The French liked the kale. Fact. The reviews on the Yelp event’s page proved it and we could not have been happier. To be honest, we were quite blown away by the positive response. So merci, merci, merci.
“J’ai commencé par the Kale Project : merveilleux. Non seulement c’est vrai que c’est bon (coup de coeur pour le smoothie kale / pomme (pomme qui aurait, selon les rumeurs, été remplacée par de la banane en cours de soirée… mais pas goûté !)), mais les petites louloutes au stand ont été mon vrai coup de coeur. Trop mignonnes, trop gentilles, trop passionnées par ce qu’elles font. Et ma phrase préférée de la soirée : “en fait, le kale, c’est bon, mais aussi pour le corps. C’est comme de la viande, mais en végétal”. Merci les filles !”
“LA découverte de la soirée, ce fut The Kale project. Des filles adorables, fraîches, accueillantes et gentilles, qui nous ont fait goûté ce légume que je ne connaissais que de nom. Des chips (bonnes), du pesto (une tuerie) et un smoothie de Kale-pomme-banane frais et étonnament très bon ! Merci pour ce très bon moment”
“Petite dégustation chez Kale project qui a été pour moi une des plus belles sinon la meilleure découverte de la soirée, encore une fois de belles explications des produits, du concept, delicious ! MERCI”
“Ensuite un tour au Kale Project et là grosse découverte, un accueil adorable, et des produits excellents, qui eu cru que j’aimais la verdure en chips, le pesto est juste à mourir, et le smoothie pour finir achève de me convaincre.”
***
By the time Mariana and I arrived at the event at 6 o’clock, we were exhausted. It had already been a 12 hour day and the fun part was just about to start. After loading a cab with all our stuff at La Cuisine Paris, trekking to the 11ème, unloading the cab to Mariana’s apartment and then me realizing I left our sign in the 4ème, I went back to retrieve it via métro. More schlepping.
Meanwhile Mariana was finishing up the pesto, checking our to-do list twice and we packed up another taxi. Two large plastic containers, two medium plastic containers with kale chips, one smaller plastic container with kale pesto, a box of small jars for pesto giveaways and a carry-on roller suitcase filled with supplies. Plus the sign. It looked like we were planning to stay awhile.
The minute that we walked into the event, our exhaustion disappeared. The space, La Cartonnerie was amazing with different rooms and corners flowing together.
I was nervous about how we would hold up being surrounded by high-caliber and established vendors. We were across from a table of very appetizing pizzas from Pi Hour (and we had not eaten one thing all day so all I wanted was some pizza.) To our left was Sugarplum Cake Shop and to my right was Bières Demory. (I also really wanted a beer but didn’t think serving green kale smoothies while drinking a beer would make much sense.)
Yet with the warm lighting and the soft-beat electro music, I relaxed, swallowed my fear and mustered the energy to start talking to people about kale… in French.
In the end I could not have asked for a better result. 99.9% of the people in attendance were French and had no idea what kale was unless they had spent an adequate amount of time abroad. So that meant that we introduced over 300 people to kale in one night through tasting of the smoothies, pesto and chips and explanation about the vegetable. There were very few negative comments. Of course some people felt neutral about it, but then there were also a lot of lovers – people who I know will be buying kale for their own cooking.
Our biggest disappointment was that we did not have time to visit all the other stands and try everything. Although I did get my beer in the end.