Karen Amarotico Oral History Interview, July 24, 2018

TIAH EDMUNSON-MORTON: Okay, so let's get started with your name.

KAREN AMAROTICO: Well, the full name Karen Morse Amarotico, like the code, Morse code. There were other questions you had.

TEM: Today's date.

KA: Today's date is 7/23?

TEM: 24.

KA: 24. Oh, yes, it's Tuesday-2018. When I was born?

TEM: Yes.

KA: November 23, 1956.

TEM: And we are in...

KA: Ashland, Oregon.

TEM: Ashland, Oregon. This is Tiah Edmnson-Morton. We're going to start with where you were born.

KA: Staten Island, New York.

TEM: How long has your family lived in New York?

KA: Forever. Yeah. Staten Island. Now all these years later my daughter has moved to Manhattan. So, I moved 3,000 miles one way, she moves the other. But, 00:01:00that's kind of how things happen. Most of my family has never left. When people move, if you retire, you get a home in Florida. People do that. Then some people in my family moved to New Jersey. I think I have one family member in Virginia. Mostly they're all right there, because where would they go? There's this pull-when are you coming back? I kind of have a life out here. You know I wasn't just hanging out.

TEM: Yeah.

KA: So, I've built a community.

TEM: What did your parents do?

KA: My mom was a mom and sold Avon, because that was something she could fit into kids, school, all that stuff. My dad worked for the city of New York in the 00:02:00corrections department. So, he was during that big uprising, Attica-I don't know if he was there or if he had to be moved to other prisons to help because that was such a big thing. So, you can imagine growing up with a dad who carries a Billy club and not a gun, because a gun, if they got it in the prison would be dangerous. Dating was interesting, because there was no guy that he didn't see a criminal. But, that's okay. He was protective.

TEM: Do you just have one sister?

KA: At this point. I was the first child of 4. My mom had a baby in '58 that she was only 9 weeks and she passed. She was probably, pneumonia. My second sister was born in '60. She had cystic fibrosis. We found that out about when she was 00:03:0013 or 14. They kept thinking all these other things. She lived 34 years, which was a long time, but not long enough for us. Then my baby sister was born in '66. My dad wanted a son. My mom gave it 4 tries and said, that's it. That's all we get. There's 2 of us left and we are the only people in our family left. My mom had cancer and my dad just died in '16. He had a stroke, but he was almost 80. He lived a long time.

TEM: What was it like to grow up in New York?

KA: Staten Island is different than the other boroughs, because in the mid '60s the bridge, the Verrazzano Bridge wasn't there. So, to get to Manhattan you had 00:04:00to take a boat. So, you'd have to get to the ferry and then you took the ferry into Manhattan. What happens is, not everybody works right off the ferry, so then you're taking transportation, buses or trains, uptown. Staten Island, until the bridge, was, there were farms actually in some places. It was pretty not urban at all. Then things changed.

TEM: I wonder did it feel, recognizing that it was the only place that you knew to grow up in, did it feel suburban? Did it have a separate, suburban feel to it?

KA: From the rest of the city, yeah.

TEM: Yeah.

KA: There were many people, I'm sure, in the other boroughs that have never been to Staten Island because they think why? I dated a guy from Queens once and I 00:05:00said you know I've never been to Queens. He said, well, I've never been to Staten Island. I thought, well, that's not unique. I mean, there's so many people that haven't been there. I would say I felt safe, and in the first few years of my life I lived in the house that my grandfather owned and then he passed and they had to sell it and then we moved into this brand new housing project, which you see them a lot on TV and movies. I think ours was pretty typical, only 8 floors, but in 2 city blocks we had 6 buildings and there were hundreds of families in each building. If you ever thought you were getting away with something, you knew there was somebody looking out a window and they were calling your mom. They did. I couldn't do anything, which was probably good, 00:06:00because you had all these eyes. We would walk, because none of us had money to buy cars or whatever. We walked until we were late teens and then we eventually saved money and bought cars. I'm friends with still like my best friend in third grade. We still connect, not that many. I've never been to a high school reunion because once I graduated and moved west the idea of flying for a reunion just didn't appeal. I think I'm getting ready. I might want to go some time now.

TEM: So, who else lived in the housing project? Who were the other families? Was it a mix?

KA: Oh, every mix, because the apartments went from A to O, however that adds 00:07:00up. I can't tell you what letter O is in the alphabet, what number.

TEM: Middle.

KA: Yeah. There were that many apartments on each floor and the end apartments had the most bedrooms, so those were the families with different last names, Italian, Irish, you know the more Catholic, I think and 6 and 7 kids. We had 3 kids, so we lived in a smaller apartment with 3 bedrooms. I don't know how many the bigger ones had. Then you'd have single people. You'd have old couples. So, it was all over. When it first started, it was so well-kept and there were policeman that were our policeman, and as a little kid you grew up and you knew that if anything went wrong, you would go get officer Largo and he would come over and help you. That was a nice feeling. I don't think my kids quite fell 00:08:00that way. Well, they were a little rambunctious at times. I hadn't gotten to that. So, kids, and there were always kids out on the playground, basketball games going on.

TEM: It seems like you have your own, it's almost like a-

KA: You need to get out of the house, you know there's going to be 10 other people that you know right there. Babysitting was great, because there's so many kids. The elementary school is right behind on one street and the middle school was on the other street. I never left, for the first, what, what's middle school, 12? 13? For those first 13 years that's where I was.

