A Day in the Life of Mister Krisp
They say that behind every man is a great woman. This is definitely true of Mister Krisp – the Instagram-famous Rice Krispy desserts that inspire awe in the shapes of pop icons (think Kim K.), life-sized puppy portraits, emojis and so much more. You see, Mister Krisp is a woman! We caught up with Jessica Siskin, the lady behind the whimsical, artistic, edible creations to see what a day in her life is like, amidst so much marshmallow and butter.
8 A.M. My alarm goes off. Check emails: 5 order inquiries came in overnight, one for today. I’m already booked… so I ask if they would still want it next week.
8:30 A.M. I box up an order I made yesterday: 2 needlepoint pillow Krisps for a press event at Jonathan Adler. I make morning pickup orders the night before and keep them in the freezer overnight. I bring it downstairs for pickup and run to FIKA across the street. While I’m waiting for coffee I post clips on my @mister_krisp Instagram.
9 A.M. Take stock of supply levels: butter, marshmallows, Rice Krispies, colored icings, food coloring, and boxes. I’m running low on boxes and butter. I place an order for boxes, and run to the corner deli for butter.
10 A.M. Ready to get started in the kitchen, I scrub in. I wash my hands 100 times a day but they’re still always covered in food coloring. I set my phone to the most recent podcasts in my queue. Today the first podcast is The Moth.
10:30 A.M. Take the finished Krisp to living room to photograph it. I photograph everything, even if I don’t post it.
11:15 A.M. Next order: two dozen emoji smiley faces. They’re my best-sellers. I mold three extra yellow circles for tennis balls that I’ll make later. By now I’m on my next podcast, “The Most Dramatic Podcast in Bachelorette History,” which recaps The Bachelorette each week. I laugh out loud while decorating. I end up having a handful of yellow left over, so I mold it into a rubber ducky shape. When I have extra I try to come up with something I can make for Instagram or to give to friends.
12:15 P.M. My next order is a bulldog. I love doing dogs – I swoon over the pictures while I’m rendering them in Krispies.
1 P.M. I add laces to the footballs I made out of extra brown Krispies, make a quick batch of orange to make basketballs, and finish the yellow tennis balls with white lines.
1:30 P.M. Break for lunch. I worked in a fashion office for seven years where we all ate lunch together. Lunch is easy to forget – when I first started Mister Krisp I’d realize it was 4:30 and I hadn’t eaten – all I would eat was Krispie scraps! Now, I plan better: I eat turkey with cherry tomatoes and honey mustard and read some articles online. Today I read a pretty terrifying piece in the New Yorker about the Cascadia Subduction Zone fault line in the Pacific Northwest. I share on Facebook with a friend from grad school who used to live in Seattle and he says the piece is “sensationalized.” I hope he’s right!
2:30 P.M. Back in the kitchen, I get to work on 3 sleepaway camp logos for a group of cousins’ visiting day gifts. They get me feeling nostalgic about my summers at Camp Echo in upstate New York so I put on my camp playlist.
3:30 P.M. Post another Instagram. I don’t usually post more than once a day, but I took a cute photo of a Krispie iPhone that I made from leftovers from the Jonathan Adler pillows. I listen to an old episode of This American Life that I missed last week.
4:30 P.M. Most of my orders are being picked up around 5, so I run through finishing touches, writing messages on the platters and making sure everything looks perfect. Then I make boxes, and pack and label them before bringing them downstairs. This process always takes longer than I think it will, so I’ve learned to start 15 minutes before I think I should.
5 P.M. By the end of the day, my kitchen is a battlefield. I clean as I go, but no matter what I do, my counters end up full of half-used icing tubes and kitchen supplies and dishes. I listen to either Broadway shows or Phish shows when I clean, it makes a chore feel a little more fun. I have eclectic taste in music– if my neighbors overheard what was coming from my kitchen all day they’d probably be confused.
5:30 P.M. Check my email again. I get so many inquires while I’m in the kitchen and not looking at my phone, so it takes a while to answer all of them. It’s definitely tough being a one-woman operation sometimes.
6:15 P.M. In addition to Mister Krisp, I’m in grad school, getting my MFA in Creative Non-Fiction, so I try to read or write at least a little every day when I’m on summer break from classes. Today I make an outline of a piece I’m planning to write about perceived beauty and social media.
7 P.M. I get ready for dinner with some old coworkers. My hands are partially yellow even after a shower because of dying the emojis.
8 P.M. Dinner is at Caffe Dante on Macdougal. I need a drink to unwind after my busy day. I opt for a Dark & Stormy after the waiter tells me the restaurant makes their own ginger beer. We order a ton of food– flatbreads, burrata, shishito peppers and meatball sliders are amazing. For dessert I pull out a box of Krispie scraps– a top hat I molded from some extra black Krispie the day before, a Tiffany’s box I made from some extra robin’s egg blue, and some extra emoji smiley faces.
10 P.M. I walk home and check my emails before I go to sleep. I make boxes for the orders being picked up in the morning and go to bed. Tomorrow will be another busy day in the kitchen.