Help Robin Salant Heal
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You may know Robin as a friend or family member, or from chatting with her while she sold her amazing ice cream creations at her stand, Half Pint Kitchen, in the Stockton Market, or you may have met her around town walking her dog, Champ. Maybe you simply know her Salted Caramel ice cream or Dark Chocolate vegan sorbet. Or maybe you know neither her nor her frozen confections but rather Caviar and Codfish, the food blog she wrote from 2007 to 2011.
In 2008 Robin was in a car accident that damaged her lower spine, resulting in crippling daily chronic pain. Time and energy for writing curtailed, Caviar and Codfish turned out to be the first of many painful casualties to her new condition. Of course, we still believed, perhaps because we needed to, that a cure was right around the corner back then. Even in 2011 when Robin decided that she could no longer work at a desk full time and that physical work like cooking would be healthier for her -- when we opened up Half Pint Kitchen, a space where she could create her ice creams on her own schedule and sell them on the weekends at the market -- we believed it was only a matter of time before she would be free of pain (or we never would have started the business). But soon after opening, Robin no longer had the energy to run the shop and the blog that she had loved for years, so the blog had to go.
{Robin's write up as a local Food Revolutionary}
Nonetheless, Robin loved running Half Pint Kitchen, seeing ice creams and sorbets, born in her dreams, move from kitchen to counter. But because of her pain, no matter how much she loved the business, she never had enough energy or strength to meet the demand for her products, let alone expand the business and make real profits. So when she suffered secondary medical issues (migraines from medication and the pain itself, depression from the same), Half Pint would have to be left completely in the hands of her husband and a few close friends, all of whom had at least been taught her recipes and methods.
{a few of Robin's creations}
That skeleton crew, however, couldn't quite pick up the slack when ovarian cysts -- undiagnosed for dangerously long because of the usual pain and pain medication -- burst and left Robin writhing and totally incapacitated for weeks, the same weeks, as it happened, that we were asked to set up a time to meet with our landlord. Robin was essentially faced with the same decision that had been cropping up in one form or another since the accident: perform at a higher level, produce more (assuming that her health would soon improve or that we'd finally figure out a way to work efficiently and at full capacity around her limitations), or give it all up, "it" being Half Pint primarily this time, and put her health first and foremost -- except this time, now, seven years after the accident, we were no longer wearing the rose-colored glasses that fit so well the day we started Half Pint. We hadn't worn them for some time, crushed as they had been under Robin's orthopedic shoes.
{our first day at the market in 2010}
Needless to say, we chose the second course, forgoing everything for Robin's health, as we now realize we should have done years ago. Half Pint Kitchen is closed and will remain so until Robin is healed. It makes her heartbreakingly sad, Half Pint's closure -- sad but also motivated; motivated to find as many doctors and undergo as many treatments as it takes to make her well, be those treatments surgeries or lifestyle adjustments, so that Half Pint's closure will prove either temporary or, if those doors remain closed, at least not a failure in all senses, given what we think Robin can achieve when healthy.
{we want that laugh back!}
Robin's new motivation demands our doing something else we should have done years ago: ask for help.
So if there is anything you can do to help us pay for those doctors and treatments and to give her the time off she needs to heal, we would be be eternally grateful. I will (or Robin will, once she finds out about this campaign) give regular updates on her progress.
Sincerely,
Jim Salant
In 2008 Robin was in a car accident that damaged her lower spine, resulting in crippling daily chronic pain. Time and energy for writing curtailed, Caviar and Codfish turned out to be the first of many painful casualties to her new condition. Of course, we still believed, perhaps because we needed to, that a cure was right around the corner back then. Even in 2011 when Robin decided that she could no longer work at a desk full time and that physical work like cooking would be healthier for her -- when we opened up Half Pint Kitchen, a space where she could create her ice creams on her own schedule and sell them on the weekends at the market -- we believed it was only a matter of time before she would be free of pain (or we never would have started the business). But soon after opening, Robin no longer had the energy to run the shop and the blog that she had loved for years, so the blog had to go.
{Robin's write up as a local Food Revolutionary}Nonetheless, Robin loved running Half Pint Kitchen, seeing ice creams and sorbets, born in her dreams, move from kitchen to counter. But because of her pain, no matter how much she loved the business, she never had enough energy or strength to meet the demand for her products, let alone expand the business and make real profits. So when she suffered secondary medical issues (migraines from medication and the pain itself, depression from the same), Half Pint would have to be left completely in the hands of her husband and a few close friends, all of whom had at least been taught her recipes and methods.
{a few of Robin's creations}That skeleton crew, however, couldn't quite pick up the slack when ovarian cysts -- undiagnosed for dangerously long because of the usual pain and pain medication -- burst and left Robin writhing and totally incapacitated for weeks, the same weeks, as it happened, that we were asked to set up a time to meet with our landlord. Robin was essentially faced with the same decision that had been cropping up in one form or another since the accident: perform at a higher level, produce more (assuming that her health would soon improve or that we'd finally figure out a way to work efficiently and at full capacity around her limitations), or give it all up, "it" being Half Pint primarily this time, and put her health first and foremost -- except this time, now, seven years after the accident, we were no longer wearing the rose-colored glasses that fit so well the day we started Half Pint. We hadn't worn them for some time, crushed as they had been under Robin's orthopedic shoes.
{our first day at the market in 2010}Needless to say, we chose the second course, forgoing everything for Robin's health, as we now realize we should have done years ago. Half Pint Kitchen is closed and will remain so until Robin is healed. It makes her heartbreakingly sad, Half Pint's closure -- sad but also motivated; motivated to find as many doctors and undergo as many treatments as it takes to make her well, be those treatments surgeries or lifestyle adjustments, so that Half Pint's closure will prove either temporary or, if those doors remain closed, at least not a failure in all senses, given what we think Robin can achieve when healthy.
{we want that laugh back!}Robin's new motivation demands our doing something else we should have done years ago: ask for help.
So if there is anything you can do to help us pay for those doctors and treatments and to give her the time off she needs to heal, we would be be eternally grateful. I will (or Robin will, once she finds out about this campaign) give regular updates on her progress.
Sincerely,
Jim Salant
Organizer
Jim Salant
Organizer
Stockton, NJ