TEM: I know the end of this story up until today, so I know that cooking and baking and food becomes important in your life later, certainly. Was it 00:09:00important in your family early on? Did you have food traditions or things that you did together around food or cooking?

KA: I liked baking, and way back then there was the Easy Bake Oven. I thought that would be the answer to my prayers, because I could own it and not have to ask, can I use the oven? After playing with it for a while and every little thing came out tasting like cardboard or looking like cardboard, I said, Mom, I want to use the real oven.

TEM: Please don't make my bake by lightbulb.

KA: So, what she did, and this was her creative. She would say, okay, well, if you help me clean out the hall closet, you can make desert. It wasn't a chore. I would line up the towels. I would do whatever it took to have that permission. I was probably 9 or 10. Then she started easing me into cooking, because that 00:10:00would help her because she had my little sister by then and I got to help with the baby and help with the dinner and whatever. So, I liked being around food. I think my mom, there was something about bringing food places. Most were Presbyterian and we're like the potluck champions in the religious world, or at least I feel we are. That was, I got, in the church you would find all these women and they made pies and they were gorgeous and I'm 10 or 12 and I'm like how did you do that? They would just explain it. I'd be like, wow. Now, that's probably how I sound to somebody when they ask me how to make a pie. I'm like, oh it's really easy. You just do this and there it is. I'm an old church lady, I guess, at this point. Never thought it would happen, but here I am. So, food was 00:11:00important. We didn't really have traditions. My mom had to cook. I would not say she liked to cook. So, when I started taking over some things that was great for her. But then I was in high school. By the time I was in high school I wasn't helping as much with dinner because I had school. My dad cooked occasionally, but nobody took it to the level that I did, because I would always want to go, well, what if we-I just found a book I made the other day from when I was a teenager of all these pretty pictures in magazines of things I wanted to make. I don't know that I made any of them, but I kept it as a this was important.

TEM: What were the things that you wanted to make? What seemed attractive to you as possibilities?

KA: Oh, gosh. It looked like almost a wedding cake and it was covered in marzipan and it was lightly dusted with powdered sugar or something. Then they 00:12:00had made little acorns or something and put them all around the different layers where they met the next layer. I just thought this was a work of art. This is so amazing. Now I would just probably not even want to each that much marzipan, even if it was just on my slice. But that didn't matter. I'm sure when I was 12 I would have eaten the whole cake. But I've grown up a little but so I don't do that.

TEM: That sounds pretty ornate, thought. It's not a-you weren't just messing around with a like crumble pie.

KA: No, I was taking things to aspire to, because my very first pie, my mom, I'm sure it was cherry and I know we had a can of filling, so I didn't make the feeling. We might have even just bought the crust, not the already made but the one we roll out and do that. I made lattice top. It was lovely. I pulled it out 00:13:00of the oven. It got caught on the lip and did a flip right back into the oven. I was almost in tears. I'm just terrified my mom's going to be so furious. She's like, oh, well. Which, thank you, Mom, for not wanting to kill me. It was a mess. It was a mess.

TEM: What influence did the diverse population and diverse culinary population have on the food that you ate or the things that you wanted to try? Can you look back from now?

KA: You mean where I grew up, the housing?

TEM: Yeah.

KA: I think one of the things I noticed-I didn't have dinner with a lot of other families. That really wasn't-you had basically enough room in your kitchen for your family, is how I understood it. We didn't eat over. My friends lived right 00:14:00upstairs. She was from Bogotá, Columbia. This was 7th grade when she moved in. The 2 things that I learned from her is they eat completely differently than we do. There was rice at every meal, and I loved their rice, the way it was made. There was always a crunchy bottom to the pan. I would-she said, nobody likes that. I said, no it's delicious. She said, no, that's the part we throw away. Not me.

TEM: Well, I will come to dinner.

KA: Then the other was, I was learning Spanish in our class. The professor would stand up and make us all, ponte de pie (stand on your feet), and repeat after me: ¿Como esta usted? Estoy bien, gracias. ¿Y, tú? We all did it. We all recited it. Then I would sit in Maria's house and listen to everybody talk, and 00:15:00nobody sounded like that. I think that's what gave me a better ear for Spanish is just listening. Her mother didn't speak English and I didn't really speak Spanish, so we learned from each other. It was like a little UN going. It was very nice.

TEM: What did you like in school?

KA: What did I like in school? I think I told a lot of jokes and wasn't really an A student. I wasn't a bad student, I just didn't care. In grade school I got to act in a bunch of plays. I think that by middle school when that thought came to me, I was like I would be too embarrassed, because you go through that middle school thing. By the time high school came around I was doing other things, 00:16:00service, clubs, and those things. I don't know. I think we did have, in middle school, I think we had home ec, but it was nothing-I could not tell you one thing I did there and it wasn't memorable.

TEM: Doesn't really seem like heading into that time, it was, I think the golden age of home ec had passed.

