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people + places   |   eats + things

a new brewery 'teas' up in athens

8/6/2019

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Kombucha, a probiotic fermented tea, has a distinctively tart taste. It contains a negligible amount of alcohol, and can be enjoyed alone or in cocktails and mocktails. The beverage isn’t new, but it’s only beginning to gain traction in the Classic City thanks to Erika Galloway and Jason Dean, co-founders of Figment.

“Budweiser is not like a pastry stout, and there’s that much variety in kombucha, too. Some are really crazy vinegary, some are super-carbonated, some are light, some are heavily flavored,” Dean said. 
​
Figment kombucha is available by the glass or in growlers, which are a glass jug-style vessel. Unlike beer in growlers, live-cultured kombucha will continue to naturally carbonate inside the container, allowing it to stay crisp and drinkable longer.
The brewery’s core flavors are ginger, lemongrass and turmeric; rosé; and blueberry-lavender. Seasonal flavors this year included mango-chile-lime and jasmine mojito, and upcoming flavors for fall and winter will play with apples, spruce tips, cinnamon and barrel aging. It was the blueberry-lavender that first came together and gave Dean the vision for what his bottle shop kombucha program could grow into.

Dean and Galloway met working at a local bottle and homebrew shop. A manager there had been making kombucha, and Dean was approached about taking over the project.

“We saw the clientele in the business kind of grow and we thought, you know what, there’s no kombucha brewery in Athens. It’s ridiculous and we should have one,” he said. 

Eventually the partnership broke away from the bottle shop and became its own entity, named 
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Figment co-founder Erika Galloway pours a cup of mango-chile-lime kombucha at the Baxter Street taproom.
after the beer brewery Dean originally planned to start.
​
“It costs a lot less to get into kombucha. There’s a lot less barrier in entry into market. There’s a lot of potential there, so I thought it’d be better to go that direction than spend $2 million on a brewery that may or may not make it,” he said. “I just liked the fact that [Figment] is a name that’s kind of strange and doesn’t mean a whole lot to anyone specifically, and it’s kind of an ethereal word that anyone could bring their own meaning to.”
>> from figment of imagination to reality

Kombucha is fermented by a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast — also known as a SCOBY. SCOBYs tend to look like flat discs or mushrooms that take hold at the top of a container as the bacteria and yeast huddle together and create a physical form. The SCOBY, along with additional “starter liquid” that contains the bacteria and yeast, is added to water, sugar and tea to get the process going. When Galloway first became interested in kombucha, she read online that it was possible to purchase a container of GT’s plain kombucha, and as long as it had a small piece of SCOBY in the bottom, it could be cultivated into a larger colony. 
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SCOBYs, or symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeast, and starter liquid are what ferment tea into Figment kombucha. Here, SCOBYs sit and wait to be utilized in the fermenting process.
Galloway and Dean have produced starter liquid so strong that they no longer add the physical SCOBY to their brews. 

It takes anywhere from 10 to 30 days to finish a batch of kombucha, depending on the amount being produced. After a period of primary fermentation, where the unflavored tea reaches the appropriate sourness and yeast turns the sugar to alcohol, the SCOBY and starter are removed, and what’s left is flavored and undergoes a secondary fermentation process. During secondary fermentation, kombucha naturally carbonates itself as the bacteria digest the alcohol. Figment’s owners also chose to add additional carbonation at the end to ensure product consistency. All in all, brewing kombucha isn’t much different from brewing beer.

“It’s still the same principle and it’s based off of that because both [Dean] and I were into beer,” she said. “All the equipment that you use is the same as if you were brewing beer. We have to use a hot water pot, which is the hot liquor tank for boiling water. We steep, which is the same thing as using your mash tun with your grains. Then we add the additional sugar once you take the tea out and we cool it down, so you’re still chilling it like you would with beer, and then we go into fermentation.”
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Figment’s owners prefer to use a blend of black and green teas for their kombucha. Galloway said white tea also works well, but the main thing is to ensure the tea is caffeinated: “Your bacteria need the caffeine for an energy source.”
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Enjoying a spicy version of mango-chile-lime kombucha at the taproom.
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A glimpse inside the Baxter Street taproom where Figment is brewed and served.
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Co-founder Erika Galloway holds a handful of tea — the heart of kombucha, if you will.
>> farm-fresh focus

Dean said Figment’s focus is on taking advantage of the seasons and fresh, local ingredients as often as possible.

“It’s going to be a little more time-intensive and expensive to use seasonal, local ingredients, but I think it’s better for the economy. It’s better for the farmers,” Dean said. “It’s going to taste better; it’s going to be more interesting. There’s a story behind it.”
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Farmers markets play an integral role in Figment’s business model. Not only are they a way to source raw materials, but the exposure there has been unparalleled. 
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Co-founder Jason Dean serves up a cup of kombucha at the Saturday morning Athens Farmers Market at Bishop Park.
“The market’s been awesome,” Dean said. “It’s a great way to be able to sell without having to pay a distributor, pay a retailer. It’s all just whatever you bring yourself, you make yourself, you get all the money and get it in front of everyone who shows up there, which is a lot of people.”

He said originally the Athens Farmers Market was supposed to serve as supplemental income and be an exposure point, but the two quickly realized it was a vital part of their business plan. 

“It’s kind of a thing we can count on to make rent every month,” Dean said. “There’s still a lot of people who’ve never even heard of [kombucha], surprisingly. I think we’re getting there and part of our job is just, at these markets, is to educate people and let them taste it."
He wants to look at kombucha brewing more from a restaurant focus.

“I’m very influenced by kind of culinary things,” Dean said. “I like to think of brewing, even beer brewing, as it cooking. You’re thinking of ingredients and how those ingredients go together and not necessarily like, what’s going to sell or what are kind of popular flavors that everybody else is doing. I want to think of different things you don’t see on the shelf.”

The two found out the hard way that there are some flavors harder to capture than others. Ambrosia — coconut, pineapple and cherry — didn’t turn out so well, and neither did root beer.

“We thought we’d make a full-on natural one using the roots and trying to duplicate the flavor of root beer, but it just tasted like roots,” Dean said.
​
Galloway agreed, saying it was one of those things you might taste and ask if there are supposed to be health benefits from.
There are some purported probiotic benefits from kombucha, but it doesn’t have to taste funky for that to be the case. Probiotics are “live microorganisms that are intended to have health benefits,” per the National Institutes of Health. Yogurt, supplements and fermented foods — like kombucha! — are ways to add probiotics such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium bacteria and Saccharomyces boulardii yeast to the diet. According to an August 2018 piece from Harvard Medical School, clinical studies suggest that “probiotic therapy” can aid in gastrointestinal issues, 
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Kombucha batches "cook" in the back area of Figment's taproom.
allergies and treating vaginal and urinary tract infections.

However, NIH cautions, “benefits have not been conclusively demonstrated, and not all probiotics have the same effects.”

“There’s a lot of argument as to what exactly is probiotic and what these things are really doing inside your body and how they really work,” Dean said. “It’s just now, surprisingly, starting to be studied. This thing that has been done for thousands of years is still not fully scientifically understood, like, what does happen to kombucha in the actual gut and what’s specifically going on here? Right now we’re just still kind of going on anecdotal evidence that people feel better.”

The NIH piece goes on to say that “strong scientific evidence” to support probiotic use for most health conditions is lacking, and the US Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved any probiotics for preventing or treating health problems.
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Cocktails made with blueberry-lavender kombucha, photographed at The Old Pal in Athens, Georgia.
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A cocktail made with ginger-lemongrass-turmeric kombucha, photographed at Trappeze Pub in Athens, Georgia.
​>> brewing the kombucha culture

Figment’s owners hope to see their reach — and perhaps health benefits — expand to bottles or cans by the end of this fiscal year.

