Category: Features

Categories
Entrepreneurs Features Generation to Generation

Mentoring Through Golf

(Unsplash)

When Sean Washington was growing up in Shreveport Louisiana, the only free summer program he had access to was golf.

“I grew up in a single parent household,” Washington said. “My mom raised me and my brother and we lived right up the street from the city golf course. It was a good way for all the kids on the block to go do something constructive.”

Washington was only 9years old but he says he will always remember the caliber of men he met there every summer until he was 15 years old.

“All the African American professionals went to that golf course,” he said. “It was a raggedy golf course but it was their country club, so to speak, and I got to see solid men like doctors and lawyers talk business while they had fun. I was part of a group of 8 boys who got to caddy for them because there were no golf carts at the time.”

Washington, who works as a financial advisor, now lives in Frisco, Texas where he recreated his childhood experience to benefit others with Golf 3:16, which he co-founded with Eric Williams.

“Golf put me in a place of seeing the positiveness of men and being around them and getting that culture and understanding of the ability of what I could do,” Washington said. “With Golf 3:16, we are exposing kids to the possibilities of what they can do versus where they see themselves today but, bigger than that, they are introduced to God.”

(Courtesy of Sean Washington)

Both Williams and Washington, who play golf every weekend, consider themselves to be men of God who serve as mentors in their local church. They envisioned using Golf 3:16 to teach at-risk students life skills like perseverance, leadership and overcoming challenges. That was 11 years ago.

“What’s invaluable for us is the core values that we teach our kids, which include faith, self-discipline, respect, servanthood, accountability, and integrity,” said Williams who works as a pharmaceutical executive. “While the game is played, within the ropes, these core values transcend the game and can help the students be strong citizens in whatever city they end up in by leveraging those core values.”

Since then, 130 children have participated in Golf 3:16. At least one has received a college scholarship for golf, specifically.

(Courtesy of Sean Washington)
(Courtesy of Sean Washington)
(Courtesy of Sean Washington)
(Courtesy of Sean Washington)

“We’ve had kids come through the program and end up excelling in other sports or academically,” Williams added. “We have several students who are now playing in Frisco Independent School District who otherwise would not have been interested in the game.”

Some 6 percent of all National Collegiate Athletic Association (N.C.A.A.) golfers are black, Latino, or Native American, according to media reports, with Asians representing 5.9 percent of all players. But with programs like Golf 3:16, Washington hopes more golfers of color will emerge in the future.

“If there was more exposure to the sport by family members and a commitment from people who are already engaged in golf, I think we would have a bigger number of kids interested in golf,” he said.
Golf 3:16 is an acronym for God Offers Love and Forgiveness from the Bible verse John 3:16.

“We create an environment of learning and we make that experience fun with gift cards and extra snacks if they do something different or putt or share a Bible verse, for example,” Washington said. “That helps break up the monotony of just hitting a golf ball.”

(Courtesy of Sean Washington)
(Courtesy of Sean Washington)

Golf 3:16 was among the 20 nonprofits this year that received a grant from the Village Giving Circle, a philanthropic organization dedicated to funding black nonprofit organizations in North Texas. Golf 3:16 plans to use the $11,000 to invest in their students and provide greater access and opportunity for them to learn.

“We wanted those funds to be able to purchase a vehicle so that we can get kids to our program who don’t have a ride,” Williams said.
The program takes place year-round on Sundays from 2 pm to 5 pm at the Lake Park Golf Course in Lewisville and includes monthly service projects as well as four life skill classes.

“The golf course we went to initially for about the first eight years was in The Colony, Texas and we didn’t have to pay anything because they believed in our vision,” Washington said. “It was a very small course and we were limited in what we could do. That’s why we moved from that course to Lake Park where we do now pay.”

To navigate around the cost of golf, Washington and Williams have turned to grassroot resources.

“We have a few fundraising events,” Washington said. “One is a big golf tournament we have held every year over the last six years, which is probably one of the biggest golf tournaments in North Dallas. It has given us the great opportunity to secure the resources we need from people who connect to our vision of introducing children to God with the game of golf.”

 

Categories
Features

The Power of the Bow Tie

Jonathan Ziss poses for a photo at his home in Merion Station, Pennsylvania on October 20, 2021. (Rachel Wisniewski for American Essence)

One June morning a couple of years ago, Philadelphia-based attorney Jonathan S. Ziss started strategizing about a case even before he left home for work. Should he wear a tie? If so, what kind?

That afternoon, Ziss would be going to a court-ordered inspection of an automobile dealership he contended wasn’t playing fair with his client, a competing dealership, and he knew the other side’s lawyers wouldn’t wear ties. If he did wear one, he figured, the other lawyers’ clients might think him more serious than their own attorneys. They might even think Ziss knew something they didn’t.

The occasion, Ziss decided, called for a bow tie, and he had just the one among the 50 in his closet: a schoolboy two-tone repp-stripe. Draping it around his neck, he let the left side hang about half an inch longer, as right-handers will. Then, he carefully tied a knot whose pinch the other guys’ attorneys might figuratively feel if his bow tie had the intended effect.

“I try to pay attention to both the message and the effect,” Ziss said. “I always want to establish myself as an authority in the courtroom—he who should be listened to. Judges need to learn about each case, and I want to be the voice they want to listen to in order to learn. In some situations, I feel—literally feel—that a bow tie enhances that dynamic.”

Jonathan Ziss goes through his bow tie collection in his home in Merion Station, Pennsylvania on October 20, 2021. (Rachel Wisniewski for American Essence)

A bow tie is more than just a tie, aficionados say. “It’s an expression,” said Kirk Hinckley, founder of the subscription retailer BowTieClub.com, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and himself a bow tie lover. “It shows a sign of authority.” Bow ties stir something in the wearer as well as the beholder, said Richard Taylor of Detroit, founder of HarrisonBlakeApparel.com. “They make people happy,” Taylor said. “You wear a necktie out of necessity. You wear a bow tie out of love.”

Sales trends seem to substantiate this. While long ties have been selling less even before COVID-19, and are thought by some to be an endangered species, sales of bow ties have held steady or at least tracked a less precipitous decline. A 2015 report by the market research firm Grand View Research projected that the bow tie segment of the necktie industry would experience the fastest growth through at least 2019 because of the “rising adoption of bow ties as casual wear accessories, especially among millennials.” That trend seems to be holding, industry observers say.

Bow tie sales are recovering from the pandemic-related recession faster than long ties, said Hinckley, who has provided ties for former presidents, including Barack Obama’s inauguration bow tie.

“I wouldn’t say bow ties are outselling neckties,” Taylor said. “But I think, moving forward, you might see bow ties on the rise because you can wear them this time of year with sweaters. They’re a little less formal.” A bow tie can be worn without a suit more easily than a long tie, said Hinckley, who has more than 300 bow ties at his home, where he takes those with slight defects. “The typical bow tie wearer is very independent—not someone at Procter & Gamble, but lawyers, judges, and architects,” he said.

Ziss wears a bow tie 8 out of 10 times he appears before a judge and for most jury trials. While he can’t say if he’s ever won a case because he was wearing a bow tie, he’s seen the difference the accessory can make. During a jury trial in 2010, a judge and his law clerk wore bow ties on the second day, after seeing Ziss in one on the first.

Though the striking individualism of bow ties, together with their intimation of membership in something bigger than oneself, might suggest they’re an American phenomenon, they aren’t. Neither are neckties. They got their start in the 17th century when Croatian mercenaries in the Thirty Years’ War wrapped their necks in fabric. After the war, French soldiers copied the look, then the upper classes started wearing bow ties. Today, Asia Pacific, where the influence of Western culture is boosting the popularity of bow ties, holds the largest market share, according to Grand View Research.

But the United States has played a key role in driving the evolution and popularity of the bow tie. In October 1886, Pierre Lorillard designed the tuxedo and debuted it with a black bow tie at a ball held at the Tuxedo Club in New York. And in the 20th century, actors such as Charlie Chaplin, Fred Astaire, Marlene Dietrich, and Katharine Hepburn caused bow tie sales to spike from time to time. So did movie and television characters such as James Bond and, more recently, Doctor Who.

Ziss has worn bow ties ever since his wife bought him two at Burberry more than 30 years ago. One was yellow, one red. “I think she was looking ahead to a formal event a few months out,” he said, “and she wanted me to be ready to rock a self-tied bow tie.”