KA: Yeah. My mom didn't like cooking, and that was the age of we've got frozen food, we've got canned food, and Mom doesn't have to spend all day doing that. The first time when I went to CIA, in one of the first classes they gave me green beans. That's your job, you're going to take off the little parts that don't' go in it, and blanch them and then sauté them in butter and then toast them in toasted almonds. I thought, oh, my God, I hate green beans, because all 00:17:00I had ever had, that I can remember (my mom's probably saying something differently) was frozen or canned, both of which sucked. So, I thought, oh, God. Of all the things I have to make this. Then, I made them and they were incredible. I thought, you've got to be kidding me. I didn't know these existed. So, why would you do that to a green bean?

TEM: I think the same thing about brussels sprouts. I think brussels sprouts have gotten a bad name from all of the poorly made brussels sprouts.

KA: Yeah, in the bag. My sister actually-don't ever tell her I said this-she doesn't like to cook, either. She has frozen vegetables. You know, sometimes they come with a sauce or sometimes it's just you press the microwave for 2 minutes and it steams in the bag, and I don't have any of that. Even though 00:18:00we're the same family, I'm the oldest, she's the youngest-she goes fishing and puts the hook in the worm and catches fish and I'm like, nope. Not doing that. We are completely different.

TEM: You're a good pair, though, because you could make dinner.

KA: We could make dinner. She knows how to do things like, I don't even like making lasagna because it always seems like so much work, and a couple weeks ago I had to make lasagna, and I'm like what is your problem? It's not that hard? But I would usually just make baked ziti-toss it all together, put it in the pan. I got other things to do. Same basic recipe but not layered.

TEM: What did you think when you were, let's say middle school age. So, starting to think of yourself as someone who would eventually not live in your house, who could make choices-what were those early things that you thought, you know, I 00:19:00really want to do this, or I want to go live in this place, or this thing seems like something that I want to be or do?

KA: I always, because my grandma was a nurse, I thought I would be a nurse, doctor maybe if I could go that far. My best friend from third grade did become a doctor. She also had a completely different life and a mother who was able to... she had kids before she went to medical school, which changes everything, I'm sure. I loved being around the idea that I would be helping people. I loved thinking that. When my sister was diagnosed with cystic, she was hospitalized a few times because, well, in the beginning they thought she had sinus problems and there was operations. She was a young person, so she was in the children's 00:20:00ward. I got to be there to visit her. I fainted for the first time in my life when I saw her, because she was as white as the sheet, or as close as that comes. I wanted to steal a little baby that had been abused and protect it forever. Somewhere along the line, I thought, I don't think this is where I can work. I had a college professor, the first year I think, in psychology and he said, okay, I want everyone to take out a piece of paper. I want you to write on that paper what you love to do, and I wrote bake. He said, now I want you to look at that word that you wrote and tell me, does anybody make money doing that? My first thought was no, of course not. Then I was like, no. Yeah. Oh, oh. 00:21:00It didn't happen right away, but I was baking all the time. I mean, my sister had tutors and I would bake things for the tutors. In the beginning I was using cake mixes, because that was the thing. Then I started using real recipes and making a real buttercream or whatever. Once I realized I couldn't do the program I was on and my sister had been sick again, I thought, I'll quit. I'll do something else. My parents were furious that I quit college.

TEM: Where were you going to school?

KA: Brooklyn. Brooklyn College. I went to work in a catering home. I applied to the culinary institute and completely different path. I might have, if I was 00:22:00brave enough and had somebody in Chicago, might have gone to the Chicago school of baking, but I didn't. I mean, it was hard enough for my family, because you asked where does everybody live? Well, they all live kind of really close together. We don't go far. Here I was going to go upstate to school, or upstate is a Staten Island thing, because people that really live upstate New York live near Buffalo, which is hours and hours away, but for us it was upstate. That was far enough. Nobody was going to let me go to Chicago, because, no, you're not going to Chicago. But I could go upstate. I could do that. I was not even that young, but I went.

TEM: How did you decide where to go to college? What was that kind of end of high school, that, I know I'm going to graduate. Now it's not that you're in 00:23:00that middle school phase where you're thinking, hey what could I do, but this kind of more serious, I am an almost adult. I am going to almost make my own decisions. What were your criteria or what were the things that-?

KA: I don't know that I did a whole big thing about it, but I would say that way back then city colleges were free. You paid for books. I'm pretty sure it was free. I don't think we paid much of anything. That meant I was going to a city college. I'm sure somebody recommended Brooklyn, and Brooklyn and Staten Island are close enough. It wouldn't be that much of a commute. I made friends who drove. So, I didn't always have to take a boat and a subway and a train. I could actually get a ride. It was a nice campus and it was humungous. I don't know 00:24:00that I would have... I don't know. It was really a very big school.

TEM: Did you live on campus? Did city colleges-?

KA: No.

TEM: I feel like as soon as you said that I realized I know very little about city colleges. Are they more commuter schools, so people would--?

KA: Yeah. Brooklyn...what was I just going to say?

TEM: So I asked if you lived on campus, and you said, no.

KA: No. I went a year and a half to Brooklyn College before I stopped. It was initially really hard. I thought I did well in school. I wasn't straight As but I did well in most of my classes, and in my science class I was getting Cs. I was mortified, and went to the professor and waited in the long line of people 00:25:00to talk to him and when I got there I showed him my grade and he goes, what's wrong? I said, I've never gotten a C in my life. He said, C's pretty good in my class. I thought, oh. Wow. We are in trouble. It was impossible for me to get-and, here. In our biology class one day they said, next week we're going to talk about sweet breads. I thought they meant baking. I didn't know that sweet breads were an organ, or whatever, in your body until next week and I went, oh no. Oh, gosh. We are just. So, it made sense that maybe medicine and me didn't... and I can help people through food.

