Was this the grand plan all along?

What a week. We just got back from New York, where Backyard Buffalo was part of the Good Food Awards showcase at the Summer Fancy Food Show — one of the biggest specialty food trade shows in the country.

On the first day, we had so much to carry that we took a cab from our hotel to the Javits Center. If you have never seen Javits before, from my eyes it felt massive. Beautiful. All glass. The kind of place that makes you wonder what you have gotten yourself into.

The whole ride there, I kept telling my husband, "I should not have signed up for this. This show is not for us. No one is going to care about our food. What am I doing here?"

And then, for the first 30 minutes, it felt like all of that fear was right. No after no after no after no. It was hard. And I am used to hard, but I was nearly tearful.

Then someone I had really hoped to meet walked up to our booth — someone I had emailed but had not heard back from. And somehow, the whole energy shifted. One yes turned into another yes. People tasted our food and started sending other people over. "Don't leave without trying the yogurt." "Go find the Indian food."

By Day 3, the same show that felt like a mistake felt like a door opening. We came home tired, but hopeful.

Eric, one of our regulars picking up his weekly order, asked me yesterday, "So was this the grand plan all along?"

And I smiled and said, "Yes."

Maybe not every detail. Maybe not exactly like this. But yes — the hope was always to build something bigger than one market tent, one fridge, or one long Saturday. Not bigger in a way that loses what made Backyard Buffalo special. Bigger in a way that lets more families keep this food in their fridge.

And even after a week like this, we are coming right back to where this whole thing started.

With so much gratitude,
Punita