Both said the most challenging part of their brewery is that they are its only two employees: they brainstorm and brew; they clean; they work the two market days each week, plus other area events; they run the taproom on Baxter Street. And that’s not even going into the bookkeeping, paperwork and other day-to-day business tasks.

They’re up to the task, and though lacking in sleep at the moment, are excited for the opportunities they have coming up. Figment was given a coveted spot at music, arts and rustic lifestyle weekend Wildwood Revival this September.

“Oh, it’s huge,” Galloway said of being part of Wildwood. “It’s our demographic of customers that actually go there because they’re interested in those small, handcrafted artisan products.”
​
Recently Figment partnered with Georgia-based beverage distributor Modern Hops, meaning even more Peach State foodies will have access to the drink this year.
​
“My goal, anyway, is to market the best kombucha in the world. It seems crazy in a place that’s on Baxter Street in a little plaza building, but we’ll get there,” Dean said. “Whether we grow into the big brewery or not remains to be seen, but I think that follows just being the best product rather than growing and putting something out that I’m not necessarily proud of. The growth will happen naturally if the product is sought after and good.”

<< drink up >> 
Figment kombucha is available for purchase by the glass or in growlers at its Baxter Street taproom, at the Saturday morning Athens Farmers Market and the Wednesday afternoon farmers market at Creature Comforts. It is also available in select breweries and restaurants in the Athens, Greensboro and metro Atlanta areas.
Follow the brewery on Facebook + Instagram.
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Disclosure:​ The cocktail photos in this piece were part of a separate, paid project. This story and other images were of my own volition.
Georgia’s full of locally owned businesses. Which one should be featured next?
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an accidental lesson in selfishness

7/8/2019

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The first thing I saw on Instagram this morning was an on-point quote from fellow University of Georgia graduate Olori Swank, now a celebrity fashion stylist and entrepreneur: “Achieving your goals is a slow process; but quitting won’t speed it up.”

Yes. Let’s talk about that.

If you’ve been following me for any amount of time these past seven months, you may remember that in January, my skincare + cosmetics company announced an opportunity for consultants and directors to earn an all-expenses paid trip to Miami and Bahamas cruise. You may also recall that I really wanted to earn it. But on June 30, the last day to finish qualifications and get myself on the boat … I fell short.

And I fell short because I learned a really, really powerful lesson the hard way.
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one of my progress markers for the cruise. as you can see, i made much more headway on sales than sharing by early may!
​To earn the cruise, we had to do a combination of reaching a sales goal, welcoming new consultants and building consultants into leaders. I reached the sales goal about a month before the qualification deadline, but I resisted and hesitated on sharing my company’s opportunity. I didn’t want to be pushy. I didn’t want anyone to think I was begging them. I didn’t want to be “that girl” who people defriend and block because I asked them to get together for a facial, a makeover or watch a video about my company. 

Long story short, I didn’t earn the cruise because I didn’t do the necessary work to share about my company. 

Let’s dig a little deeper into that. Into my fear and hesitance. Into me knowing that the only 
way I would ever achieve the goals I set was by doing the very thing I was refusing to do. I didn’t quit, exactly, but I definitely closed myself off to this side of the business. That was … selfish.

“Selfish? How is it selfish?” you may ask.

It’s selfish because of what I am able to do and accomplish with this as my full-time job. Yes, I knit and photograph and do some freelance storytelling work. But I have the flexibility to do those things because of what I have in my company. Most people who have full-time or side-jobs within the realm of direct sales (which is what my company is) or network marketing are the same way. They are able to have lives outside of the cubicles they are/were once chained to 40-plus hours a week because they took a chance on something crazy that they probably rolled their eyes about (like me!) and actually worked that opportunity until it paid them back tenfold. 

It’s selfish because when I quit/was fired from (still not sure) the job I had at a brewery, I was able to quickly cover my bills and rent by getting over myself and holding appointments. Again, there are actually quite a large number of people in companies with similar structures to mine that are doing this daily because they are working.

It’s selfish because I became so singularly focused on not being pushy, but needing to have the finances to pay my bills, that I chose to only make money instead of share the wealth.

At the end of the six-month qualification period to earn this cruise, I sold more than $10,000 retail value in skincare and makeup. Bills paid; rent paid; even able to stick some in savings and that kinda thing. Let me tell ya, that’s a load off my back and my mind! My customers who use our skincare look and feel fabulous and don’t have to wear makeup. My customers who use our makeup love their colors and are digging our new foundation especially. Oh, and lipstick. Always lipstick. 

But imagine if I’d taken the time to focus on sharing more about my company with those customers.

My customers who are on payment plans with me for their skincare … could have started their own business and gotten their skincare at a steep, 50 percent discount, not to mention they could have begun building a customer base of their own and started making profits. Those profits could go toward things like rent and bills, or a vacation for their family. One of my customers — who has the dang cutest house in Lexington! — dreams of owning a bakery one day. Even as a hobby consultant, I could have helped her strategize and make that happen. Another customer, who runs a daycare center in Athens, expressed to me once that she’d love to own a campground. 
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my director ashley and i at career conference in duluth, georgia, in march. we'd just crossed the stage for being on-target to earn the cruise.
Imagine if I’d shared with them! Where they could be now on achieving those dreams!

I have so many customers, so many friends, so many family members, with talents and passions that have **absolutely nothing to do with** my company, who feel dissatisfied somehow with the job they’re in. For most, leaving to go invest in an entrepreneurial avenue like I am in is a terrifying step they’re not ready for … but if I could show them — heck, if I could show you! — how even one hour a week can be maximized to earn supplemental income; income to use for a bakery or trip to Disney or a campground or that sudden hospital bill or bumping down debt; wouldn’t that be a crazy thing for me to keep to myself?!
It is crazy. 

But I did. I have. Team-building has been my biggest desire and biggest self-imposed struggle because I was too selfish to share. Too selfish to recognize potential in people and then tell them, “Hey Lisa, did you see my post last night about how my business covered my rent last month, and I did that by holding x-number of appointments in x-number of hours? I would love to help you and your husband buy that rental property on the lake by showing you how to do what I do.”

Maybe it’s not makeup or skincare you’re jazzed about, in which case my company may not be right for you. Perhaps it’s health and wellness; or fashion; or jewelry; or cleaning supplies. The Direct Sellers Association has a plethora of members and you can pull up any of their compensation plans and business models to find out more. It’s not for everyone, but I feel like a shabby friend and consultant for hiding my opportunity for so long.

In full transparency, the time is nigh for me to enter what we call “director in qualification,” or DIQ (pronounced dee-eye-queue, not like Dick Cheney) on Aug. 1. Selfishness in sharing stops here. I’m looking for at least five future consultants to work with me, whether it’s for that deep discount on their own skincare and makeup or for something bigger. I let the cruise sail on by because I ignored the process.

I’m not letting anything else do that again.
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Meatetarian Eats Nashville >> line dancing, sort of.

6/27/2019

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For this week and next, we’re going a few miles north of the Classic City for Meatetarian Eats: Nashville edition.
 
At the end of March, for my 30th birthday, I was given the gift of a trip to Nashville, Tennessee!

Upon finding out where I were going, my mother inundated me with a list of places to go and eat and do. We made it to most of them, actually, but there were a few that will require a return visit. Which I am totally OK with. 

Being the planner that I am, I took my mom’s list of must-eats to map out our itinerary. Like for real. We had this on a color-coded, numbered Google map. 