TEM: Did you think about food science or sensory work or anything related?

KA: No, but maybe there's still time.

TEM: I would say so.

KA: Yeah. Because I realize I can make things taste wonderful, but sometimes I 00:26:00feel guilty knowing that the amount of calories in that piece of cake or whatever is a lot. Maybe people don't need to eat like that, but sometimes they do.

TEM: Yeah.

KA: So, no I didn't. We did have food science a little bit in culinary school, but I'm sure it was just I had to do what I had to do and I never thought about it again.

TEM: What were some of the things as a young adult that you liked to do? Young adult, New York City?

KA: Friends, would just take the boat and walk Manhattan, because it was so cheap. The ferry, I think was a nickel.

TEM: Wow.

KA: Now, it's free, because they want people to not use their cars. The bus fair, I think, might have been 15 cents. You didn't have to babysit long to have 00:27:00a dollar two in your purse or your pocket and be able to do almost anything. We hung out. We would go to movies. On a Saturday you could watch show after a show after show for the one admission. Vincent Price Movies, that kind of thing. I knew so many people and I was in choir. Our church had a bell choir and I was part of that.

TEM: I mean, I guess, I'm curious now as a bona fide adult-

KA: Hopefully.

TEM: ...looking back on that time, I hear you grew up, even if it was Staten Island, you still, in my mind, you grew up in New York. You could have been on Wall Street and it would be the same thing to me. So, I'm wondering do you look back on it now and think wow, that was pretty amazing that that's where I grew up? Do you have a sense of those things that I did were unique because of where 00:28:00I lived, which may have seemed, sort of, that's just where you did because that's where you grew up?

KA: You know that New Yorker, there's a cartoon where it's a, what is it a painting or a drawing or whatever, of the New Yorker's view of the country? I definitely was that, because you grow up in New York and that's all you hear about. You know there's a few states in the middle and then there's California and then there's the Pacific Ocean. I mean, my roommate at culinary school was from Iowa and I asked her if her family had a farm, and she almost socked me, which I apologize, Sheila, but really I was so sheltered, and I had my picture of what the rest of the country was like. I'm actually more nervous walking through woods than I am through a dark city street because, and I don't walk on 00:29:00the sidewalk because people can hide behind buildings or behind cars so I like walking down the middle of the street. I've had many people say, why don't you come over here on the sidewalk? I'm like, because I just feel like I have a chance to see what's coming and make... and even in Ashland you can have people that are a little unsavory, maybe. So, you might, I don't know how other people do it, but I'll just kind of notice and then maybe somehow go, oh, huh, and cross the street, not make a big like I'm not walking here. Just to protect myself.

TEM: That kind of street awareness.

KA: But I never really had a problem. One of my culinary, not culinary, another psychology teacher told me, if you're on the bus stop and somebody's acting crazy, he said, act crazier than they are and they will leave you alone. I never 00:30:00had to do that, but I had that in my mind. Then I also had a coworker once say, Karen, you are so helpful and friendly and whatever. He said, but I go home worrying about you being on the train. He said, so, I want you to just try and follow this model. If somebody says, you know what time it is? These are the two answers: you give them the time or you say, no, I'm sorry I don't. He said, but you don't do this: oh, when I left work it was 7:30, but then I stopped and got a coffee, and that was about 15 minutes, so it might be 7:45 now, but, wait, you know. He said, don't do that. I didn't realize how funny that sounded, but it really, it was how I was, fearless, which is kind of weird to grow up in New York with, but you are. There's some kind of-but then you're a kid as well. You 00:31:00have that nothing can happen to me, and then you have kids and then you go, oh, my God. Everything could happen to them.

TEM: So, what was it like to be in culinary school? Did it feel like, oh, my gosh, this is what I want to do, or wow this isn't what I thought or some place in between?

KA: Way back then very few women. In fact, if I had been smarter, I might have gotten a lawsuit because when I applied, I had to jump through a bunch of hoops. I had to get a cooking job to show that I knew what I was actually doing.

TEM: That's so ironic.

KA: Yeah, because they want you to know the heat before you get into the kitchen. They want you to be able to have some experience under your belt. But when I was looking at the catalogue, I saw that the building, the main building, 00:32:00had rooms that were cheaper than the dorms. When I was talking to the dean, or whoever it was, about getting in and I said I want to stay at Roth Hall because it's only $500 a month as opposed to $700, he said, that's not an option. That's a men's only dorm.

TEM: But it was cheaper.

KA: It was cheaper, yeah. I didn't have anyone saying, hello? Then, again, it was way, way long ago, but it might have changed something. So, I wound up in the regular dorms paying more money. That was, you know, not okay.

TEM: It's just so interesting to me that we see cooking more generally as such a gendered, a female gendered profession, or a female-gendered thing, but then when it is a profession...

KA: Professional.

TEM: ...then it's the same thing, different expectations, different...