Ziss learned to knot those first bow ties with the fine motor skills he honed building model airplanes. All he needed was a diagram and half a dozen tries. “It’s like any other folding or tying or close-up work,” he said. “I learned to pin my daughter’s hair into buns when she was appearing onstage at the Philadelphia Academy of Music in ‘The Nutcracker.’”

Jonathan Ziss poses for a photo in his home, sporting one of his signature bow ties, in Merion Station, Pennsylvania on October 20, 2021. (Rachel Wisniewski for American Essence)

Ziss doesn’t wear a bow tie everywhere. Last winter, while at a court hearing representing a group of car dealerships whose fleet salespeople had allegedly left in a coordinated exodus to go to work for a competitor, taking with them proprietary information—the same case that would lead him five months later to that dealership inspection—he opted to dress more conservatively. The hearing was in a town “where strangers stand out,” Ziss said, and it was his first appearance before that judge. “For an unfamiliar lawyer to be perceived as flashy—and to be wearing a bow tie—was just too risky,” he said. He wore a conventional tie, orange with tiny dots.

It was a bow tie, however—the two-tone repp-stripe—that Ziss decided to wear to inspect the car dealership that day in June 2019. It proved a good choice. “I was able to establish and maintain a dominant role among the lawyers there and differentiate myself from my team and from the dealership brass, who wore traditional suits,” Ziss said. “I think it worked.”

Categories
Features

Iconic Posters for America’s Greats

Press site Hatch Print Shop general hanging posters. (Photo by CK Photo/Courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum)

Nashville being synonymous with country music, it’s no surprise that locals and tourists alike are unabashed in proclaiming their love for this genre. While most are familiar with the downtown live music scene, where many country music legends of yesteryear (and today) jump-started their careers by singing in bars and music clubs, fewer know about the print shop that catapulted musicians to fame through poster advertisements. From Elvis Presley to Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, “Hatch Show Print” shop has produced iconic concert tour posters for America’s most beloved music stars.

Today, the shop still designs all its posters by hand (no computers involved) with the same wood types that have been used for decades, giving the posters a vintage look. The shop designs and prints posters, not only for today’s biggest stars, but also for major events, such as a 2020 presidential debate that took place at Belmont University in Nashville.

Hatch Show Print still uses the same presses and letter blocks that existed back when the shop first opened in the late 1800s. (Photo by Donn Jones/Courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum)

Hatch Show Print was established in 1879 by Charles and Herbert Hatch, who grew up learning the craft of letterpress printing—the earliest form of printing, done by pressing carved wood and metal letters, called type, onto paper with ink—from their father, William. The shop’s first job was to print handbills for a lecture series by minister Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the 19th century abolitionist.

Over time, the shop became known for its simple yet sharp designs, and soon, many wanted to use Hatch Show Print’s posters to get their messages out. In the 1920s, with the advent of radio, music stars were born; and for the first time, Hatch began printing photos of popular names on tour date announcement posters. It was innovative at the time.

Such a poster was designed to promote Elvis’s first concert. As Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium became a pivotal performance space for country music singers—earning it the nickname “Carnegie Hall of the South”—the shop began printing posters for its musical acts. Eventually, Hatch Show Print became the go-to printer for entertainers touring in the South.

Today, Hatch Show Print is the second oldest print shop still operating in the United States. Presses from the same era as when the shop first opened are still in use, dating back to the late 1800s. The machines previously ran on steam power, but now they are connected to electricity. The shop no longer adds new letter blocks to its collection: all are stored in the shop’s shelves and type cabinets. And the shop’s printers, who are also its designers, insist on mixing their own inks in-house.

Custom wood or linoleum block carvings can also be created for the shop’s clients. One poster featuring TV journalist Anderson Cooper, which even depicted the lines of his nicely coiffed hair, took the carver just two-and-a half hours to complete.

Hatch likes to hold on to its history. During a recent tour of the shop—which is now located on an historic property within the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum—the guide pointed to an old wood block depicting Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, who ran against each other during the presidential election of 1932. The block had broken in half, but the shop still kept it, for memory’s sake.

(Courtesy of Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp)
Categories
Features

Baking With Love

(Courtesy of Kristina Cho/Mooncakes and Milk Bread)

Kristina Cho has vivid childhood memories of the scene at her grandparents’ Chinese restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio. It was the kind of place where literally everyone in the family chipped in to help.

“I remember growing up, all my aunts and uncles and my mom had full-time jobs elsewhere working at hospitals and banks—you know, very normal professional jobs. But they would still come to the restaurant after work,” Her mother was an all-around talent. “She would do everything,” Cho said in a recent interview, from hostessing to making drinks at the bar to being the carry-out runner. “I just remember my mom zipping through the restaurant constantly, even though I knew that she was working at the hospital, like 40 hours a week.”

Her maternal grandparents immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong in the late 1960s and later decided to open a restaurant to support the family. Her family members worked hard to keep the American dream going.

Cho’s family instilled in her a love for food. She recalls regular childhood trips with her grandfather to get dim sum, the Cantonese brunch meal that typically serves bite-sized treats with tea. “When we would order things, he would whisper in my ear and explain” what the different dishes were. Later, while researching for her cookbook, “Mooncakes & Milk Bread: Sweet & Savory Recipes Inspired by Chinese Bakeries,” she discovered a little more about her family history: her grandfather’s first restaurant job was as a baker. The job was a step above dishwasher in the kitchen. “It also was a rare station, because few Chinese restaurants served desserts beyond fortune cookies and sliced oranges. He spent day after day making endless trays of his golden, almond-studded cookies,” Cho writes in her cookbook.

Grandpa’s Influence

This discovery also held special significance—her grandfather’s background as a baker meant that her passion for baking had a family connection. “When I was writing the book and I learned a little bit more about my grandpa’s baking journey, it made me feel like, ‘Oh, there’s some type of connection there.’ I’m not the first baker in the family. My grandpa actually did it first,” she said.

Cho writes in her cookbook that her grandfather, who passed away several years ago, once made his family-famous almond cookies for her before she left for college; the cookbook includes a recipe for the treats as she remembered from that day baking with her grandfather. She also turned to her grandmother for help developing recipes for traditional Chinese desserts (which are often steamed, not baked), but she wished she learned more from her grandfather. “Looking back at it, I wish I took better notes to fully remember how to do this stuff. He always had a mind of tinkering and figuring out how to do stuff. I definitely took that with me as I got older and went through different career paths and ended up doing what I do now,” Cho said.

She wasn’t always a baker; she trained to be an architect and moved to San Francisco to work as a designer for several firms. But being an architect did not satisfy her creative energy the way baking and cooking did. In early 2017, Cho started a blog called “Eat Cho Food,” creating recipes inspired by her family’s Cantonese cooking and developing her own twists on her favorite foods.

Unique Flavors

“Mooncakes & Milk Bread” is a compilation of her inventive projects, as well as an homage to the Hong Kong-style bakeries that are a fixture of Chinatowns across the country. Owing to over 100 years of British rule, bakers in Hong Kong adopted Western baking traditions, creating pastries, biscuits, and cakes “using the ingredients they had access to and incorporat[ing] flavors and ingredients more aligned with the Asian palate. Sugar levels were reduced, cakes became lighter, and ingredients like black sesame seeds and mango worked their way into everything. Thus, the classic Chinese bakery style is a quirky melding of Western and Eastern cultures,” as Cho explained in the book.

(Courtesy of Kristina Cho/Mooncakes and Milk Bread)

Cho said that this is similar to how bakers in America use the ingredients native to their region. “[They] are adjusting their recipes and flavors to wherever they are. So did the bakers back then in Hong Kong. Instead of using cream or butter, maybe they’d use coconut milk or lard, because that’s what they had, you know? So they adapted it.”

Cho melds East and West in her recipes, too, with fun takes on classic Western pastries like black sesame souffle cheesecake, Asian pear turnover, and Thanksgiving “guabao” with leftover turkey, brussels sprouts, and cranberry sauce sandwiched between steamed buns. Sometimes, she celebrates her Midwest upbringing; the book includes a recipe for “pepperoni bread,” what she calls “an Ohio delicacy”: pepperoni stuffed into a roll. Her version uses milk bread, a fluffy bread made with “tangzhong,” a roux of milk and flour.

Cho also pays tribute to pillars of her Cleveland community who are not blood-related, including Auntie Lydia, a close family friend. Cho’s grandmother first got to know Lydia through the latter’s mother-in-law. “After living in Hong Kong and immigrating to Cleveland, she hung on tightly to the practices she’d learned from her own family and found Lydia’s mother-in-law’s food comforting and familiar. Over decades, the three of them bonded in the kitchen as they gossiped, swapped recipes, and made enough food to feed their loved ones and more,” Cho wrote in the book—noting that without Auntie Lydia, her grandmother may not have learned to make some of the traditional recipes showcased in the book.

