JESSICA SU discovers a community of cooks who are brining their little bake sales to the big world.
The lemon-cranberry butter cookies are the best-selling items in Crystal Williams' eBay store, Thumbelina's Pantry. (AP Photo/HO/Yumiko Tsukada)
Even if it's baked, canned or cured, chances are you can still buy it on eBay.
With an increasing number of home cooks throwing their oven doors open to the global marketplace, more than 400 items labeled "homemade" appeared in eBay's Food and Wine category one day this month -- from chow chow to chokecherry jelly.
"People are getting incredibly resourceful, and you can buy anything on eBay," says company spokesperson Nichola Sharpe.
One of the site's strangest and most famous items was itself edible -- sort of -- in the form of a grilled cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary, which sold for $28,000 in November 2004.
But unlike Diane Duyser's divine sandwich, you may actually want to eat the food you can buy online these days.
Although eBay allows cooks to dabble in business, the company lists guidelines on its Web site. Non-pasteurized dairy items and fruit juice are prohibited. Perishable items must be well-sealed and are recommended for overnight delivery.
Sharpe also advises sellers to check with federal and state laws on cooking in certified kitchens.
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LEAVENING THE PLAYING FIELD
Sharpe says home cooks are opening Internet shops because of the global reach and low financial risk.
"We know of a lot of retail stores in small towns that find eBay as a great channel, so they can compete with the bigger brands, the Wal-Marts of the world," she says.
For more than three years, Melba Ann Williams of Clinton, Miss., carved a niche on eBay through her heirloom caramel cake.
"We have a lot of tourists from up North and they've never heard of homemade caramel cake," Williams, 67, says. "It's a very unique cake. We burn the sugar in an old iron skillet. It's how my grandmother's grandmother did it."
The entire process, from making the cake to heating the sugar to 500 degrees and hand beating the icing, takes three hours. Williams, known by the online moniker hudsonsdumplin, says she sells about six cakes, priced from $12.50 to $34.50 plus shipping, every week on eBay.
Her cake is so popular that she had to turn away more than 100 cakes during the holiday season, and customers started placing Christmas orders in August.
(A sampling from Williams' "feedback" section: "Mmmmm....Mrs. Melba! Delish! Thanks for the beautiful candy!" ... "YUMMY!!!! Lots of TLC!! Ships quickly..thank-you!" ... "Excellent product...YUM! One class act for eBay!!!")
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BAKING YOUR BLISS
Crystal Williams in New York diverges from tradition by infusing shortbread with fruit. Her best selling item is a lemon cranberry butter cookie, but she also does riffs on classic drop cookies. For example, her ultimate oatmeal cookie has chocolate-covered raisins, molasses and maple glaze.
Her business started when she became pregnant and had extra time. When her family complained that her goods were making them fat, she moved the baking to eBay. She sold 70 dozen cookies online during the holidays but only made a couple hundred dollars in profit because she experimented with ingredients and packaging.
Williams, who goes by the screen name thumbelinaspantry, has also used eBay to test out a new career. One year after starting out online, the 31-year-old bartender enrolled in the French Culinary Institute's pastry arts program.
"I thought I would sell a few dozen, and now I was selling like crazy," Williams says. "I'm baking till 2:00 in the morning. Who am I kidding? I want to be a baker."
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ONLINE JAM-BOREE
Others have used eBay to expand their existing business. Esther Fruth of Pequot Lakes, Minn., has been making jams for 30 years and sold more than 10,000 jars last year through the farmers' market, a retail store with products available online through this site.
She ventured on eBay less than a month ago, focusing on regional specialties such as jalapeno and chokecherry jam. (Chokecherries are pea-sized, dark purple fruit whose tartness inspired their name.)
She says that her jams, which contain homegrown fruit, hit a nostalgic note with residents who left the area.
"There's a lot of people who grew up in the Midwest familiar with them. It's nice for them to come across and buy them," says Fruth, 55.
Her eBay store, Brambleberry-jam-jelly-syrups-herbs, sold nine jars of jam in the first week and has not turned a profit yet.
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KEEP IT FUN
There are specialty items on eBay, such as Fruth's jams, but there are also one-time only novelties, such as handmade peanut butter fudge from U.S. Rep. Todd Platts' mother.
"My mom's made it not just for the president, Speaker of the House and Senator (John) McCain, but she makes it regularly for friends in global nursing homes and new neighbors. It's loved," Platts said by telephone on Tuesday in between voting on legislation. "The first question people ask me at events is, 'Glad you made it, but where's your mom's fudge?'"
Since the congressman is regularly asked to donate items for charity auctions, he let Bell Socialization Services sell "Babs' Peanut Butter Homemade Presidential Fudge" on eBay for $15.43 plus shipping on March 9.
He does not plan to go commercial with the fudge, though. "(My mom) says, 'When I start making it for money, it won't be fun anymore.'"
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asap contributor Jessica Su is a freelance writer based in New York. Her dessert blog can be found here.
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