KA: And we, you know, my mom she never was losing it in the kitchen, and men were losing it in the kitchen a lot. I worked for a chef, first of all he would chase me into the refrigerator-you know, he would tell me, oh could you go into the refrigerator and get this item for me? I'm like, oh, okay. I'd be in the refrigerator, and then he'd come in and chase me around the thing and I'd be like okay, I'm never going in the refrigerator again. So, there was that aspect, and then there was the people that-there was one chef who was a lunatic. He would turn over tables and scream at people until they cried. I was one of them. I thought, what is your point? Why are you doing this? This is not necessary. Eventually, so I graduated in '83. I want to say maybe '98 I went back to, we 00:34:00have a west coast campus for the culinary and I took a bread baking class for artisan breads, and with all those memories behind me, I was terrified. We had about 10 or 12 people in the class, mostly men. I think all men, except me. One of the things, we were paired, me and a guy were paired, and we had to make something but I couldn't find the item. I'm trying, we're both trying very judiciously to go is it over here? Is it, you know, without asking any questions because you don't want to be yelled at. The chef ran over to me in clogs and said, what are you looking for? I can help you. I was like, this has never happened before. I don't even know what to say. I told him, and he says, oh I have some in my locker. I will get it for you. He brought back the jar of whatever it was and I was like open-mouthed. Oh, my God. Later I told the chef 00:35:00who had assigned us to do whatever we did what had happened, and I said I'm not used to that from my experience in CIA, and he said, oh. Yeah. We cannot be like that and get people to come and pay us the money that we're asking.

TEM: Is that like a west coast/east coast thing? Or do you think that it had completely shifted?

KA: Well, it's a-no, I think it had completely shifted.

TEM: That it wasn't just a regional?

KA: No. I think many more women are in that field and I think things took this seismic shift and it really became, you need to be nice. You can't chase anybody around the kitchen, whatever.

TEM: What did you think you wanted to do when you finished school? What was your dream job or even just a first step of interest? Did you want to stay in New York?

KA: I kind of did. Again, I grew up with a family that never left. So, me leaving was weird. I didn't know I would be gone this long, or forever. I actually interviewed with some, a caterer thinking I liked other, not just one thing. I wound up doing mostly pastries, working in pastry shops and things because that was kind of fun to take that boxed cake mix and throw that idea away forever and be able to make all kinds of stuff that I'd always taken pictures of or seen in magazines but now I could do it. I don't even know, I think there's a part of me that doesn't dream real well. Maybe, in fact, growing 00:37:00up I used to think when I got married, but in my dream, I had, or in that conversation with myself, I would be in a kitchen like my mom's in a project somewhere, because that's what I knew. Then when I finally started living in houses, I'm like oh. I don't have to do that. I really have nothing bad to say about it, because I have friends, we all grew up, we did well. I think unless, it's kind of like unless you have gone through something, I've had people-I dated a guy in high school and he wanted to take me away from the project. I thought, you don't know what I have here. I have friends everywhere. I'm not feeling ashamed to tell you I grew up in a project, because when I say that some 00:38:00people are like, you did what? Because they have a picture, maybe of Chicago, maybe like ghetto or, I don't know what. There's lots of movies with bad project scenes. But ours, in the beginning, was really, really nice. Over time it declined, but we were...what it was meant to do was to get people, young couples, low income jobs, to make enough money to save up for a house. That's, it took my dad 10 years. He had a second or third kid, fourth kid, but only 3 at the time while that was going on, and he worked as a corrections officer. But our rent was very low, and we were able to actually go shopping and buy clothes and food because the rent was low, and that was something I keep thinking, why can't we do something like that? Because people can't afford houses. Not 00:39:00everybody can. Not everybody wants to. It's such a big job.

TEM: Did you move back to, I want to call it down state instead of up state. Did you move back to-?

KA: Back to Staten Island?

TEM: Yeah.

KA: I did after culinary school. Then I got a job in Manhattan. I was not in a kitchen. I was working for the, what department is it called? Food and beverage. I was the controller, which was like this big title for somebody who didn't really know what she was doing initially. So, it was all about invoices and making sure we had everything categorized. Way back then, I keep saying that, the chef would have to give you a requisition form filled out with the items 00:40:00that he needed so that we could tally what he took, deduct it from our inventory, and that was the cost associated with what he took out. After a few months, I kept hearing that our food cost was really high, and I said it shouldn't be. Then I found out the chef had a key. He would ask for things, but when I went home, he had a key to the thing and he didn't write down what he took, so he was trying to make his food costs look good but I was the one getting in trouble for not... there's loss. No. No, it's stealing and it's him. So, I said, you can no longer hold me responsible if the chef has a key. Unless you take that away, we're not going there.

TEM: But you were employed by the city.

KA: No. I worked for a hotel.

TEM: Oh, oh, oh. I understand.

KA: In midtown.

TEM: I was like I didn't know that's how-okay. That makes much more sense than having one-to-one relationships with the city employee and a company like that was like wow. How long did you work there?

KA: Oh. I don't even think I was there a year because the person who eventually became my husband was graduating from culinary school and he got a job in Dallas, Texas. I said why are you going to Dallas, Texas? There's plenty of work around here. He liked the chef that had left the school to help open this restaurant. It wasn't a fancy place. It was called Lou and Larry's. I don't even remember what they cooked or what their specials were. He talked me into leaving 00:42:00to go with him to Texas. It was, you know, I can still see my parents on the porch, everybody crying and waving as we're driving away and I'm like what am I doing? I became a baker at a Marriott Hotel there. Texas was hot and flat and we only lasted 6 months.