The baker expressed gratitude for these keepers of important food traditions, too. “I’m thankful that someone like her exists in our small Chinese community and continues to carry on the history, culture, and recipes for future generations. It’s not only the bakeries and restaurants carrying on our food traditions—it’s also the quiet home-cooks and Auntie Lydias of the world,” Cho wrote.

Categories
Features

A True Home for the Holidays

Benjamin and Kirsten Watson, and their seven children aged 2 to 12, have recently put roots down in Georgia, closer to their extended family and grandparents. (Courtesy of Benjamin Watson)

As people of deep faith, retired NFL star Benjamin Watson and his wife Kirsten know that Christmas is about much more than tinsel, tunes, and turkey. Like a 21st-century version of the eponymous family at the center of the 1970s TV series “The Waltons”—who, like the Watsons, raised four boys and three girls and likewise built their values around God—the couple understand that a well-functioning family is built on a strong, loving relationship between husband and wife as well as parent and child.

At the Watsons’ new home in Fayetteville, a small town south of Atlanta, Georgia, there’s special reason to celebrate this year as father, mother, and the kids, ages 2 to 12, settle into the first home they’ve ever owned. That’s because Benjamin, the former tight end and 2005 Super Bowl champion who played for the New England Patriots, Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens, and New Orleans Saints, now has firm roots after hopscotching across the country.

Benjamin and his wife both graduated from the University of Georgia, Athens, and knew that they would likely return to Georgia. Kirsten has family in Atlanta, while his family is in South Carolina. As their parents got older, they wanted to make sure their seven children spent more time with the grandparents.

(Courtesy of Benjamin Watson)

Now, without having to worry about finding suitable rental properties in different cities as their kids are growing up, Benjamin and Kirsten are publicly sharing their thoughts on how to build a stronger marriage and stronger family. They’re doing so through their blogs, through a weekly podcast that was started in 2020, in personal appearances, and in print. Benjamin’s “The New Dad’s Playbook,” a how-to on parenting, was released in 2017; “Under Our Skin: Getting Real about Race. Getting Free from the Fears and Frustrations that Divide Us,” published in 2016, continues to garner critical acclaim.

7 Kids, 7 Life Lessons

With seven children in various stages of growth, here is what the couple, who first met through the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, told parents and parents-to-be during several episodes of their podcast, “Why or Why Not with the Watsons”:

Bring faith home, but keep work at work: “It’s easy to just wait until Sunday,” Kirsten said about showing a family’s devotion to God. “Bringing it into the family is something we have to be intentional about.” At the same time, Benjamin said, work should not be brought home at the end of the day—something he learned from a former teammate. “Being present, I think, has been important to me; […] when you walk through that door, you’re a daddy, you’re a husband—you’re all those things that are much more important and separate than your occupation outside of the home.”

(Courtesy of Benjamin Watson)

Engage in annual check-ins with your spouse: “We talk about our highs and lows, we talk about our goals, we talk about sex life, we talk about our fears, […] and sometimes that conversation is 5 minutes and sometimes 50 minutes,” Benjamin said. Kirsten added, “If we can’t communicate together as adults about certain things for whatever reason, we have to be able to understand that those types of things play a role in how we will communicate with our kids.”

Create special moments with your kids, but not always as a group: “Make some memories—a ‘last good adventure of the summer’ type thing. But as a father, I simply wanted to get with the girls because there are certain things that a dad can impart to his daughters or impress upon his daughters that I can’t do when I’m with everybody,” Benjamin said. “To ask them about their fears, to ask them about their dreams and their ambitions.”

Move as a family. Whether it’s in the NFL or some other occupation, parents sometimes decide to live apart when a better job offer comes along, Benjamin said. The Watsons always stayed together, choosing to rent so as to smooth the transition to their next stop. “We decided we wanted to stay together wherever we moved,” Benjamin said, and he and Kirsten presented a united front to their kids despite their own mixed emotions about moving. Eventually, kids “adapt and create memories,” he added.

Benjamin Watson played tight end for the New England Patriots when the team won the Super Bowl in 2005. His NFL career took him to different cities, and the family made a conscious decision to always move together. (Courtesy of Benjamin Watson)

Build and maintain friendships: “Mommy, why would I go make friends in a new place and we’re only going to be there for a year?” the Watsons’ oldest child once asked Kirsten. She responded in a spirit of giving. “Even if we’re going to be there for a year, there is someone there that needs you. They need the gifts that God has given you. They need how you speak to them. They need your friendship for this one year, rather than you need somebody.”

Don’t be a helicopter parent, but pray: In a tumultuous climate riven by a virus; on-again, off-again schooling; and polarized opinions about race and religion, “we always talk about grounding our children at home,” the Super Bowl champion said, “and then understanding also that we don’t own them, that we are stewarding them. And that quite honestly, we can’t protect them from everything.” Praying for your children is important, added Benjamin, who is the son of a pastor.

Give fewer gifts at Christmas: All across America, there’ll be plenty of gifts under the tree this season. “If you buy a Christmas gift that really grabs your child’s attention for more than three, four weeks, you’re doing really well, honestly,” Benjamin said. He advises cutting back on the number of gifts given and rethinking the holiday. “You receive, but you also understand the importance of giving because Christmas truly is about giving.”

“We do know that God will show up, and He shows up and He meets us exactly where we are,” Kirsten told listeners in one of the couple’s early podcasts. “Our hope is that we can share some of that with you.”

Categories
Features

Home Sweet Home in Oklahoma

Brad and Kelly Claggett with their daughter Autumn. (Jennifer Houseman)

Out in this part of America that is not quite the South and not quite the Ozarks, where the land is flat and the people free-spirited, Kelly and Brad Claggett are finally fulfilling their longtime dream after years of hard work.

When they first moved to this 60-acre property in Grove, Oklahoma, around 2009, Kelly recalled telling her husband that she could imagine hosting weddings and events on the bucolic grounds. “The space is beautiful and I don’t want to enjoy it on my own,” she had said, as they looked out onto a small pond.

(Jennifer Houseman)

At the time, she could sense that the property could be turned into a space that was welcoming and safe. More than a decade later, the dream has come true. In the fall of 2020, the couple opened The Local Farm to Table, allowing guests to book lunch and dinner parties on its premises, with Kelly cooking up family recipes and her takes on comfort food. Ingredients and meats are sourced locally whenever possible. Meals are always served family-style, with guests encouraged to disconnect from their phones. In a small town, word travels fast. This fall, bookings were already full through the end of the year.

As Kelly was thinking about the family members and friends who supported her and Brad throughout the years, tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m so grateful,” she said. 

(Tatsiana Moon for American Essence)
(Tatsiana Moon for American Essence)

Coming Together

Kelly grew up in Minnesota, learning to cook and bake from “very confident women” in her family who showed her the ropes, she said. It was a “traditional, generational thing” to pass on those skills. She recalls big family gatherings nearly every weekend—her grandmothers had a total of 20 children. When the family went out camping, the men hunted game and brought back the kill; then the women butchered the animal and cooked the meat over an open flame. Family dinners were boisterous affairs, with the men talking and laughing as the women prepared dishes in the kitchen and children played. Men and women performed their duties “out of love,” Kelly said, “not because it was an expectation.”

She wanted to re-create that experience for people: to provide a place where people could gather with family and loved ones and cherish their time together. In 2018, Kelly invited a group of her best friends—all who shaped her in some way—to the property for a dinner party. Brad had built two wooden tables, while Kelly strung up lights and decorated the space. They sat by the fire, drank wine, and took photos. After that, Kelly told Brad, “This is where my heart is.” But finances, schooling, and other ventures—including raising poultry and running a food truck that traveled to local events serving burgers, tacos, and other light fare—indicated that the timing wasn’t quite right yet. 

 

Melissa Hunter and the Smiths—Stefany, Reid, and Mason— provided the furniture and design for Local Farm to Table.(Tatsiana Moon for American Essence)

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, it allowed the Claggetts to reflect on what they really wanted to do with their time. During the pandemic, people were told they couldn’t be together with loved ones, and they feared social gatherings, Kelly said. She felt she needed to create “an inviting place during a super-scary time,” where “people can feel safe and enjoy each other again.”