After a failed attempt at visiting Loveless Café, which is so dang popular there was more than an hour’s wait, and Burger King for supper at the Opry Mills mall, I was determined not to miss out on any more food souvenirs! We were GOING to make it to the rest on my list.
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the loveless cafe also did not have a vacancy at the restaurant.
The next morning, we were up and at ‘em with the intention to drive near Belmont University for the famed Pancake Pantry breakfast. This is another Mom recommendation. I was positive that getting there before 9 a.m. we wouldn’t have a long wait!

I was positively wrong!

The line at Pancake Pantry was wrapped around the corner. Apparently this is part of the ambiance and tradition: the paintings inside the lobby feature the building with a line of hungry 
people down the street next to it. This was no hidden gem. It was a very well-known sparkling topaz gem and every non-Nashvillian in Nashville was on that sidewalk. My stomach was growling, but I was not giving in. We were waiting this out. 

Standing in a line like that made me wonder what I was in for. What did the place look like inside?! How tall are these stacks of pancakes?! What is cinnamon cream sauce and why do I want a bottle of it?? Can I get a latte?

The anticipation was insane! I, truth be told, still do not know what it is about Pancake Pantry that has it as a must-eat place! Is this what it is like to be a sheeple?? To blindly go stand in a line for a restaurant that your mother said was good, without doing any further research about the restaurant, its history or barely glance at the menu before plugging the address into the GPS??

I digress.
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Forty-seven minutes after our arrival, we were finally swept inside. I’ve heard my mother talk this place up since I was a kid, and I was … a little let down. It’s kind of plain. It’s kind of homey. It’s a big open room with tables and (thank goodness) booths with cream-colored tabletops and wood accents. I would hazard a guess that nothing much changed since it opened in 1961. Our waitress did not seem to care that it was our first time. In case y’all can’t tell by the usual length of these posts, I can chatter a. lot. She was not having it, and I felt a little judged for asking if they had iced coffee drinks: “It’s coffee and it has ice in it.”
Pro-tip, don’t ask.

Pro-tip two, look at the menu beforehand. Pancake Pantry is, for all intents and purposes, a diner-style restaurant geared toward making simple but flavorful food and turning tables over to accommodate the ever-growing line out the door. Taking your syrup-sweet time to decide between your top three pancakes is not encouraged.

​I finally settled on the Santa Fe Cornmeal Pancakes, firstly because, have y’all ever heard of a cornmeal pancake? And second, green chiles. If you’ve never been in the Southwest US, you may not know that green chiles are a staple in just about every dish there, and I am here for it. I adore green chiles and couldn’t wait to have them in my pancakes.

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photo taken after about 35 minutes in line.
When my stack arrived, it was bittersweet. I’m not talking about how my tastebuds reacted to the Santa Fe pancakes, but rather, how my eyes reacted. Call me a snob, but I got it in my head that all of these ingredients (the green chiles, bacon, cheese) would be chopped up and blended into the batter, then tossed on the griddle. Not so: it looked more as though the cornmeal batter was put on the griddle, flipped once, then big strips of bacon, some cheese and a few chiles were sprinkled on top. 
What the pancakes lacked in good looks they made up for with great taste. The cornmeal cakes themselves were lightly sweetened and had a grainy texture. Think of a corn muffin, subtract some sugar and you’re there. I poured the salsa on top and discovered the perfect bite was one that had some chile, bacon and a dip in the salsa and sour 
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santa fe cornmeal pancakes at pancake pantry at the forefront.
cream. I normally don’t like sour cream, but WOW! With these, sour cream made the cornmeal cakes melt in my mouth and it became a very smooth bite.

Our waitress did recommend adding, believe it or not, the cinnamon cream and syrup to these pancakes. Y’all know I am all about mixing sweet and savory anyway, so I dove right in. When your pancakes arrive, the syrup arrives in a hot bottle and the cinnamon cream chilled. That one is less viscous than syrup and neither are as sweet as say, a Crackerbarrel maple syrup. They work together to minimize the kick from the chiles.

Blame it on my dancing at the Opry the night before, but I was so hungry I ate all three of these. And they are not small pancakes! 

Pancake Pantry is one I’ll wait in line again for. And also possibly show up at 5 a.m. for. I say this entirely because I want to try the buckwheat pancakes. Or maybe the Georgia peach pancakes. There's also a stack called Chocolate Sin ...

​Anyone up for joining me on my return trip? :D They let you take bottles of cinnamon cream home.
Meatetarian Eats is my way of showcasing some of my favorite foods and foodie finds at home and on my travels. To visit the OG #MeatetarianEats site, birthed before this website was conceived, click here. To see the places I ate starting in 2019, here's the category for this platform. 
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scattered, smothered and covered

6/25/2019

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Sounds like how any good Southerner would order her hashbrowns at WaHo, doesn’t it? Well sheesh, now I’m hungry and it’s not even a #MeatetarianEats post!

Tonight I’m not writing about food. Instead, what I mean by scattered, smothered and covered is — and y’all get ready, because I don’t think I saw this one coming either — spiritually scattered, smothered and covered by the grace of a higher power. Now before y’all go and scatter yourselves because I’m writing a little church-y today, let me assure you I’m not going to try to convert you to anything. OK? OK.

I did recently start attending Cornerstone Church in Athens, Georgia, and though my reasons for doing so are mine alone, I will share that it’s been a really good experience thus far. I am a firm believer that an individual’s relationship with the higher power they believe in, if they believe in a higher power, doesn’t necessarily need to take place within the confines of a specific building with a steeple. That being said, it is nice to be in that environment once or twice a week.

I relate that back to my skincare + cosmetics business, and perhaps that’s why I needed it. In my company, we have two large business events and smaller weekly or bi-weekly local business meetings. Your success as a beauty consultant doesn’t require you to attend any of those, but when everyone is sobusy and there are so many distractions, it’s easy to re-enter life after the big events and forget everything you were so driven to do. Those more regular, smaller meetings to me are just as important as the big ones, because they remind me what I am working for. They keep me in the zone, so to speak. 

Right now my unit doesn’t have weekly meetings, and it is very easy to allow myself to get off-track. When I get off-track, I get moody and anxious and stressed and snappy. Combined with a season of life in which I am responsible for every penny I earn, it’s even more stressful when I am off-track! I feel this is why I was led to seeking an environment where I am reminded of what my purpose is.

This Sunday the lead pastor at Cornerstone discussed the Biblical book of Hosea, who was a minor prophet. At the time Hosea reportedly lived, the region known as Israel was in a bit of disrepair: people were worshipping idols, leading lives that were pretty shady, and God reached out to Hosea and told him that Hosea will now lead a life metaphoric of that of the process he’s about to undertake with Israel to wake them up. You’ll have to read the book and draw your own conclusions, but here’s what was spoken to me through the service and the subsequent reading in my own time afterward. 

Step 1: Scatter.
Yep. You see where this is going already, doncha! 

Before there’s any kind of spiritual awakening … I needed a reason to have a spiritual awakening. My life had to go all sorts of kerfluffle. Looking back, there’s been quite a few times of “scatter” since I began to realize what I ultimately desire and am ultimately appointed to do. There were breakups of relationships. There were difficulties in job settings. There were opportunities for me to seek better, higher, more! But I managed to um, usually not do any of those things. I would start to do them, then be tempted or distracted away.

Step 2: Smother.
So your life’s a shambles. You are THE definition of hot mess express and someone can just go ahead and order tickets to your sh*tshow, right? I definitely feel that way a lot, especially recently. One step forward, two steps back. I had (thankfully I can now use the past tense here!) a number of days where I was smothered in those feelings of anxiety and stress and lack that I mentioned before, because I was so scattered and all over the place. And so far from what I know I am supposed to be doing! 