TEM: Where were you at in Texas?

KA: Dallas.

TEM: Dallas.

KA: Yeah, right near Dallas. I would have been happier in Fort Worth, maybe, because it was more what I thought Texas looked like. Dallas is mostly buildings and cars. This is 30 years. It's been a long time, but it didn't-I was not happy there, and nobody walked, or it felt like nobody walked. One day I brought my car to the shop and the guy said, it's going to be about an hour. They had the pinup girls and I'm like, okay, I need to go for a walk. I just started walking on some street out in the middle of nowhere waiting for the car to be fixed, 00:43:00when somebody, some guy stops and says, hey, working? I looked at him so confused. I'm like, no. I'm out here walking because my car-oh. No. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. So, I was a little naïve for coming from New York, but what? Do I look like I'm working? Yeah, apparently I do. Sorry.

TEM: That's hilarious.

KA: It's... a friend told me a similar story if somebody asked her if she was working when she was just walking, so. Not in Texas. Somewhere else. I thought, so it's not that uncommon, really.

TEM: Where did you guys go after? Did you get married before you went to Texas?

KA: No.

TEM: No.

KA: We were just cohabitating. We both knew that Texas was not our home. We took 00:44:00out a coin and talked about where we would like to go. I said, well, I would love to see Boston. That's always been something I wanted to see, and I want to see San Francisco. I'll go either place. So, we flipped a coin, and San Francisco won. His brother was living there, so that kind of made sense, though it would have been nicer to be on the east coast closer to my family, but it didn't work out that way. We were in San Francisco for several years. We got there at Christmas of '84, or right after that. We got married in '86, because he wanted to come to Oregon and go to school, because he realized, he had been working for a food service company in a college, and the way his boss figured 00:45:00out whether or not he made money that year was he would give the shoebox of receipts to his accountant and then he would find out if he had a good year or a bad year and, you know, Emile decided I can't do that. I need control, which is a big thing with him. Wo, he thought, we'll go to SOU. He knew I wouldn't just follow him yet again, and wanted me to be real excited about it. So, we came here. We got married back east. Then had a wedding, or a ceremony, in San Francisco and then came here.

TEM: What was it like to live in San Francisco? So, another, Dallas is a big city, but I don't think of it as being a city in the same sense.

KA: Metropolitan kind of thing.

TEM: Yeah. The same sense of San Francisco being a city, New York being a city, Chicago being a city.

KA: Good transportation, really good transportation. And water and ocean. That 00:46:00was really nice. The weather was weird. I never experienced such cold summers, where I can get so chilly. Again, not afraid. Coming home from work late at night and I see this homeless man, miss do you have any money. I'm smart enough not to say, oh yeah. Hang on, and open my purse and get my head bopped. I had been carrying home the leftover donuts from that morning to feed the ducks the next day. I said, you know, no. I don't have any money but I've got this bag of donuts. He just looked at me. He said, that's okay miss. I don't eat sweets. I thought, well, there you go. Okay. I can be nice. He can be nice. We're good.

TEM: I actually had the same thing happen, but I had fruit with me. I said, I 00:47:00have some fruit. He was like, no. I don't really want that. I'm like, alright. I'll keep my fruit.

KA: But, you know, it's nice to be able to give.

TEM: Must be a San Francisco thing.

KA: Is that where you were?

TEM: Yeah.

KA: Ah, wow. And I just loved the water and it was just a very busy place and the Golden Gate Park was gorgeous.

TEM: What do you remember culturally from that time? So, mid '80s, you know, what are the things that stand out to you as those bigger picture, again, you're an adult paying attention.

KA: The shuttle explosion. Gosh, different music, listening to different things 00:48:00and maybe seeing more diversity, even though New York is so diverse. Dallas wasn't, or, didn't feel the same. Dallas had more Mexicans. New York is more, what I grew up with was, well, Maria was from Columbia, but I knew a lot of Puerto Rican people. My friend Laura, her family's from Puerto Rico. The funniest thing is she doesn't speak any Spanish at all. I'm like, no. That's not okay. We're going to work on that, because I shouldn't be trying to be bilingual if you're not even interested. So, I don't know that... I think I could have been in my own head.

UNIDENTIFIED: Do you want anything before I head in?

KA: No. You go ahead. Thank you.

TEM: Thank you.

KA: I'm trying to think of what... I was still, again, I moved to the west 00:49:00coast. I didn't know anybody coming, so each time I've moved to a new place I not brought anybody, really with me. I'd been brought and then it's now what do I do? How do I make that work? Again, I can talk to people on the bus and tell them my life story if they ask. I try not to do that generally. I didn't do any church in San Francisco, I don't think, because it just didn't seem important.

TEM: I was curious because I know you do so much community-based, like service-based now. Was that something that was always part of your life? Did you find those opportunities to have those kind of organized service experiences or 00:50:00did it come with the church? It was a natural outcropping?