The Local Farm to Table was thus born. 

Brad, who teaches at a local college, always wanted to create a business together with Kelly. From the time they met at 22 and 19, respectively, he was enamored with the way Kelly worked confidently around the kitchen. Nearly 18 years later, Brad is ecstatic that he can help Kelly realize her passion—while raising their 2-year-old daughter, Autumn.

“It takes sacrifice, time, persistence—as with everything,” Brad reflected. He thinks back to the years of struggling through the financial crisis, of juggling grad school and running a day care business with Kelly, of naysayers who doubted them. “You have to overcome people who are against you. … It forces you to choose to love those people too,” he said.

(Jennifer Houseman)

A Community

The Local Farm to Table started with just a dozen people gathered at the table on the Claggetts’ deck. Then, to accommodate growing demand—date nights, birthday parties, movie nights, and weddings, ranging from groups of 2 to 40 people—the couple began setting up yurts on the property. They soon outgrew the yurts too, especially as inclement weather sometimes forced them to cancel bookings. So they decided to remodel a barn that existed on the original property when Brad’s father, affectionately called “Pop” by all who know him, purchased it. Brad is excited to soon start creating new furniture in his woodworking shop for the expansion. They’re thinking of building a pavilion, possibly getting a pizza oven, and maybe setting up overnight stays on the property one day.

Kelly and Brad’s group of friends who helped make The Local Farm to Table a reality. (Tatsiana Moon for American Essence)

A group of friends and local producers make the experience possible: Brecka, who operates a kitchen store in the downtown area of Grove, supplies the tableware. Kim, who arranges flowers and Kelly says is able to know what she wants “like she’s in my brain,” Kelly said. Holly, a baker who caters special desserts for Local Farm to Table, has known Kelly for over 15 years; while Reed and Stephany, who are the contractors who helped design the space, are “like family.” There’s also an Amish friend from whom Kelly regularly buys pantry samples and gets baking tips. Small-scale farmers like Bobby Alfaro supply the meat—she swears that giving her pigs belly rubs makes the meat taste better.

(Tatsiana Moon for American Essence)

Love

It can be hard to balance work and family while running a small business. But it’s clear that the Claggetts’ love for each other keeps them going. They named their daughter after their favorite season because they got closer in the fall of 2002, while hanging out on a pumpkin farm where Brad worked at the time. They plan to name the farm on the property Autumn Acres, where they currently raise several Scottish Highland cows and a horse named Scarlet.

While reminiscing about their wedding, which took place in 2007 in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, they had an epiphany. The couple had invited a small group of family and friends to a cabin in the woods and held a party underneath a covered deck—just like the dinners they’re currently hosting. “It was exactly like this!” Kelly said, with a similar array of hodgepodge chairs. Amid the chaos of wedding day, no one went to pick up the catered food. So Kelly and Brad drove to the caterer in their wedding dress and tux. They laughed at the memory.

“We had no idea 15 years later that we’d be doing this,” Brad said. 

“We wouldn’t change a thing about it,” quipped Kelly.

(Jennifer Houseman)
Categories
Features

Legendary Civil Rights Leader Writes the (Last) Book on Suffering 

John Perkins. (Courtesy of John Perkins)

John Perkins’s hands move with a passion that still fuels him at 91, as he tells his story of suffering and redemption. Like most black families in Mississippi in the 1930s, life was an all-consuming effort to survive. No one can remember Perkins’ exact birthday, but the significance of one early memory has become very clear.

(Courtesy of John Perkins)

John was living with his grandmother, a woman who had birthed 19 children of her own before taking in John and his five siblings. Pellagra, a vitamin B3 deficiency, had taken his mother’s life when she was still nursing 7-month-old John. Already-full beds grew fuller. John’s grandmother was supplementing their sharecropping income with bootlegging.

Mississippi had banned alcohol statewide in 1908, a decade before the 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibited it throughout the nation. Then, Mississippi became the last state to repeal its state prohibition in 1966, three decade after the 21st Amendment had repealed Prohibition nationally.

One day, the sheriff came into the house and claimed he found alcohol. John’s grandmother knew the sheriff had planted it there. When he told her he was going to haul her to jail, her response traveled deep into John’s soul. She said, “If I was a man, I would kick your a__ for thinking that I would go with you and leave these little ones.” Her defense fueled a sense of dignity in John: his grandmother loved him; she had stood up for him against the white sheriff. He knew then that he was worth as much as any other child.

This incident helped counter the reflection of himself that John saw in the eyes of many others: like when he was 12 and had worked hard all day for a white farmer. Instead of the dollar or two he expected to receive at the end of the day, the man dropped just 15 cents into his hand. John knew what would happen, to both himself and his family, if he did what he wanted to do at the time: throw the money on the floor in front of the man. “We would get the reputation of being ‘Uppity Niggers,’ or worse, ‘Smart Niggers,’” Perkins said. But the incident had made him think and ask questions, and he had made a decision. This man, John realized, had the capital, and could make evil decisions about what to do with it; one day, John decided that he, too, would be in a position to make decisions about his own capital.

Perkins left Mississippi in 1947, after his older brother, Clyde—home from serving in World War II—was shot by the police. He died in John’s arms. Perkins found work in a California foundry where, while still a teenager, he helped to form a union. It gave him a taste of the success that united action could bring.

After he was drafted into the Korean War and served two years, John and his bride, Vera Mae, a hometown girl who was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, settled in Monrovia, California. They’d already had five of their eight kids, and were enjoying a lifestyle better than either of them had known growing up.

(Courtesy of John Perkins)

Perkins’ life would change drastically, however, when his oldest son, Spencer, was invited to a local Good News Club. Spencer, still in preschool, then invited his dad to church. John went and started reading the Bible for the first time. One Sunday, he heard Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” He said that verse spoke to his whole life experience. He knew about wages: it was a dime and a buffalo nickel from a white man. And sin—that was oppression. But what about his own sin? 

(Courtesy of John Perkins)

That morning was the culmination of much searching. John said yes to Jesus, had inner peace for the first time, and didn’t look back. “I moved into my new life like I did everything else: as hard as I could,” Perkins said. Soon he felt God calling him back to Mississippi, where he started teaching Bible classes in schools. He and Vera Mae started Mendenhall Ministries, to help break the cycle of poverty and facilitate reconciliation.

The Paradox of Suffering 

In 1964, civil rights issues were heating up in Mississippi. Everyone, black and white, had to take a stand, Perkins said. He led a voter registration drive, and a few years later, organized a boycott.

In 1970, after several Tougaloo College students had been imprisoned for protesting, Perkins went to the jail in Brandon, Mississippi, to bail them out. When he arrived, Mississippi patrolmen had other plans for him. They tortured and beat him and made him mop up his own blood. It’s not something John can talk about easily. During almost two years of unjust court proceedings, he suffered from heart problems, and had much of his stomach removed because of ulcers.

(Courtesy of John Perkins)
(Courtesy of John Perkins)

This led to a faith crisis, which was eventually overcome by individual acts of kindness and love, coming from both God and man: like the white doctor who sat by his bed reading and caring for him and wouldn’t leave until John was asleep. Years later, the arms of a white chaplain would hold him together after hearing the news that Spencer, not yet 50, hadn’t survived a heart attack. “We wash one another’s wounds,” John says quietly.

Perkins has since written 17 books, but not alone. “I’ve been so blessed in my life to have so many people who have given me the help I need. This whole lifetime of ministry has been with friends God has put into my life. It’s a teamwork.”  He calls his last three books, his manifesto: the truths he has learned in his 90-plus years, and what he hopes will live on after him.

His first book, “One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race and Love,” was published when he was 88. “We are one blood; science has already proven that.” And when we are born again into the family of God, he added, we are also brothers and sisters in the faith.

Book two came after Perkins was asked by a college student how he could make a difference in the world. “Become friends with God, and be friends with each other,” John answered, and then unpacked this response in “He Calls Me Friend: The Healing Power of Friendship in a Lonely World.”

In September 2021, Perkins’ last book was released: “Count it All Joy: The Ridiculous Paradox of Suffering.” This book describes his journey through months of mysterious pain, morphine, and two hospital stays, until the source of the problem was finally found. Behind layers of scar tissue that had grown where doctors had operated following his attack in the Brandon jail, cancer was growing.

