This was a new question for us. The lady, friendly, knowledgable and helpful, at the Küchentechnik shop where we bought our first speialized oven, heavy-duty cutting machine, and other equipment, was asking whether we wanted cookie sheets with holes punched in them or just plain ones. She explained that each one distributed heat differently, and that it might affect the way our cookies would look. We bought three each of both plain and perforated sheets. We are still learning, and a lot of things must be learned by trial and error.

One oven like ours has the capacity of baking 5 orders of 12 cookies each every 15 minutes. That means 20 orders per hour, or 160 orders in one eight-hour shift. It sounds like a lot of cookies, and it may take a little time to reach the point that we will need another oven, but considering that just Germany and the countries surounding it have a total population of roughly 200,000,000 people, we hope that an additional oven will not be too far into the future.

As we were leaving the Küchentechnik shop, I was so amazed by the array of different machines and equipment that are used everyday in restaurants, bakeries, cafes, and generally everywhere food is prepared, that I confessed to my wife I was becoming more and more interested in the food business. This really is a new thing for me... during the past many years I have worked as a salesman, banker, teacher, industrial buyer, and company manager... but never in the food business. Who knows, maybe this my real "calling".