Step 3: Cover.
This step is interactive. It requires you to pull your weight. Pastor Scott, talking on Sunday, mentioned that God’s love is forever if you choose to seek it. We do have free choice, but DANG if those first couple steps aren’t encouraging me to change my course!

If you’re cool hanging out in step two, feeling a little woeful and sorry for yourself and victimhood-y, hoping someone or something will come into your path and lift you out of your misery, that is your choice. Or say, maybe you’re not feeling like a victim, but perhaps you work your tail to the bone and are fiercely independent and think you can do it all by yourself, so you shut everything else out and become so caught up in busyness you forget why you’re busy in the first place … and then get overwhelmed and start questioning what the heck is happening. (Hi, hello, it’s me.)

But if you decide to sit down and have a little meeting with yourself about all those feelings and stress, and if you do believe in a higher power, there’s a chance you’ll be inclined to do what I did, which is finally accept that ol’ saying “I’m doing this FOR myself, but not BY myself.” When you do that, God does a little happy dance and suddenly he’s hanging out as your new partner. Covering you in love, in acceptance, in guidance. Like a therapist, but always there and it doesn’t matter whether or not your insurance covers it. Which is great, because mine does not!

******
Y’all. It took me a LOOONG time to get here, and “here” is not the end point. I’ve got a lot more ground to cover. My smother phase lasted entirely too long because I rejected and resisted the concept that I needed a God-filled environment like Cornerstone. But the more weighty all the negativity got, and the more I seemed to dig myself deeper into a mental hole, the more I realized what I needed was a BIG change. A shock to my system. 

I’m as shocked as anyone that I decided to peep into a church setting. I’m grateful I listened to those little guiding whispers though, telling me to stop being stubborn and do what is right for my mental health, spiritual health and business health. Are you also feeling scattered or smothered? Overwhelmed, stressed, anxious and depressed? Then perhaps it’s time you explored options to shock your system, too.
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meatetarian eats the masters >> an illusion of simplicity

4/11/2019

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For 30 years, nearly every time I introduced myself as Dallas, I was asked if I was from Dallas or Texas.

“Nope, I’m from around Augusta, Georgia.”

“Oh! Augusta! That’s where the Masters is, right? Do you golf?”

I do not. I barely Putt-Putt, and I never found myself caught up in the hubbub of the golf tournament that calls my hometown its own. Growing up, Masters Week was also our spring break, so though I’d occasionally watch the final hole with my family, it’s never been the sport I drop everything I’m doing to put on TV {read: Georgia games}. But when you grow up surrounded by something like that, that even non-golf fans know about and think is a big deal, it’s hard to escape the lore of the course.
​
Even our local baseball team is called the Augusta Greenjackets — a play on the prestigious green jackets that winners of the Masters earn and that are also worn by members of the Augusta National. No one but members know how to become members, and most of the membership list is hush-hush (although I did find this 2015 one on Bloomberg), so it’s kind of like the Masons … except with significantly fewer really cool movies, books, History Channel documentaries and an order to protect the Holy Grail. 
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my personal favorite (and now retired) logo for the augusta greenjackets, found via google.
But there are some pretty legendary things associated with the Augusta National: the beauty of the course, particularly when all the azaleas are blooming; its awesome history as a peach orchard; the amount of exclusivity and experience given to patrons, even we peasants who aren’t members; and, of course, the food.
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I would be 100 percent surprised if this is the first time you’ve ever read anything about the food at Masters Week tournaments. More than anything, given that golf is not my favorite sport, I wanted to go to the course for the crème de la crème of US sporting events cuisine. 
​
This year, I was lucky enough to be able to, thanks to my parents winning the coveted ticket 
lottery for the first-ever Augusta National Women’s Amateur tournament. The first few days of the tournament were held at another area golf course, Champion’s Retreat, but the final was held at the Augusta National. JE and I were given the tickets as part of my 30thbirthday present, and I could not wait to get my hands on a pin for my collection … and my mouth on pimento cheese and egg salad sandwiches.

The recipes for these, especially the pimento cheese, remain 1) an actual mystery and 2) a closely guarded secret. A man named Nick Rangos created the recipes for these two sandwiches and made the pimento cheese mixture himself. In the early 2000s, Augusta National executives decided to have the local restaurant Wife Saver {personal note: I promise I’ll write about this place too; it’s a hometown favorite} make the sandwiches. Well … Wife Saver makes some damn good fried chicken and sides, but its initial pimento cheese sandwich was not up to par — hey look! A golf pun! -- with Rangos’ original recipe. Rangos wasn’t tellin’ nobody his secret recipe, especially the owner of the business that now had his business, so the Wife Saver folks spent a hot minute getting things right. Rangos passed away, and his original pimento cheese recipe died with him. According to Newsweek, the National eventually moved all concession-creation in-house, so I cannot be sure how accurate this year’s sandwich was to the one Nick Rangos developed more than 40 years ago. 
​
But I am very accurate when I say it was good. Like, went back and got seconds good. Rivals my Nanny’s pimento cheese good.
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stacks on stacks of souvenir sandwiches, pimento cheese and egg salad, from the augusta national. note the impeccable and on-trend modern branding on the sandwich bags. yes y'all, i brought sandwiches home for photos since cameras are not allowed on the course during tournament days.
There was a tense moment when JE claimed he liked a particular brand of store-bought pimento cheese better, but I think that’s sacrilege. Personally, I think I have more expertise than he does in this situation, because I have tried numerous pimento cheeses over my 30 years and this is top three, for absolute certain. No. 1 is my Nanny’s, the No. 2 spot belongs to Proper Pepper out of Sandersville, Georgia. 

Pimento cheese, for all intents and purposes, is a blend of mayonnaise, cheeses, pimiento peppers and seasonings. Fun fact though, a lot of commercially made pimento cheeses use red bell peppers, not pimiento peppers, in their mixtures because it’s cheaper. Lame sauce, y’all. You gotta have the real thing. Improperly made pimento cheese can also be overly creamy and mushy, so having the right ratio of mayonnaise-to-cheese is muy importante. Especially when enjoyed in sandwich form, a soppy and liquid-y pimento cheese mixture can seep into the bread and cause it to be as great as that PB&J that got squished at the bottom of your lunch box that one day in first grade. The other way improper way pimento cheese can be made is too dry, either because there wasn’t enough mayonnaise to balance the cheese, or the cheese itself was poor quality and winds up with a mealy texture. Gross.

Whether it was Rangos’, Wife Saver’s or some sweetheart in the Augusta National kitchen’s recipe that was lovingly spread between two slices of soft white bread this Saturday, it was the perfect balance of all ingredients. There was texture from the cheeses — definitely some type of cheddar involved, and possibly a white cheese as well; my palate is sadly not that distinctive yet — but it was still creamy and light. The peppers themselves had a nice bite to them too, and the flavor wasn’t exactly spicy, but you could tell there was seasoning added other than salt. 
​
Oh, and did I mention these bad boys are like, less than two bucks each? Yeah. Not a joke. That’s less than half the price of a bottle of water at a Georgia football game.
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james edward and i at the founders circle photo op during the augusta national women's amateur this weekend.
The egg salad sandwiches, of which I may or may not have had three {stop giving me that judge-y look!}, were equally satisfying. Egg salad is a mixture of chopped or diced hard-boiled eggs, mayonnaise, seasoning and in some cases, spices or pickle relish. Maybe some mustard, too. There wasn’t any pickle relish in the egg salad sandwich at the Augusta National, and the egg salad was seasoned very lightly. What impressed me most about the mixture here was the texture. It almost seemed whipped, it was so airy! 