(Courtesy of John Perkins)

Perkins had already beaten cancer twice before he reached 90. The incredible pain of this third journey, however, was different, he wrote. He’d had words for the other pain. But with this one, came the unexpected, and John asked the Lord to give him a little more time. There were things he hadn’t been able to say before: like the value of lamentation. “Lament is an old word that has been given a fresh new meaning in this generation,” Perkins said. “We need to let people know that God allows us to lament. We don’t have to act like we’re strong when we’re falling apart. Life is hard. And it becomes harder when we don’t have safe places to share our grief and our struggles without being made to feel like we’re not strong enough.”

And the paradox in this last book: Perkins makes the case that suffering is good, and it is sometimes God’s way of getting our attention and preparing us for His purposes. He speaks with authority after a journey that has borne the pain of breaking down barriers. His conclusion is a surprising closing hymn: True joy is formed in the crucible of suffering. It isn’t experienced alone. “When I cry out to Him, He meets me right there in the place of my pain. And He feels what I feel. He hurts when I hurt. I believe that,” Perkins declared.

John and Vera Mae, with the support of friends, have started many ministries that focus on Christian community development, multiethnic church planting, health care, education, legal assistance, low-income housing development, and more. It’s clear that John hasn’t let his third-grade education hold him back.

In 1969, his testimony before the McGovern Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs led to The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), a government program that helps feed millions of low-income women, infants and children each month. He has served in an advisory role under several U.S. presidents. He is an international speaker on reconciliation, leadership, and community development. Sixteen colleges have recognized his life and work with honorary doctorate degrees. Three colleges have established John Perkins Centers.

(Courtesy of John Perkins)

John, now Dr. Perkins, still has hope for the future. “The Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution are the greatest statements on human dignity,” he often says. While America hasn’t always lived up to it, for the first time, Perkins now sees “a generation that values differences. One of the greatest statements in the world” he says, “is ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’”

Although he’s quick to clarify that he’s still alive, and “still listening,” Perkins has imagined what it’s going to be like when he meets his mother on the other side. He will borrow the words of Thurgood Marshall. “I’m going to say, ‘Momma, I tried. I did what I could with what I had.’” Her response will likely be the second “Well done” that John hears.

(Courtesy of John Perkins)

For more information about John Perkins, and his free video class on living with purpose and passion, visit JohnMPerkins.com

Categories
Features

Learning Through Love and Resilience

(Junhao Su for American Essence)

Karen Framnes is a mother, wife, worker, and ultra long-distance runner who lives with her family—husband, teenage daughter, and their pets—in Rocklin, California, where the San Francisco 49ers football team holds its summer training camp. To say that she tackles many tasks daily understates the case greatly. For Karen and her better half, Kjell, rearing Olivia, their 14-year-old special-needs daughter, is a full-time task. Thus, achieving and sustaining a life-work balance is an everyday reality that Karen navigates, rain or shine. On the surface, her balancing act might look like a parent-guided effort of huge proportions. However, below the surface, Olivia is a big player. In fact, she is a driving force of inspiration in the daily life of Karen, who describes Olivia as “feisty” and “strong.”

Olivia displayed her resolute characteristics soon after birth. As a newborn, she battled not one but multiple life-threatening medical issues—every parent’s worst fear. They required many surgeries and therapies, according to Karen. She marvels at Olivia’s resolve to overcome the obstacles that life has put in her way. “Olivia has overcome tremendous physical and mental challenges due to her disabilities,” Karen says. It is Olivia’s responses to her diagnoses, which include cerebral palsy, that continue to inspire Karen.

“This girl has dug very deep to overcome them,” Karen says. “She has fought meningitis, stabilizing bad gastrointestinal issues, overcoming very scary breathing apnea, and other health issues. Olivia has this great strength and fights hard to thrive. She is strong and gets back up quickly. It truly inspires me to dig deep to overcome my own challenges—some have been pretty petty compared to hers.” “Quit” is not a word in Olivia’s vocabulary.

Human beings learn from each other in varied ways. Kids learn from parents. Children also teach parents. Olivia’s resilience to survive against steep odds has rubbed off on Karen in ways big and small, in and out of their home. In part, Olivia’s resolve teaches Karen to roll with the punches that life delivers. On the job, for instance, Karen’s employer might give her an unexpected deadline to finish a project by the end of the business day. Some people might go ballistic in such a scenario. That is not Karen’s response. She accepts the workplace task in stride, seeing it as a minor blip compared with the health and wellness challenges of Olivia’s life.

As an ultra long-distance runner competing in trail races up to 100 miles long, such as the Headlands Hundred that she finished in 37 hours and 37 minutes last August, Karen reaches deep down into herself to flesh out the energy to finish. She has run scores of such races—not that they get easier, as the weather, for instance, can and does change, forcing runners to adapt. Marathoners talk about hitting a wall of fatigue near the end of their 26.2-mile race. By way of comparison, Karen runs nearly four times that distance in her ultra-long race competitions, pushing past fatigue, mentally and physically, to stay on track and finish her races. Thoughts of Olivia battling and overcoming health issues, beginning from infancy, serve as inspiration as Karen runs mile after mile on the ultramarathon course. Life is not a sprint but a long-term project; parenting a special-needs child is a little like the ultramarathons that Karen runs.

Identifying and setting familial priorities is also part of Karen’s life. “Luckily, our son is older and has his own home,” Karen says. “Olivia is the priority in the house. It is a balancing act trying to explain to her to be patient and wait for attention.” Karen knows that her daughter’s behavior is only partly disability-related. It is a case of “cannot and will not”—her daughter can’t do some tasks and simply won’t do others. It is not one or the other, but both. That is easy to say but less so to cope with, day after day, as many adults with disabled kids experience. “Part of it is related to her condition and part is related to her being a teenager,” Karen says.

Olivia’s diagnoses include intellectual disabilities. Karen has a unique approach to help her daughter: she encourages Olivia’s affection for pets. “Olivia loves our dogs. I sometimes feel that is her priority, which warms my heart.” Emphasizing such positive interactions that help Olivia—that is what it takes to make her, Kjell, and Karen move forward. It is a one-step-at-a-time endeavor, a little like finishing an ultramarathon.

Categories
Entrepreneurs Features

From Dog Poop to Electricity

Jendell Duffner is the owner behind central Ohio-based pet waste removal company Green Scoop Pet Waste Management. Founded in 2013, they are the first business in the country to collect pet waste and turn it into energy. According to their website, over 10 million tons of dog waste end up in landfill sites across the country. The company provides residents of central Ohio with a means to lower landfill waste while also supporting alternative sources of energy production. One of Duffner’s greatest achievements is producing many jobs. Since starting the company, she has helped many families earn a living doing a job that they respect. 

Through their Pet Poo Recycling Program, the company provides buckets and supplies to interested pet owners who then fill up their bucket with pet waste and have it collected on a weekly or biweekly basis by Green Scoop Pet employees. The waste is then deposited at a bio facility which collects the methane and converts it into energy in the form of electricity and natural gas. Some of the energy is used to supply power to the processing plant while the rest is fed back to the grid. The solids left behind undergo an extensive cleaning process, removing harmful pathogens and bacteria before being sent to farmers to be used as fertilizer for their fields. 

Duffner also provides an option for cat litter recycling. The company supplies a special cat litter made from locally processed grain in a pellet form that owners can use to compost their cat’s waste and turn it into energy! 

‘I’ve Always Been Passionate About the Environment’

Image courtesy of Duffner.

While in high school, she embarked on an environmental project which led to her convincing the mayor into purchasing a wood chipper for their small town in Bucyrus, Ohio rather than burn piles of branches that fell during the ice storms. 

After college, she continued her environmental studies, receiving training in naturalism and tree identification. With each new experience, Duffer realized she wanted to do more.

She always wished to start her own environmental business but didn’t want to compete with larger franchises. She settled on pet waste recycling but needed to come up with a unique angle—something that was missing from the businesses of the time. Having a background in environmental science was a huge advantage for her as it meant that she had a solid foundation. 

Duffner’s vision was to start up a business that turned pet waste into energy. During her research, she came across two existing companies that composted pet waste and used the output to generate fuel for energy. Inspired, Duffner went about incorporating that into her business model. However, it wasn’t what she had hoped it would be. Profit margins were incredibly low and the energy required to break down the pet waste was exceptionally high, resulting in great financial setbacks for her company. 

