the other day:

Studying entrepreneurship without doing it… is like studying the appreciation of music without listening to it.
The cost of setting up a lemonade stand (or whatever metaphorical equivalent you dream up) is almost 100% internal. Until you confront the fear and discomfort of being in the world and saying “here, I made this,” it’s impossible to understand anything at all about what it means to be an entrepreneur.

Launching the Depaul Box Co has taught me a million things.
It’s been the most exhilarating, interesting and exhausting project I’ve worked on.

I’m going to write a bigger post with everything I’ve learned along the way.

But for now, please go here depaulbox.co.uk and check out our site.

And if you’re moving house (or just need some cardboard boxes) then please buy from the Depaul Box Company.
All profit from the cardboard boxes goes to ensuring nobody has to sleep on one.

Out x

Managed to hit two birds with one stone.

Well, not birds. Snails and Frogs legs.

And not a stone. Le Petit Auberge in Islington.

The restaurant was beautiful. Wist chose it.

Silly little Snail fork.

The Snails were very buttery and garlicky, and if I’m honest, didn’t taste of much else.

The Frogs legs were lovely. Very rich and kind of chicken-y. A bit boney though.

Anyway – the food challenge is almost complete…

… when you find a place that charges more for water than for coke…

… eating there is a logo.

It can fall off of kitchen work-surfaces, tables etc onto hard floors and you don’t have to flinch.

Very sad news this morning waking up to the fact Google Reader is to be closed on July 1st.

Going to have to hunt down a new RSS service pronto.

This morning, whilst battling a gale down Old Street, I thought about an old story my parents used to read to me about ‘The Wind and the Sun.’

Essentially – the wind and the sun make a bet that they can remove the coat from a mans back.
The wind tries to blow the coat off of his back – blowing harder and harder. But the man pulls his coat tighter and tighter.

The sun then has a go, and begins to shine. The man begins to warm up.
He gets hotter and hotter, and then removes his coat all by himself.

And, in a small way, that’s like advertising.

You can beat consumers over the head with advertising.
Try and force messages down their throats.
Shout look at me, look at me look at me.
But they’ll only pull their coats on tighter.

Or you can share with them something they’ll want to watch.
Share something that’s interesting, or useful or exciting.
And they’ll take their coats off.

On taste alone, Kumquats really don’t deserve two posts.

But I thought it would be nice to update on how we prepared them etc – as that bit was good fun.

1) Slice the Kumquats up into smallish chunks

2) Bring a mix of sugar and water to the boil

3) Add the kumquat chunks and reduce

4) Serve!

I’d love to say delicious. But alas…

Wist and I went along and saw Ethan Johns in concert last night.
It finished late, but I thought I’d quickly slip in a food challenge nonetheless.
Well, to be honest, it was a premeditated food challenge… weeks in the
planning.

You see, in early January I bought a pack of Kumquats from Sainsbury. A
large pack, for just shy of £1 sterling.

I popped them in the fridge.

And forgot about them.

They went off.

No matter I thought, I’ll just pick up another pack from Sainsburys next
time I’m there.

Alas, the next time I was there they were out of stock. 

And the next week.

Tesco weren’t stocking them for some reason, and neither were Waitrose.

A cold sweat gripped me as I pulled out my phone and scanned a blog about
kumquats.

‘Generally available between November and January.’

Ah.

Oh.

I’ve missed the season.

So no kumquat until November 2013, but the challenge finishes in June…

I was beaten.

Then one bright, breezy February day, Wist suggests we take a stroll to
Fortnum and Mason as they have Kumquat marmalade.

(Surely THAT would count, I figured.)

But marmalade didn’t need to count – Kumquat’s were still on sale in Fortnums!

Sure they were £14 to the kg, but they were fresh and in the country nonetheless.

We bought three whole kumquats.

It cost just shy of a £1 sterling.

And candied them as a post gig snack.

They were pretty bitter – certainly needed the extra sugar I think. 

And I wouldn’t choose to have them again.

But nice to have tried something new in the citrus family.