The Weekly Bev - 22nd Edition

🌊 Hydrant Update

The Hydrant public launch is right around the corner! As part of the final stage of work in our beta, we’re opening things up to another tranche of creators, so if you’re interested in trying out the service reply to this email! It’s been an incredibly informative and confidence building experience thus far…

Providing value like this for creators is our number 1 priority.

For context…We currently have 25 creators actively using Hydrant and helping us identify bugs, confusing aspects of the process, and what’s holding us back from onboarding hundreds of creators. This feedback process has informed a final punch list of key items we need to address ahead of a smooth public launch:

• User Dashboard: My number one action item for a few months now. A one-stop, functional snapshot for users to view all things Hydrant; the design is complete and needs a bit more development before it is fully functional. This will really be the heart of the website.

• Brand-Facing Portal: Brands and agencies who want to partner directly with Hydrant will have their own type of account. They need different sets of information, and we are working to develop something for a potential partner this month.

• Landing Page: Design is built, but the language isn’t final quite yet.

• FAQ Page: Requires a redesign to enhance readability and understanding, right now it’s a simple block of text.

• Backend Automation: Automating all communication and document work required for Hydrant to process an invoice is essential for scaling the service.

The team is crunching on these items, but it is no easy task. We currently have two developers working on improvements, and we’re exploring hiring an additional front end developer to join the team. If you have relevant experience and are interested in building something great, please reply with your resume 🙂 

❓️ Mystery Links

One oh I’m excited about this :)

two need to try this!

🥐 Cooking

Our good friend Neill came over last week to cook up some “brunch vibes.” He is headed back across the pond for a couple of months, so this was a bit of a “See You Later” meal and I thought it would be fun to get into everything he cooked up!

Starting with the mushroom roll, inspired by the lobster roll Neill and I ate earlier that week. Neill seared off some mushrooms (I think they were trumpet), and added in a cheese sauce (roux + cheddar), salt, pepper, creme fraiche. Once this was all well incorporated, some rolls went down in a pan with butter. Combining all of this together birthed a beautiful mushroom roll, complete with hints of cheese and cream. Somehow not too heavy though..

Next up was some eggs, the classic soft scramble you see me make quite often. Added on top were some chives, along with cheese sauce (from earlier) that he charged up in the espuma gun.

This is like the gourmet version of cheez whiz, much better tasting and lighter with all the air pumped into it. A perfect pairing with the eggs. Simple, but delicious.

Also, I’ve been thinking about putting together a cookbook of sorts… A collection of all my favorites into one place. I could even do this first one as a spring/summer edition and make a second fall/winter edition in the coming months. Is that something you guys would find value in? Let me know! If I get enough replies, I just might do it!