Neither sandwich seeped too far into the bread slices, and I swear whoever they had quality-controlling the bread here deserves a trophy too. The most magnificent part of these sandwiches is their simplicity: only a few ingredients, reminiscent of things most Southern 
mamas and cooks make on the reg; and there’s nothing pretentious about them, even though they’re sold at one of the most exclusive sporting event in the world. But the simplicity is almost an illusion.
​
Think about it. Pimento cheese and egg salad are two very Southern things that you can find in a gazillion places and a basquillion different forms anywhere below the Mason-Dixon. The Augusta National could have hired the freakin’ Kroger across the street to commercially produce enough egg salad and pimento cheese to spread on enough Wonderbread slices for a cheap-enough price for multiple thousands of people to enjoy. Instead, they found a local man, then a local restauranteur, then their own staff to create, re-create and re-re-create Southern classics using ingredients so pristine and perfectly balanced that it adds to the grandeur of the experience of being one of the Chosen Ones to attend an event during Masters Week. I bet there’s not a stale piece of bread within three miles of Washington Road the week leading up to and the week of Masters.
The food is about where the simplicity ends at the Augusta National. Outside of the concession shops, where the most expensive thing is a souvenir cup of beer at five whole dollars, you’re in a different world. Perhaps you’ve been year after year, but this being my first time (and also, this being my website, lol) I’d like to indulge those who’ve never had the opportunity. 

You do not have to like golf to be part of the tournament. Golf on TV? B O R I N G. Golf when you’re there, when Anna Redding’s ball lands in the spectator area behind you in Amen Corner so you’re like five feet from one of the most amazing collegiate athletes, is definitely not boring. You get caught up in the tenseness of a shot. The hush of the crowd, the whistle of a ball flying through the air. The shock of the woman next to you hissing, “She marked it!” and you have no idea what that means, but apparently it’s important to what happened 
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mom's post-tournament photo of us with our souvenirs, and of course my fur-sister ami dale. behind us are my parents' azaleas, similar to those we saw on the course.
between Jennifer Kupcho and Maria Fassi, the two leaders going into the tournament final. And you get caught up in the beauty of the course, the pinks and magentas and fuchsias of the azalaeas contrasting with the taupe sand-traps and perfect shades of green grass. Even, as my daddy pointed out, the pinestraw is manicured. You get caught up in clapping when everyone else does and gasping when everyone else does, and you wonder to yourself, “Is this what a football game is like for non-football fans and way too many freshman girls?”
​
If you have the chance to go, go. Don’t scalp your tickets, those coveted passes that grant you entrance through the heavily guarded gates. Do eat the sandwiches, and the peach ice cream sandwiches they ran out of, and maybe the barbecue too.

​And if you think about it, make a dumb nerd joke about whether or not there are sarlaccs at the bottom of those pesky sand traps. 
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meatetarian eats >> A Homemade Supper

4/4/2019

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​Remember how when I wrote about Chops & Hops I said it was something I’d been meaning to do for ages, just didn’t prioritize?

WELL. Here we are again, this time a few miles away at a little place called home.made.

I’d been meaning to go in here for absolute ages, and if you don’t follow them on Instagram, you’re missing out on some seriously good food photos. It says a lot about a place’s social media when that’s what entices a complete stranger so much to come in and check it out, so props to whoever runs that.

My chance to dine here came about a week ago when I was invited to join an exclusive outing and celebration for my skincare + cosmetics business. After a jaunt through the new Children’s Garden at the Botanical Garden of Georgia — which is really fun even if you are not a “children” — we traipsed to home.made for supper.

There are a few things that the word “supper” brings to mind. Supper is when your whole family is gathered around the table, you say the blessing together and you enjoy a home-cooked meal. I was fortunate to grow up with a mama who loves to cook, so it was rare that our supper wasn’t actually home-cooked in some form or fashion, and for the most part what we ate was influenced by our Southern roots. Ingredients are fresh. They’re local {we do lots of farmers market shopping in our family}. They’re hearty and filling and … truth be told … not always the healthiest thing on the planet, but Southern food is the envy of chefs everywhere.
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home.made meets every single one of these expectations when I think about the word “supper.”
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the new orleans style hot chicken at home.made comes with fried chicken, pickled okra and beignets.
The atmosphere is low-light and rustic. I adored the shutters decorating the far side wall. The décor is tasteful and simple.

Some restaurants that have the caliber of plating that home.made does have a tendency to be pretentious about what’s on your plate, but not this place. I ordered the New Orleans Hot Chicken Beignets, along with a side of tomato pie, and whoa Betty y’all, I was enamored. The presentation of the dishes are thoughtful and beautiful without being ostentatious. 
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I will say that I kind of expected my beignets to be stuffed with the hot chicken, but other than that minor hiccup I wanted an entrée size of this meal after I scarfed it down. 
Now, y’all probably heard of Nashville hot chicken, so before I wrote this post I did a little bit of research 
into what the difference is … because I hadn’t had either of them. I know, shame on me, I went to Nashville last weekend and didn’t have hot chicken. Guess I’ll have to make a return trip, OK? Per the ONE non-Wikipedia page I found that wasn’t a rating site or some obscure travel recommendation where the “best restaurants” are the ones that paid for ad placement … there are some key components to make a traditional hot chicken.
  1. Really salty, spicy, tender fried chicken, preferably seasoned to have a slow, lingering burn
  2. Pickles — dill pickles, specifically, if we’re talking Nashville-style
  3. Bread
I do not know this to be true, but upon this investigation I’m inclined to think that home.made called this dish “New Orleans” because of what constitutes the pickles and the bread here. Let me explain.

Hot chicken is to Nashville as beignets are to Nawlins.
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The most famous beignets are found at Café Du Monde in the French Quarter. Introduced to the state of Louisiana by the Acadians, these delicacies are square pieces of choux pastry dough fried to the perfect light golden brown and covered with powdered sugar. I have never had these beignets, but my mama has, and she raves about them to this day and also gets mail-order coffee from the shop. 
We have the fried chicken — strips curled up in the fryer, dredged in a spicy breading and coated with a buffalo-style sauce. We have the bread component: two delicate beignets with a heavy hand of powdered sugar. Last, but certainly not least, we have the pickles.

Another what-I-infer-to-be-homage to New Orleans, the pickles here are pickled okra. Okra originated in Africa, and according to documents from the University of Arizona, it came to the Americas by way of the slave trade in Brazil, Dutch Guinea and New Orleans beginning in the 1600s. Okra was a staple of the diet of many enslaved Africans in the South, and became a staple in Louisiana gumbo and other dishes because of it.
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Y’all, I LOVE okra in its fried and pickled forms, and I do not know what on earth kind magic happened at home.made, but this is the best pickled okra I’ve eaten in my life. It was crisp, it was vinegar-y, it had tang and brine. The gelatinous feel that stewed okra can get (fun fact, it’s called “mucilage”) wasn’t there. There was zero 
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mama's photo of authentic beignets at cafe du monde in new orleans, 2018. used with her permission, kind of. (hi mom!)
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a bite of tomato pie at home.made.
stringiness and even the seeds were pickled. I need a jar of these, stat.