Learning From Her Mistakes

“As a business, you need to be able to make a profit to make a difference. And you need to be able to pay people properly,” she said. To offset the high operating cost, one would need a steady stream of customers, which would mean collecting a lot of waste. “It takes a lot of knowledge to use the right ingredients and recipes to make them [pet waste] break down on a timely basis,” said Duffner. “So for it to break down, you have to have a really expensive in-vessel.” The basic equipment itself tends to cost upwards of 200,000 USD, making it not the most cost-effective model for most small businesses. One needs to also ensure that the temperature in the in-vessel is high enough—131° F or greater, to destroy harmful pathogens present in pet waste—a very precise operation that can only be achieved through commercial means and techniques. For Duffner, it meant changing her business model to better suit her requirements. 

Despite the many difficulties and financial losses, Duffner realized that she could still make a difference without having to be directly involved in the composting. “I can do what I can, still make a profit while offering a good service, and still be able to grow my business,” she said. For her, the main focus was always about providing the best possible service to customers to ensure profitability which would, in turn, allow her to provide jobs for her employees. “Make sure you’re offering a service that they value. And then you integrate things from there. That’s how you can continue to make a difference. Not by trying to completely change every aspect of things that currently work,” she said.

‘Producing Jobs Is my Biggest Joy’

Duffner’s biggest source of joy is the ability to provide jobs to people. This effort has now become the main focus of her operation. “I have employees that depend on me for paychecks,” said Duffner. “When you have an employee come up to you and say thank you, because of you, I was able to buy a dependable vehicle. Because of you, I was able to move out of my sister’s house and get my own place. Thank you so much for giving me a job. That’s what really matters.”

She advises that the best way for people to help the environment is through reusing products. If you have a lot of plastic bags or you know someone at work who is getting rid of them, ask them to save them for you. Then, you could use it to pick up dog waste or to hold your produce at the grocery store. This is a more sustainable and environmentally friendly solution to purchasing more bags.

Categories
Features

Allan Benton: A Tennessee Country Ham Legend

Allan Benton outside Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams in 2014. (Sara Wood/Southern Foodways Alliance)

In a small roadside smokehouse in Madisonville, Tennessee, Allan Benton crafts what top chefs across the United States consider the gold standard of country ham and bacon. The potent, provocative smell of hickory smoke draws in any visitor—and anyone who tries the finished product.

Since Benton started the business 47 years ago, Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams has become a Southern legend. His dry-cured and smoked hams and thick-cut bacon, made by hand the way his grandparents did, can be found on the menus of leading chefs throughout the South and beyond, including David Chang and Tom Colicchio in New York and Chris Shepherd in Houston. The business has been featured in foodways exhibits at the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville and the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans, and Benton was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America in 2015.

But despite all the recognition, Benton still describes himself—in his thick Southern drawl—as “a country hillbilly just trying to make a great quality product.”

Allan Benton in front of racks of hanging country hams. (Sara Wood/Southern Foodways Alliance)

Rural Roots and a Family Recipe

Benton was born and raised in rural Scott County, Virginia. His family farmed and ate what they raised, including heritage-breed hogs that were allowed to naturally forage for their food, growing fat on acorns and other nuts in the Southern Appalachian forest. Benton’s grandparents cured country hams in a log smokehouse behind their house.

After earning a master’s in psychology from Middle Tennessee State University, Benton intended to work as a high school counselor. But when he saw the salary range, he decided owning his own business would provide more financial security.

In 1973, he approached Albert H. Hicks, a dairy farmer who had been curing and selling country hams out of a small building since 1947. Hicks, nearing retirement, agreed to lease his space to Benton, who started curing his own hams using the recipe he learned from his grandparents.

Benton researched everything he could about the curing process and running a business, and credits Hicks for being a helpful mentor. In 1978, Benton moved to his current location in Madisonville, off Highway 411 North.

An archival photo from Benton’s. (Sara Wood/Southern Foodways Alliance)

Building a Brand by Word of Mouth

Benton has never advertised, instead relying on word of mouth. But the business was by no means an overnight success.

The first 25 years were a struggle to keep the doors open, Benton said. Customers were used to buying mass-produced pork products, not heritage meats, but Benton stayed true to his mission focusing on quality products and his family recipe.

For years, the business stayed small and local—no e-commerce, not even a credit card machine. Even now, Benton’s still has only around 20 employees.

In 2000, Benton’s son, Darrell, now a physician in Knoxville, built his father a website while he was attending college. “No one will buy my dang products from a computer!” Benton told him. The day after the site launched, Benton’s had seven orders. He was flabbergasted.

Benton’s big break came when John Fleer, then executive chef at Blackberry Farm, a luxury inn nearby in Walland, Tennessee, started placing orders.

“I had been at Blackberry Farm for a short time in 1993 and was searching for locally crafted food products. Benton’s wasn’t far from Blackberry Farm,” said Fleer, who now owns Rhubarb restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina. “I called up Allan Benton and asked for samples. He brought them over in an old blue pickup with a cab on the back.”

Benton said: “Back when chef Fleer called me up, I had no idea what Blackberry Farm was. I thought it was just a country cafe. Was I ever amazed!”

“The coolest thing was inviting Allan and his wife, Sharon, to Blackberry Farm for the first time for dinner, and having him see us using his product in ways he would not have imagined,” Fleer said. “One dish I remember he really liked [was] our wild sturgeon wrapped in his aged ham and seared.”

As Blackberry Farm’s reputation grew, it developed a cooking program with visiting guest chefs.

“We’d give all the guest chefs a care package of bacon and ham as a thank you gift,” said Fleer. For some of these chefs, it was their first taste of Benton’s products. Before long, they were appearing on menus outside of the South.

Benton’s Signature Style

Benton’s hams and bacon start with pasture-raised, antibiotic-free pork, sourced from family farms in the Midwest. He uses only heritage pork, older breeds such as Berkshire, Duroc, and Red Wattle, which have more intramuscular fat, similar to European pigs such as Spain’s renowned black Ibérico.

As Benton puts it, “you have to start with something good to make something good.”

The fresh hams are coated with a simple rub of salt, brown sugar, and red and black pepper—Benton’s family recipe—and a scant amount of sodium nitrite to comply with federal food safety guidelines. They’re then hung in a temperature-controlled room and left to dry-cure for anywhere from nine to 30 months, releasing moisture, intensifying in flavors, and taking on a rosy hue. To make his bacon, Benton coats slabs of pork belly with a rub of salt, pepper, and brown sugar by hand, then dry-cures them for an average of 30 days.

“Every product we make is like a barrel of whiskey that needs to be aged a certain amount of time,” said Benton.

Finally, the cured pork belly and hams destined to be hickory-smoked are taken to the smokehouse behind the building for the final touch.

Hanging hams. (Sara Wood/Southern Foodways Alliance)
Slabs of pork belly, destined to become bacon. (Sara Wood/Southern Foodways Alliance)

Chefs and home cooks alike rave about the results.

“When I first tasted Benton’s bacon, I thought, ‘Wow!’ I’d never had anything like it before,” said Chris Shepherd, chef and owner of Georgia James in Houston, Texas. “It gives a depth of flavor and smokiness that’s unmatched—it’s the smokiest bacon you’ll ever eat.”

“In addition to its nice smoke profile, Benton’s bacon is a little thicker and chewier,” said Chris Spear, chef and owner of Perfect Little Bites in Washington, D.C.

As for the country ham? “I’d put Benton’s up there with the finest European charcuterie,” Spear said.

Weathering the Pandemic

Before the pandemic, Benton’s cured between 17,000 and 18,000 hams a year in its 18,000-square-foot building. But with restaurants making up 75 percent of their business, Benton’s main customer base all but disappeared when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. To make matters worse, packinghouses in the Midwest were closed, reducing his source for pork for months.

Since his cured hams take more than a year to produce, Benton had to quickly refocus to selling other meats, such as USDA choice beef tenderloin and steak, which he continues to offer.

“As grocery stores experienced shortages of meat on their shelves, we saw an increase in local foot traffic and e-commerce. We kept our prices low—$4 a pound versus $8 a pound at the grocery stores—to help our customers,” Benton said.

Despite all his success, Benton remains unpretentious and grateful to be in business after 47 years.

“I owe all of my success to my loyal customers, especially to the chefs who use my products on their menus,” he said.

“He’s a good human,” said Shepherd. “The first time I met him, I was visiting Blackberry Farm Brewery in Tennessee, and Allan just walked in the door. I was starstruck. I told him, ‘I’ve been wanting to meet you!’ And he replied, ‘I’ve been wanting to meet you, too!’”

Benton’s Cooking Tips

How does Allan Benton cook his famous hams at home?

