11/14/2022
November 2022 is Home Ec.’s ten year anniversary! There I was in November 2012, selling at my very first farmers’ market (first pic). It still feels so strange to have this as my life’s work, especially as it wasn’t my intention at first. Keep reading for a rambling reminiscence.
〰️
Each step along the way has been its own challenge and learning experience. As someone with no training in the food industry or in business, everything was new to me. Even jam was new to me. I sold out of the first two batches of jam that I ever made (strawberry with black pepper and blueberry with lime) at a small gallery show of my art in 2010ish. I was just getting into food at that point- baking bread, canning, fermenting, foraging (self taught from books). I was also broke, so a friend kindly let me sell what I was making in his art studio every month during open studio nights. See second pic. There are still a few loyal customers from my bake sale days! Thank you if you’re reading this.
〰️
Home Ec. started out as a home-based business (hence the name), but quickly outgrew my apartment. In 2015 I moved into ‘s new kitchen (3rd pic), where I still work out of today. Thank you Meredith & Kelly!
〰️
In 2017 my Bourbon Pawpaw Jam won a award. That’s me at the award ceremony in San Francisco (4th pic). I was clueless that such a win was huge for my tiny business. Requests from press (5th pic) and national wholesale inquiries were coming in. I didn’t know how to sell wholesale, or how I could possibly make any profit doing so. was very helpful at this point, thank you Craig ! It turned out that I couldn’t afford to scale up to sell nationally, and I never really wanted to. In my mind, Home Ec. was like an art project. I made everything by hand, every batch was different and subject to my whims, and the labels had to be constantly changed to reflect that. Over time I’ve come to terms with consistency and repetition, and that is its own challenge.
〰️
Thanks for reading, more ramblings to come :)