KA: You know what was interesting is my mom took me to church, but my mom wouldn't go because when she lost the baby she was mad. She and God had that whatever, feud going on forever. She would take me to church. It never occurred to me there was, it was like for me. Here you go. I'm taking you to church. I'm like why don't you go? She goes, I have to take care of your sister or I have to clean the house, or whatever her reasons were. I was like, okay. It took a while to get it. I don't know that I realized what kind of community it was. It was just what I had in the beginning and through high school and then not until we came here did I really have a church again. The funny thing coming here, I went 00:51:00to the First Presbyterian Church of Staten Island, and in New York, okay, with that New York mentality somehow I thought we were the first Presbyterian church. Never thought about every town has a first or second Presbyterian church. I came here to Ashland, Oregon, you mean there's more than? Oh, God. That is. how did I not know that. I thought we were special.

So, I started coming here after my mom died. My friend said, you might like coming to this church, and for a long time I was the person that snuck in late, because I was shy, which is hard to believe. I would leave before it got to like everyone's leaving. I'd sneak out, because I really didn't want to do a whole lot. I just wanted to hear the message, the stories, and ditch. Then there was a 00:52:00southern gal older lady named Ellen. One day-I thought nobody noticed me. I thought I was basically invisible. I was sneaking out, and she's tapping me on the shoulder, and this lovely southern accent says, where have you been? I haven't seen you forever. I thought, she noticed me. So, then I became a little bit braver. Now, unfortunately a lot of the people that were there then, many have died because it's been years. Church is, I've had to stand up and decide what I want it to be for me, and we've talked about service, and I think my mom did a lot of that. We always would be bringing food or something to somebody that was sick or shopping for somebody that needed help. With my sister with 00:53:00cystic, we would raise money for that. So, it's always been an awareness. Then I would do things like help with literacy programs, because I really like, I thought, you know those years ago they had, I don't know if they still do, $25 a month and you could (I was going to say rent a child) you could support a child in a faraway country and you would get updates. Well, they don't really, or they didn't really send you updates. It was a general thing. I was hoping that I'd get to know Pablo or whoever the kid was I was supporting, and I-

TEM: What was that called? It had some-

KA: Save the children.

TEM: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

KA: It took a minute for me to get there. I did that, and then I realized, I would rather be one-on-one, because I want to feel whatever impact and connection, and I wasn't getting that from sending $25 a month. So, just 00:54:00getting, I did more things like that. With the literacy program, SMART, in Oregon, Start Making a Reader Today. The way I got involved there was my husband was an accountant for a little while. Yeah, that will go... and he was expected to do community service. There was some kind of expectation.

TEM: Because of like the firm or just?

KA: Yeah, he worked for Arthur Andersen.

TEM: Okay.

KA: And I said, okay, well, and so he signed up to do this once a week for an hour. You read to two kids. Then he finds out he's being sent to Chicago for 2 weeks and I said who's going to read for you. He said, nobody. I have to go to Chicago. Those kids, you are the responsible adult in their life, and you don't show up then what do they think? Anybody can be a flake.

So, I said I will go and read with you, with your kids. I would show up when he 00:55:00couldn't, and then I started going on my own. He dropped out. He found something else that worked for him and I became a SMART reader for about 12 years. Such a, I can't even tell you 5 of their names, but just to be with these kids. When I was reading in the very beginning it was in a school in Portland that was challenged, and one little girl, I pick her up from class, we're walking to wherever, the reading room, and I said, I missed you last week, were you sick? She said, no. My dad was beating on my mom and so we had to call the police. She's talking so matter-of-factly, and she's not looking at my face falling, which is a blessing. Wow. Life is so different for everybody. You have no idea. So, I loved being a part of that. Then things got a little hectic and after 12 00:56:00years I haven't done it.

TEM: Were you two living in Portland? How did you go...?

KA: Yeah, we went from San Francisco...

TEM: Oh you didn't come straight here?

KA: No, yeah, we did, we went from San Francisco to Ashland. I know, I'm not giving you a very good roadmap.

TEM: That's alright.

KA: We went from San Francisco to Ashland, four years at SOU. He earned an accounting degree, and I had a business degree and a baby during those 4 years. He got a job offer from Arthur Andersen.

TEM: That would make more sense than Arthur Andersen in Ashland. I didn't realize that there was a break of being... okay.

KA: But we've always been in Oregon. So, we went to Portland for 5 years, which was scary as a new mom, because I thought people would steal my little redhead, because she was such a presence to me. I thought everybody would be after her. 00:57:00But then I calmed down and realized everybody's mostly nice anyway, and we built another life there. Then he left Arthur and we came back here.

TEM: Was your son born in Portland?

KA: Uh-huh [Yes].

TEM: Okay.

KA: Portland Adventist Hospital.

TEM: Then you moved back here.

KA: Then we moved back here. One of the things that got us was we had looked at a business that was for sale. It was at the time a bakery, and it was fairly small, and the idea was that maybe we could own a little mom and pop restaurant or maybe tiny serve beer kind of thing. And the property sat on, after we made an offer and all that stuff, it sat on, we found out after they told us, the EQ 00:58:00or somebody does an inspection and they said it used to be a gas station. We had agreed that we would have a balloon payment in 5 years, because we would pay them and then we would go to the bank and get a loan, but we didn't think we'd be able to get one because of the underneath problems. So, we walked away from that. But we were already interested in coming back, and then the property on Oak Street was for sale, both Emile and his brother, Alex, were excited about that.

TEM: So, I'm thinking about, again, knowing the end of what becomes Standing Stone, I often feel like I have this like...

KA: You know, it was a glass and cabinet shop. It was empty for a while.

TEM: So, did you think... so this was in '96. Did you move back in '95 or '96?