“This East Tennessee hillbilly just likes to slice up a piece of one-year-old ham and cook it in a greased skillet for about 12 seconds on each side, and serve it with biscuits and gravy,” Benton said. “Overcooking the ham can result in a tougher, saltier slice.”

“Our aged hams, more than 14 months old, are best served thinly sliced on a charcuterie plate with bread or crackers.”

As for bacon, Benton prefers to cook it in a 350-degree oven for around 16 minutes. For those who prefer pan-frying, he shared advice from his wife, Sharon: “[She] says you have to play with your bacon, turning until crisp. You can’t just leave it in the pan and walk away. Bacon should not be overcooked. You want it to bend a bit without breaking.”

Benton’s Smoky Mountain Country Hams
2603 Hwy. 411 North, Madisonville, Tenn.
423-442-5003
BentonsCountryHams2.com

Melanie Young writes about wine, food, travel, and health. She is the food editor for Santé Magazine, co-host of the weekly national radio show “The Connected Table LIVE!” and host of “Fearless Fabulous You!” both on iHeart.com (and other podcast platforms). Instagram@theconnectedtable Twitter@connectedtable

Categories
Features Generation to Generation

Leidenheimer Baking Company: A 125-Year-Old New Orleans Tradition

Robert J. Whann IV, known as Sandy, and Katherine Whann, fourth-generation members of the family, run the business today. Behind them is a framed photo of George Leidenheimer. (Photograph taken by the Southern Foodways Alliance)

New Orleans is passionate about its bread, especially when it comes to the po-boy. Some say the city’s signature sandwich, usually stuffed with fried oysters, shrimp, roast beef, sausage, or meatballs, isn’t the real deal unless it’s served on a locally baked Leidenheimer loaf.

“The most important part of the po-boy is the bread,” said Joanne Domilise, one of the family members who runs Domilise’s Po-Boy & Bar. “Leidenheimer’s bread has a crispy crust and is light and airy inside. It’s not bready or doughy like a hoagie or submarine. If you don’t have the right bread, it’s just not a po-boy.”

Like Domilise’s, and many other local institutions, the G.H. Leidenheimer (pronounced LYE-den-high-mer) Baking Company is a century-old family food business. It’s been a hub of New Orleans French bread baking for 125 years.

Po-boys made with Leidenheimer’s New Orleans French bread, famed for its thin, crisp crust and light, airy insides. (Courtesy of Leidenheimer Baking Co.)

A Family Legacy

Founder George Leidenheimer immigrated to New Orleans from Deidesheim, Germany in the late 1800s, and established his namesake bakery in 1896. Initially, he made the dark, dense brown breads popular in his homeland. But he found success perfecting lighter French-style breads to complement the local cuisine, which draws from the bounty of the Gulf waters and the city’s Creole and Acadian heritage.

As the nation’s interest in regional American cooking and artisan foods grew over the years, and New Orleans became a tourism hub known for its outstanding restaurants, recognition for Leidenheimer’s distinct breads grew.

Being a local family-run business was also important.

“Family culture is everything in New Orleans,” said Robert J. Whann IV, known as Sandy, a fourth-generation member of the Leidenheimer family. “People return home to this city to be with their families. That’s why it has many multigenerational families who run businesses.”

Whann’s grandmother was George Leidenheimer’s only daughter, Josephine. Her husband, Robert J. Whann Jr., took over the company with his brother, Richard.

Sandy Whann joined the company in 1986, after college, and today, he runs it with his sister, Katherine.

“I’ve been fortunate during my 35-year tenure to work with Katherine to manage the company. My brother-in-law, Mitch, has served as operations manager for 20 years. My son, William, and daughter, Katie, are now also involved with the company.”

Robert J. Whann IV, known as Sandy, and Katherine Whann, in front of a photo of George Leidenheimer. (Photograph taken by the Southern Foodways Alliance)

Whann takes carrying on the family baking tradition seriously. You won’t see a gluten-free loaf coming out of this bakery.

“We produce traditional New Orleans French bread, and we are blessed that we are kept busy doing it. When we are approached about doing something new we have to consider it very carefully. We are not going to jump on the bandwagon and bend to trends,” he said.

Since 1904, Leidenheimer’s baking headquarters have been in a large white brick building on Simon Bolivar Avenue in the central city. Many of the company’s 100 or so employees represent multiple generations.

“Being family-run with many long-tenured employees is a potent combination for success. We have route salesmen who have been with us over 40 years, and many bakery employees for 20 years,” said Whann.

Bakery workers. (Leidenheimer Baking Co. Photo Archives)
The building exterior. (Leidenheimer Baking Co. Photo Archives)

A Time-Honored Process

My mother used to tell me New Orleans’s bread has a unique texture because of the water. Whann acknowledged that the local water has a good pH level for making bread, but explained the time-honored process in further detail.

Leidenheimer’s bread is made with flour, yeast, water, and a little salt and sugar. Lard was removed in the 1960s and replaced by small amounts of soybean oil. The flour is milled from a high-gluten spring wheat, sourced in the Dakotas and shipped to Ardent Mills near Baton Rouge. The company has been milling flour for Leidenheimer’s for 70 years.

“We start with the best ingredients and let time and temperature do their work through natural fermentation,” Whann said. “All our po-boy loaves are hand-stretched. Our bakery workers know by touch when the dough is right, from how much water to add to how long to stretch it to achieve that light consistency.”

Historical photo of the “mixing department.” (Leidenheimer Baking Co. Photo Archives)
Historical photo of the “moulding department.” (Leidenheimer Baking Co. Photo Archives)

Once the dough is ready, the baking process involves copious amounts of steam and monitoring the temperature to achieve just the right texture.

Weather is also an important factor. “New Orleans is an inhospitable place for bakers. We have two seasons: It’s either hot and cold [in the winter] or hot and hotter [in the summer],” Whann said. “Our bakers need to be aware of the weather conditions since the dough is sensitive to atmospheric conditions such as humidity and temperature.

“For French bread, which is inherently light, on a day with 100 percent humidity, it acts like a sponge. We have to bake the bread more to keep its texture. On colder days, we need to bake the bread less.”

Historical photo of the “baking department.” (Leidenheimer Baking Co. Photo Archives)

Legendary Loaves

Leidenheimer produces a small variety of artisan breads, sold locally and distributed nationally. There are three main types:

Its signature pistolet is an oblong loaf with a very crisp crust and a fluffy interior—a texture many compare to cotton candy. Available in different sizes, up to 12 inches long, the pistolet is usually served warm, wrapped in white napkins, at fine dining restaurants like Commander’s Palace and Galatoire’s.

“I can always tell locals from the visitors when our pistolet is brought to the table,” Whann said. While visitors reach for a fork and knife, “locals just grab the bread and tear it apart with their hands to share with their table companions.” Either way, the light-as-air loaf is heavenly slathered with butter.

The po-boy loaf is a 32-inch-long French bread loaf used for the namesake sandwich. Unlike a traditional French baguette, which has tapered ends, a po-boy loaf, like the pistolet, is uniform from end to end.

The muffaletta is a large, round, seeded bread used to make a sandwich by the same name. Another New Orleans icon, the muffaletta sandwich is a savory combination of salami, ham, provolone cheese, marinated olives, and giardiniera, said to have been created in 1906 by Central Grocery in the French Quarter, to feed the Italian immigrants who worked at the nearby dockyards.

Locals Loyal to the Last Crumb

New Orleans has many family-run bakeries known for their signature products, whether cakes, pastries, or breads. But when it comes to New Orleans French bread, loyalists always look to Leidenheimer’s.

“Leidenheimer’s is the only bread in town with that crackly crust. It’s both an art and a science to make it with such consistency,” said Justin Kennedy, general manager and head chef at Parkway Bakery and Tavern. They sell about 2000 sandwiches a day. “We lightly toast our bread to bring out that crunch even more.”

That loyalty transcends distance. At Local Catch Bar and Grill in Santa Rosa, Florida, chef Adam Yellin, a transplant from New Orleans, only uses Leidenheimer bread for the restaurant’s po-boys. “When I was living in New Orleans, we’d squeeze the bread a little and listen for the outside crunch to know it was fresh,” he recalled.

“Good to the last crumb,” is Leidenheimer’s slogan—and it’s true. New Orleanians know to ask for extra napkins and a crumb catcher when they tear apart a pistolet or devour a po-boy. All that crust leaves a beautiful mess of crumbs!

The Po-Boy: Perfect End-To-End

The history of the po’boy explains how the unique loaf for the sandwich was created.