My side dish of tomato pie wasn’t as picturesque, but it was everything good and homey that I needed it to be. I expected a slice and loved that it came instead in an individually-sized ramekin! 
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I have one regret, and it’s that I didn’t get the fried green tomato dessert. Yep, dessert. I mean, I’d already eaten some form of buffalo chicken with powdered sugar, so this sounded like the most logical next course, right? I promise I’ll go back for 
that one though and do a revisit!
​

In fact, I already have a plan for my edibles on my next visit. If you’re not already sick of me using the word “supper” in this post … home.made has a SUPPER CLUB Tuesdays through Saturdays from 5 to 6, and again Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8 to 9! It differs week-to-week and includes a choice of starter and entrée. Which means clearly I’ll just have to finish things off with that fried green tomato crisp, right?
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of showers and sudoku

4/1/2019

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As a child, I assumed this had some obscure reference to the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock. Like, these people escaped religious persecution, got on a boat called the Mayflower and in the month of April they weathered a lot of storms to land in North America. Not quite. I then figured the adage prophesized the month of April as the rainiest of the year, and thus all the flowers would bloom in May. This is probably closer to the actual origin of the saying.

Now at the ripe ol’ age of 30, I find “April showers bring May flowers” to have a different meaning. 

I was able to spend some time recently centering myself, which I am sure sounds hippie-dippie-trippy, but I’m being serious. March was, for whatever reason, not my best month in a lot of ways, particularly when it came to achieving some pretty lofty {but hear me, completely doable} goals in my skincare + cosmetics business. I had quite a few wins and high moments, but when March 31 rolled over to April 1 at midnight, I realized what Cinderella must have felt like as her glitter carriage morphed back into a pumpkin. On the plus side, I still had both shoes on my feet.

I digress.
One of the things I started doing to break my super-fun stress level is focus on something that isn’t related to working in any sense of the word. For a while I tried reading, but I discovered I was easily able to use reading as a distraction rather than a refocusing tool {“Just one more chapter, self! Then I promise I’ll go do XYZ. … Oh no, now it’s too late at night; guess I will have to wait until tomorrow.”} It’s sudoku, of all things. 

​​Unfamiliar with sudoku?
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{thanks google for this image}
Let me explain. You’ll typically be able to find a weekly or daily sudoku puzzle in your local newspaper. There are nine big squares of nine little squares each, and the goal is for each of your nine big squares, each row and each column to contain the numbers one through nine once each. For most of my life I never bothered to try because I told myself the story that “I am bad with numbers.” Granted, math is not my strong suit, especially in the realm of a classroom, but I didn’t know what I was talking about. I also, fun fact, spent about 15 years calling it “soduku,” pronounced like Count Dooku. So I extra was telling myself a story here.

Tonight as I did my “focus practice” as I’ve been calling it, I pulled out a recent puzzle from the local Athens independent newspaper, Flagpole. My method is to examine each square in detail and see, based on the numbers that are already put there, which numbers could be in that square. I do this for every open square. Then I go back through: Is there any square that could onlybe one number? Over and over again, then crossing out possibilities in other squares. 
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I’m sure someone out there has a different way to do sudoku, but this is my way and I’m cool with it, so calm yourselves. 
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I fill one square in — yes! A win! Then spend a few minutes going back over the entire puzzle, looking for the next one. Crossing out the ones that won’t work. Back and forth, up and down, over and over until suddenly, YAAAS! All the pieces start coming together. One number goes in that clears four squares that clear six more and it keeps going and going until the puzzle is completed.  Such a feeling of accomplishment!

Isn’t it interesting how momentum builds, and then all of a sudden everything just comes together?

I could have easily put the puzzle away when it was frustrating. And trust me, when I have gone over rows and columns and squares and can’t seem to find either my error or the next clue, I want to ball the dang paper up and hurl it across the bathroom and open up a book. But because I focused, because I didn’t even let my very cute cats distract me, because I did the work to set the things up and I didn’t stop following up on my work until the thing was done, the thing got done. 

Y’all, I spent two straight days in March at a conference for my company and heard about a dozen entrepreneurs talk about building momentum, and it took a dang sudoku puzzle and a silly old wives tale to hit my mindshift. The teacher appears when the student is ready, amirite?

Last May through this March I was planting seeds. I wasn’t particularly focused about it all the time {hello, last August, October and this January and kind of March}, but I still trudged forward. And now that I’m aware of what a truly focused mindset looks like, I’m going to make it rain all over those seeds in April. That’s called momentum. 

And those showers? They’re going to bring May flowers.
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knitting out of the comparison trap

3/10/2019

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During the early months of 2018, I started following Trysten Molina on Instagram. Molina owns the independent (indie) yarn dyeing and knitwear design brand Dragon Hoard Yarn Co. I was enamored with her yarn from the get-go — lots of speckles, and color themes that played right into my fantasy fiction-loving heart! I bought her “Christmas at Hogwarts” yarn advent for myself last Christmas and delighted each day in December as I opened a tiny new skein of yarn. I was gifted a gift certificate to use in her shop by one of my closest friends, and within a few days of 2019 I knew precisely what color I wanted.

Necromancy is a mottle of greens and grays that bring to mind lying down on a moss-coated forest floor next to a bubbling brook, listening for the faint sounds of Tom Bombadil’s singing to come over a hillside. Or perhaps that’s just my mind. Regardless, I fell in absolute lust with the colorway! There are lime greens and emerald, Kelly and hunter and nearly hidden flecks of bright red. It’s part of Molina’s yarns inspired by the Netflix original show “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” which is an excellent show, although far more macabre than the Melissa Joan Hart version of my childhood. 
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necromancy yarn from dragon hoard yarn co., and the knitting accessories i used for the spellman pullover.
Despite my strong temptation to invest in the yarn, I held out for a bit, because I didn’t have a project for it yet. And then, lo! A call to test knit Molina’s Sabrina-inspired sweater, and I was selected. Little ol’ me, who rather likes to bend the rules and not follow patterns to begin with, was chosen to test knit a pattern.
​
If you’re reading this and you’ve never picked up a knitting needle in your life, test knitting is copy editing for a pattern. Except not only are you checking grammar and math, you’re knitting the pattern as you go along. The 
Spellman Pullover is a cropped sweater with cables and bobbles (think little knitted balls) on the shoulders and sleeves. I had an excuse to get my Necromancy!
 
>> falling short of the cohort
 
As excited as I was to cast on my sweater {knit in a mohair and fingering weight yarn, both in Necromancy}, I was already way behind. I committed to starting the sweater Jan. 11 and finishing it by Feb. 11, and I ordered my yarn on Jan. 9. Then the USPS held it hostage for an extra day or two, and due to some other things going on I didn’t prioritize casting on right away when I got a moment.
Being in a group chat with all the other test knitters, that was hard. I was constantly getting notifications on Facebook Messenger with other knitters speeding along: showing off their yarn a week before I’d even ordered mine; two sets of bobbles done on the shoulders the day I sat down to review the pattern; tossing out edits and suggestions about design terms that were completely new to me.

I almost didn’t start.

I saw all these knitters doing so much better and so much faster and yada yada yada than me and I was embarrassed. There was actually no way on God’s green Earth that I was going to finish a sweater in the given timeframe with how much else I had happening. I was ashamed that I didn’t know some of these terms and I’d never knit a bobble before in my life, and truth be told that I didn’t have much to offer in test knitting this pattern other than helping confirm stitch counts. I sat on my yarn once it came for at least a week going through all this in my mind, continuing to watch the group chat and sitting quietly.

I knew I had the skills to knit this. Like y’all, I design my own patterns all the time and don’t think a second thought about it. It takes me less than a week to knit an entire pair of socks. This is not actually hard to someone who’s got 11 years’ experience putting yarn to needle.

I knew I wantedto knit this. These two yarns held together are so squishy and soft and I already planned out the outfit I would wear in my post-bind-off photo shoot.

I had skills. I had vision. I had passion. Heck, y’all, I even had a deadline! All of the key things one allegedly requires to reach a goal!

So what was my hold-up? The comparison trap. 
 
>> stitching through 
 
What’s the comparison trap? It’s a thing that a lot of people today find themselves falling into, or digging themselves out of, usually thanks to social media. For whatever reason, we have this idea of what we should look like or should be, or the level we should be at, and we beat ourselves up for not being “that.” In my case with the Spellman Pullover, I was comparing my skeins of yarn to the half-completed sweaters on the group chat; and comparing myself to the knitters with said half-completed sweaters.

While stuck in this delightful life-sucking trap, I heard a training from Audrey MacDowell, who is a top director in my skincare + cosmetics business. Now, Audrey MacDowell doesn’t know me from Adam, and I doubt she knits, so this had nothing to do with anything … and yet wham! It had everything to do with everything. In this training she says that comparison is the thief of joy. And while we’re out here comparing ourselves … the people we’re comparing ourselves to are out
w-e-r-k-i-n-g. 

No wonder these women had half-finished sweaters. They weren’t sitting on the group chat lamenting how they hadn’t started yet. They picked up their dang needles, cast on and worked every spare second they had.
​
After that gut-punch, I intentionally made a few changes in quite a few places in my life and business, and of course, my progress on the Spellman Pullover. What mattered wasn’t how fast I knit or how much I knew about negative vs. positive ease . Who cares what these complete strangers thought about my knitting skills? We were all knitting the exact same pattern. It wasn't any kind of competition. What matters is that I enjoyed what was being worked on and was pleased with the direction in which it went. What matters is that every day I could I picked up my yarn and needles and worked a few rows. 
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>> weaving in the ends
 
By changing a couple habits — namely not checking the group chat every time I pulled up Facebook and choosing to knit nearly every night — I did finish the Spellman Pullover in about a month’s time. Molina extended the deadline to March 1, and at about 2 a.m. the next morning I bound off my last stitch on the final sleeve. 

I missed the deadline to be featured in her pattern and on the Ravelry pattern page. That kind of stunk. But it taught me an important lesson: if I’d spent the time I spent comparing knitting, I’d already be finished and wearing the sweater instead of wondering how many musicals it would take to finish the second sleeve. In case you were wondering, it took me the entirety of the TV versions of “Grease” and “Footloose.”

I love how the sweater turned out, and the first day it was sunny enough to get photos, my boyfriend and I went in the woods and he got some great shots that show off the color variation in Necromancy and the details in the Spellman Pullover sleeves. I felt so accomplished and like I could conquer the world — er, OK, maybe more like conquer my goals for the rest of March. It’s a great feeling, and I know that feeling came about because of the action I took!

Whether I’m knitting a sweater actually or metaphorically, these things I learned through this process will be so instrumental, and I hope they are for you, too:

  • Avoid the comparison trap! Instead, look how far you’ve come. Eleven years ago I could barely pull of a wonky-arse scarf, and here I am making bobbles like I’ve done it all my life.
  • Remember what Audrey MacDowell said — those people you’re comparing yourself to are working while you’re not. So whatever it is you’re not doing to get to where those folks are, do it. And if you’re working, you won’t have time to compare {see above J}.
  • Daily consistent habits are more valuable than a burst of sudden action that’s never backed up. If your goal is to finish a sweater, set aside some time to knit each night or morning or lunch break daily instead of working for 16 hours straight on it, then putting it aside for something else, and suddenly it’s 2020 and you realized you never finished it.
  • Empower yourself! If you don’t understand something, don’t sit there and complain about how you don’t get it. Ask someone. Research. Watch 17 tutorials on bobble knitting. 

You can do anything you set your mind to, ladies and gents. But first, you have to set your mind to it. And second … you have to do it. 
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serving cheer ... with a side of coffee

2/12/2019

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joyristas megan mccutcheon and nathan nelms inside the java joy coffee truck.
Considering how prolific the coffee chain Starbucks is, it’s a fair assumption most Americans are familiar with the term “barista.” The term “joyrista,” however, might be a new one.

Joyristas serve much more than cups of coffee. They serve businesses, the Athens community and everyone they encounter with welcome arms, big hugs and — as the job title might imply — a whole latte joy.

“The first thing, I got hired, they needed help, so I wanted to help,” said Megan McCutcheon, who was one of the first four Joyristas to join Java Joy after it was founded in 2016. The nonprofit is a program of Watkinsville, Georgia-based Extra Special People, which provides special needs-centered activities and programming for children and adults of all abilities, as well as their families.
Nathan Nelms came on board in 2017 after Jake Sapp, coordinator of program operations for ESP, contacted his parents about Nelms working with Java Joy.

“We did like a practice,” Nelms said. “We would like, fill the coffee filter thing an then we’ll have to pour the coffee powder stuff and then we’ll have to shake it a little bit and put it in the thing, and we’ll have to turn the coffee thing on and wait ‘til it says ‘ready to go.’”
​
Going on two years later, Nelms and McCutcheon are experts at running the coffee maker and the coffee cart.
>> beverages for businesses
 
Laura Graben, Java Joy’s development coordinator, initially started at ESP as a volunteer and as demand for the coffee cart grew, so did its staff.

“It was an opportunity for our adults here at ESP in particular, but also an opportunity in our community to become more engaged,” Graben said. “Now we have three Americorps members, we have Jake who is the top manager of Java Joy, me as the development coordinator and we have 14 joyristas now. … It’s just basically really blossomed here in Athens. I think people really enjoy their coffee and their experience with us and it’s a different take on their morning cup.”

​When a company or event books with Java Joy, the 
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the java joy trailer and van outside an event at voya in atlanta, georgia. | courtesy photo
joyristas bring their coffee cart or coffee trailer to the business and serve complimentary cups of Jittery Joe’s, and plenty of complimentary hugs. Though many Athens-area businesses have hired Java Joy since 2016, the word is spreading.

“The coolest place is the downtown in Atlanta,” McCutcheon said of a recent event at Colony Square in Midtown. “We helped to do 500 muffins.”

Joyristas made about $100 each in tips that day, and celebrated a job well-done with lunch at Cracker Barrel.

“It’s better than [previous jobs] because you get to go out in the community and serve coffee and hang out with your friends,” Nelms said.

Graben said most of the time, the cart is wheeled into a business’ lobby, lounge or meeting room, but for this event, the trailer was on the street food truck style. She said this will be the first of several bookings at this locale as part of Java Joy’s new subscription program: companies that book at least four times in one year can receive a discounted rate. 
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“We’re really great at grand openings or holidays, parties where businesses are celebrating certain big events,” Graben said. “At the same time, we’re plugged into businesses on a weekly, monthly basis that just want us there simply for their staff.”
>> bold coffee for a bold future
 
ESP decided early on to partner with Jittery Joe’s when Java Joy launched. Graben said the Athens coffee roastery already head the name recognition, and might be a way to lessen the barrier to companies interested in booking the coffee cart. Perhaps it’s the coffee — there’s a custom Java Joy blend available now in stores — or perhaps it’s the people, but whatever it is, the demand for Java Joy continues to grow.
​
“We’re in straight-up North Carolina soon for a wedding,” Nelms said.
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joyristas megan and colin help at the jittery joe's roastery. | courtesy photo
In the Classic City, Java Joy launched a new partnership with the YMCA on weekends inviting businesses to sponsor coffee, and joyristas now have the chance to work directly at the Jittery Joe’s roastery on Monday a month.

“YMCA is like, we do events with basketball games. People play games, and we serve coffee for them,” McCutcheon said.