Louisiana-born brothers Bennie and Clovis Martin worked as streetcar conductors before opening Martin Brothers Restaurant in the French Quarter in 1922. In 1929, when the streetcar workers went on strike, the Martin Brothers, sympathetic to the workers’ plight, gave them free sandwiches filled with fried potatoes, gravy, and bits of roast beef on French bread loaves. When a striking worker would come into the restaurant, one of the brothers would call out, “Here comes another poor boy.”

As Whann tells the story: “Back then, the bread was a traditional French baguette with tapered ends. The person who received the middle portion of the sandwich made out like a bandit, but those with the ends were not as fortunate. The Martin Brothers asked a local baker, John Gendusa, to make a 32-inch loaf that could be cut into equal-size sandwiches. No one would be stuck with the ends.” The sizable, shareable sandwich was a hit and became part of the Martin Brothers regular menu.

Now, the ubiquitous sandwich can be found on many menus, from small po-boy shops to fine restaurants throughout New Orleans and beyond.

Melanie Young writes about wine, food, travel, and health. She is the food editor for Santé Magazine, co-host of the weekly national radio show “The Connected Table LIVE!” and host of “Fearless Fabulous You!” both on iHeart.com (and other podcast platforms). Instagram@theconnectedtable Twitter@connectedtable

Categories
Features

Chuck Masek on How to Fight a Battle ‘Against All Odds’

Chuck Masek, author of "At War With the Big Dogs." (Courtesy of Chuck Masek)

Chuck Masek is known as the man who spearheaded the billion-dollar industry of reprocessing single-use medical devices, but when he started out in the medical tech field, in a tiny lab where he spent day in and day out doing things like looking at stool samples under a microscope, he had no inkling life would go in that direction. Being called a “visionary” never sat well with him.

Reprocessing is little known to industry outsiders—essentially it means cleaning and sterilizing a medical device, like an electric scalpel, making it safe for medical use again instead of sending it to the landfill.

“The company was started because I needed a job, and I needed to save the house, that’s all it was,” said Masek.

The story of David is the story of the little boy who defeated a giant with only his stones, his slingshot, and God on his side. That “protection by Providence” made David the symbol of Florence, a little republic that faced countless battles, giants compared to its own history and size.

Masek’s story is definitely a David and Goliath story. Throughout it all, he saw the hand of providence, he said. He also had science on his side.

“I mean, we should have never survived, we should have been trampled by the big companies, we’re talking multibillion-dollar corporations. We were playing in their sandbox and they did not like it, and they did everything they could” to drive newcomers like Masek out of the field. He recounts the endless battles in his memoir “At War With the Big Dogs.” But they made it through.

“I look back in amazement,” he said. “In the process of building Vanguard, certain things had to happen that I didn’t know had to happen, and if it didn’t happen, we’d be out of business. So I know I didn’t do it, I was privileged to lead … the men and women who fought this battle, and it was a bloody battle,” Masek said.

“At War With the Big Dogs” by Chuck Masek. ( (Courtesy of Chuck Masek)

Timing

The first part of Masek’s career is filled with betrayal; as a medical device salesman, he was moving all over the country—19 moves in the first 13 years of his marriage with his wife Marge, with each of his four children born in a different state. He had money, ideas, and business stolen from him.

“I lost everything in a bad business deal in Haiti,” he said. “I was 40 years old, I was a quarter of a million dollars in debt, I had four children age 7 to 13, and we were about to lose the house. It was a hard time. And a lot of times, these things will destroy a marriage, but my Marge, we circled the wagons, and she said, ‘Chuck, this wasn’t your fault.'”

“My wife is from North Dakota, she’s a farmer’s daughter, and she is made of strong stuff. She’s actually the most amazing person in my life, there is not a person in the world that I trust more than her,” he said.

He and Marge are often asked what the secret to their strong marriage is, and they tell people, “Love God first.” They decided that early on, when they both became believers in college.

“If we love God first, then we can love each other. Because if we love each other and we don’t love God, there’s no way the marriage will survive,” he said. Everything God tells you to do is for a benefit, he said, and he may have a lot of rules, but if you actually look at the rules, they’re all good things.

So at his lowest point, but with Marge on his side, Masek only knew that he wasn’t going to let betrayal define his story, and he jumped back into the fray.

The company Masek had lost had done reprocessing of towels, so he already knew about reprocessing, but it was a chance encounter with a nurse and a package on her desk that launched Masek’s next business idea.

It was a suture pack that a small independent company had reprocessed, and Masek was confused because when he sold medical devices, the big manufacturers would reprocess them for free if only the outer layer was opened. Suture packages have an outer portion that is often opened in anticipation of surgery, and an inner, sterile seal that is left intact if not used, Masek said. Then the nurse told him the big manufacturers weren’t doing it anymore, and it likely had something to do with the big scare around the AIDS epidemic. It could have been a liability issue.

Unbeknownst to Masek at the time, two big events had led to where he was now. The Medicare Act of 1965 had made it so that Medicare would reimburse based on the cost of surgery, and nearly overnight, manufacturers started labeling devices “single use” even if they were the same exact glass or carbon fiber device previously considered a reusable device, and it was all up for reimbursement. But then in the 1980s, reimbursement costs were fixed depending on the type of diagnosis, which had hospitals scrambling to cut down costs. And medical devices were now the second-highest cost of surgery.

He started reprocessing devices for hospitals at half the cost of whatever they originally paid for the device.

Masek had two main obstacles now, the “yuck” factor, and the big manufacturers, and he used science to refute each one. The former would be far easier than the latter. First he showed clients that many of these devices were originally meant to be reprocessed and reused, not thrown into landfills after a single use. And the longer he was in business the more data he had, so Masek was able to show that reprocessed devices were far less likely to cause infection than even new devices, because every reprocessed device is tested, and new devices aren’t.

A ‘Win-Win-Win’

Early on, a nurse asked Masek a very prescient question: Aren’t you worried about the Big Dogs getting into the business and squashing you? But that question raised a second one: Why would these big companies reprocess devices for free or for half cost, when they could insist on selling you a new one at full price?

The operation began as a tiny one. Vanguard Medical Concepts was just Masek, Doug Stante rigging up new machines to clean and sterilize devices, and 19-year-old Steve Bernardo writing software to track their data.

But they believed in it and it grew, because they saw it as a win-win-win. Hospitals could cut costs as well as divert thousands of pounds of biomedical waste from the landfills, patients benefited from the cost savings and safe devices, and Vanguard had created hundreds of jobs.

It was when they started getting big that the original device manufacturers began to take notice. First they tried to frame reprocessing as distasteful—but that only gave Vanguard the opportunity to educate clients on how they reprocessed devices and why it was sterile. Then they accused Vanguard of not being FDA-approved, and the FDA said it was because they wouldn’t know where to start in regulating this new industry. Vanguard all but volunteered to become the guinea pigs for regulation, letting FDA regulators poke and prod and ask endless questions in the process of not only proving that reprocessing was safe and beneficial, but could be regulated.

“The manufacturers did many things over the years that were designed to hurt us, but it actually helped us,” he said. But only because they stuck to the science and showed people relentlessly that the science was true.

Masek had successes, but the problem was that the battles seemed endless, and it was shocking the lengths his opponents would go to.

“I was always going for the prize, but when I got there, it wasn’t what I thought it was,” Masek said.

Perspective

You don’t endure countless battles with everything stacked against you—money, power, influence—unless you know you’re doing something right. Masek said his guiding philosophy that God was in charge, not him, led his story.

“I tell people all the time, we don’t own anything, to own something you have to create it and there is only one Creator. We actually manage stuff. Someday I’ll die, and God’ll give it to somebody else to manage, and I’ll be happy about that,” Masek said.

Masek tells his children the most important word is “perspective.”

“All through life, I tell my children, the world never gets it right, it goes the wrong way,” Masek said. “Raising my children, I tell them things are never as good as they seem and they’re never as bad as they seem. Keep your perspective. They’re just things.”

“God is always in control. No matter how bad you think things are, He is still God and he still has control,” Masek said.

Masek said the first reason he went back to revisit all the battles Vanguard weathered in order to write the book was to honor all the good men and women who were a part of it.

“It’s for their children or grandchildren, to tell them what grandma or grandpa did,” he said. “The second reason is for any men and women who find themselves in a battle against all odds, that the fight does not always go to the big dogs.”

Chuck and Marge Masek. (Courtesy of Chuck Masek)
Chuck and Marge Masek. (Courtesy of Chuck Masek)