Her work with Java Joy inspired McCutcheon to create her own business — Meg’s Mess. She said the name in part comes from the mess she tends to leave in the kitchen, like red velvet on her mom’s mixer after making a cake.

As for Nelms, he gets the most out of being hands-on.

“Nathan really enjoys the kind of behind-the-scenes aspect of it,” Graben said. “You don’t tell him what needs to be loaded, he just grabs the cambros and takes them to the van.”

The other barrier Java Joy’s staff hopes to lessen is interacting with adults of different abilities.
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“That’s an amazing thing to witness. Some people have hesitancies with interacting with people with disabilities, and they don’t know how to get past it,” Graben said. “You see someone taken aback at first … by the end of it they leave with the biggest smile on their face. That’s what’s so special about our brand. We meet you where you are and you end up having this experience you didn’t’ expect, and a lot of people’s lives are changed because of it.”
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above: joyristas set up the coffee cart at an athens, georgia event. below, from left: the java joy blend of jittery joe's coffee; joyristas colin and nicky at an event; muffins and cups, ready to go. | courtesy photos
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addressing racism, one skein at a time

2/10/2019

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Karida Collins, owner and founder of Neighborhood Fiber Co., said she was shocked that the conversation was happening, but added that it was inevitable.

“The first trade show I went to was in 2007 and from what I could tell I was the only black person there. I was also one of the youngest people there,” Collins said. “It was definitely a space that was older and whiter than my life normally included.”

She attributes it to people being more comfortable with expressing their political opinions in public spaces.

“I might have a black friend and we might say something about a shop, like, ‘Oh yeah, I went in there and the person ignored me, of course.’ But we wouldn’t necessarily share that information with a white person who asked about that store,” Collins said. “It’s like Pandora’s Box. All of a sudden all of these feelings and experiences that have been there for years, it’s not new. It’s not like just now people started being a little racist. Now I think the main difference is that … knitting has a much younger constituency. Younger in their 20s and 30s. These are people who statistically are much more progressive than the group that preceded them. So this is a group of people who has grown up with the idea that they are the ones who challenge the status quo.”

Another thing that makes it easier is that there are more women of color visible as knitters, designers and dyers, Collins included.
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“It’s easier to raise your voice when you know that you’re not the only one,” she said. “I definitely feel like it’s not my responsibility to educate white people about racism. White people created it; white people can fix it.”
<< challenging the status quo >>

When the discourse on racism in the knitting world began, Collins said she at first wanted to sit back and observe.

“Then I realized that my name was going to be in this conversation whether I put it there or not because I am, of the small business yarn dyers that are out there and active right now, I’m probably the oldest one,” she said. “I’ve been doing this for more than 10 years. This idea of addressing racism and challenging people to think about it has always been part of my work. In subtle ways like some of the [colorway names] — Roland Park is our undyed yarn and it’s named for a neighborhood in Baltimore that was founded specifically to keep out blacks and Jews. It was a planned community … a neighborhood with yards and single-family homes and really specific styles of houses and specific rules on shrubbery and stuff like that and specific rules about who could live there.”

Today, that neighborhood is still largely white.
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karida collins, owner and founder of neighborhood fiber co. | courtesy photo
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the penn north colorway's name comes from an inside joke, based on the neighborhood where a friend of collins' lives. | courtesy photo
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sandtown-winchester is a limited edition yarn named for the neighborhood in which freddie gray lived. | courtesy photo
“It’s bananas, and no one would really know about that unless they wanted to research the colors. It’s sort of this nod towards my own blackness and my own awareness of the fact that my presence in the knitting world is unwelcome to some people. The nod to that has always been a part of my work,” she said.

Like the company name suggests, Collins draws color name inspiration from communities in areas she’s lived.
“I felt like it was upsetting the status quo a little bit … because the knitting community, especially when I was living in DC, the knitting community was almost entirely white. So I felt like just being who I was, was entirely unexpected,” she said. “I wanted to convey a distinctly urban aesthetic and idea — urban meaning ‘city’ and also meaning that like, with the connotation of being black.”

Sometimes the color names are based on aspects of a neighborhood, like the aforementioned Roland Park. And Canton is a Baltimore neighborhood with a lot of waterfront property, so the name fit a blue-green colorway. Other times they’re based on inside jokes, like a friend of Collins’ who suggested they needed a bright yellow — so they named their yellow after the neighborhood that friend lived in. 

“My favorite is one that we’ve actually discontinued. It was 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and I came up with it sort of inspired by Michelle Obama,” Collins said. “In the beginning of the Obama presidency everyone was really excited and hopeful. I was really kind of amped up of the idea of reaching across the aisle and collaborating to make America better for everyone. That color is a purple — it’s kind of an eggplant — but it’s got spots of red and spots of blue. There’s a lot of feeling in that yarn.”

Collins said she doesn’t expect every knitter or designer of color to take part in the discussion.
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“Everyone has to act at their own comfort level, because it is emotional labor to engage in conversations and educate people about diversity and being inclusive and not even about overt racism, this is just about things that most people don’t notice or think about,” she said. “I would encourage everyone to own or embrace their identity, but whether or not you want to make your voice heard, that’s your business.”
<< dyeing for a cause >>

I originally learned about Neighborhood Fiber Co. a few years ago after the company released one of its limited-edition colorways.

“The first time we did it was after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. The city was exploding: it was like nothing I’d ever seen or nothing I’d ever expected to be living through and it just felt like everyone was hurting,” Collins said.

She had experience working as a fundraiser, 
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a dye pot in the production area of neighborhood fiber co. | courtesy photo
and felt called to do something in the wake of Gray’s death. So they created a color and donated all of the money collected from the sale of those skeins. 

“We were able to raise $10,000. It was the first time we did it and it far exceeded my expectation,” Collins said. “We donated it to a Baltimore charity foundation. I felt like it was something that no matter your politics, you could get behind rebuilding a city. … I was very careful to pick a fund that would be palatable to everyone. I didn’t donate the money to Black Lives Matter … and then eventually as time went on, our voice got a little louder. I started letting more of my own politics show through and it’s just part of who I am and it’s part of the ethos of this company.”
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They’ve donated to causes of all sizes, but it’s the smaller or local ones where she feels the most good has been done.

​“I really want to focus on helping the community in a really tangible way. When we donated $10,000 to Doctors Without Borders, that was amazing, but they’re a huge organization. Whereas we donated $10,000 to one of these gun safety advocate organizations and … they sent us the most gushing email that said, ‘Thank you so much! We can now hire this person we’ve been trying to find the money for.’ It was just really overwhelming,” Collins said. 
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She said for a while the company would design a cause-based colorway as a reactionary thing, but for 2019 she aims to be more intentional with their craftivism. Neighborhood Fiber Co. will work with Baltimore Youth Arts this year to teach dyeing skills and entrepreneurship. In part, this choice stems from what she said was a transformative moment in her knitting career. Collins used to teach dyeing skills in an after-school program, and loved seeing the students’ reactions.

“Watching them watch the yarn change from pink to white … and watching the water change from pink to clear, watching them get excited about that was awesome. It’s like watching magic happen,” she said.

With this latest project, Neighborhood Fiber Co.’s staff will have a direct effect in the community, reaching lower income black students in an authentic and personal way.

“That said, something terrible will probably happen and we’ll probably decide to raise money for it because I can’t help myself, but hopefully we won’t have any tragic mass shootings or horrible health crises on an international level,” Collins said.
<< welcome to the neighborhood >>
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One of the tenets of this website is providing knitspiration, as well as business inspiration. Read more stories of artists and crafters with causes here. Know someone who should be featured? Let me know!
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