KA: '95.

TEM: Okay. So, were you thinking that craft beer would be a thing? Did you see it as a...?

KA: I didn't. I'm not even, I mean, I love what we make and I like craft beer, but I was still thinking I would be the baker. That's what I can contribute, and so, no. But, it was apparent it was taking off. I was around all the research and I took, I forget, I want to say, you probably can look that up, I think we bought the property in February of '96, and it took until August of '97 to open.

TEM: Well, there was a lot of work you had to do on the inside.

KA: Oh, boy. My biggest memory is we were looking at the property and I said, I have to use the bathroom. Is there a bathroom? They point me to the back, and there's this, it looks like a stall and you open it and there's a toilet that I don't think ever had been cleaned and I said I can wait. I can wait. I'm not doing that. There was so much to do. But I think it had a, you know, I'm kind of wondering is it charmed or cursed, because of all the stuff that's gone on over the years, but it's been, it had a, we thought it had a good feel.

TEM: What was Ashland like in the mid '90s and what did you think that a food and community space would contribute to that?

KA: You know where we are, right off Oak Street. We're about, how many feet? Five hundred feet maybe? From Main Street. We were told if you're not on Main Street no one will ever find you. They won't. They won't even look for you. I'm like, but we're not... I mean, I mean, it's... so, there was that impression. There were some old, like, Omar's was there. Geppetto's was still in town. There were a lot of restaurants, not as many, maybe, as are now. I didn't even think of what it would be like as a community space. I don't think I envisioned that, what it would-because in the beginning, we had to get... everybody was excited when we first opened. Then the fall we have those shoulder seasons, or the April, roughly April to October, is when you made the most money and then you 01:02:00had to hold tight the rest of the year. The restaurants that couldn't do that, that couldn't eke out a living often would close. I remember handing out menus, to-go menus on the street. Hey, we're right over there, bringing them to B&Bs and saying, if anyone's looking for a place, just to drum up our name. Then we started building a regular clientele, like rotaries sometimes would come on Fridays, a group of people. Eventually, enough people started making it their regular place. One of the stories goes that if it wasn't always everyone's first, it was something they would agree to. They liked to, they weren't going 01:03:00to say no I don't like it. So, maybe somebody would say I want to go to Omar's and maybe 3 other people would say, no. Alright, well, let's go to Geppetto's. No. What if we went to? Okay, we'll go there. So, it wasn't necessarily the first choice, but eventually we would win out.

TEM: what was it like to be in business with family?

KA: It's...

TEM: Or, what was the... I mean, and so, there's that challenge of...

KA: It's challenging, I mean, because you have...

TEM: I'm also thinking how did you decide who did what and how did...?

KA: So, because I was the mom now with 2 kids, and as people are being interviewed and Alex was clearly going to be the brewer, even though he only home brewed before. Emile was going to be a manager and I don't know what his 01:04:00brother thought he was going to do, and I was thinking what else would I be but the baker? One day this woman walked past in whites and I thought, who is that? Emile said, that's our baker. I'm sure my mouth dropped and I was like, I thought I was the baker. He said, we have 2 kids. Who's going to watch them. I thought, how come that's not occurring to you? Okay. So, that was heartbreaking for a little bit and then I became kind of like the Girl Friday. I did whatever needed to be done without a title, sometimes without pay, just for the good of the order. I don't know that I would have done it differently, but it probably would have helped me had I done it differently, because you're doing it for the family.

TEM: Yeah, I think about those unspoken roles, too, that people take on within a family that may or may not be the same. Within a business you might be more explicit, whereas within a family there might just be assumptions about roles or about who will do what or it seems like that squishy-ness might carry over.

KA: Yeah. I don't know, because some decisions weren't necessarily voted on. They were just decided. I wasn't really making any decisions. I was pretty much told different things, and you know, I accepted it and made it work. I don't 01:06:00know that I could have been the baker and gone in at 4:00 in the morning when my kids were still little, but by the time they were both in school, and Alex was already in school, so I needed to wait for Coco to, a couple of years. We went through a number of bakers, and then when the last one left, I'm like. That's me now. I'm in there. That meant that was important, because that's what I loved to do and what I was good at. I also did ordering, because I knew that from different jobs over, because in San Francisco I wound up being a food service manager at a little sandwich shop. So, I got to cook a little bit. I got to do all kinds of things. I was bringing all those skills to bear in this new entity.

TEM: What was the... I don't even know what to call it, the financial structure? 01:07:00So, at one point there were a lot of owners. Now, I have it listed as 10 in 2015, but I don't know. Sometimes I feel like numbers in articles aren't always checked. But there were a lot. There were a lot of...

KA: Well, if I was considered an owner, and I would have been because I was married, so that would make 10. But I don't know that they were considered. No, I don't think I was listed. I think it would have been the brothers and then Abe, and then Emile's mom. So, that's 5. Then John, who lent us money when he got an inheritance. So, that's 6. Scott is 7. 8, 9, 10 would be me, Kay, and 01:08:00Danielle, but I don't think that's how it goes.

TEM: Okay, and maybe whoever it was that wrote the article, look at me not citing my sources, whoever it was that wrote the article maybe they were counting partners.

KA: In 2015, we had, gosh, we still had Alex, Emile, Mark, Abe had died, and now his wife and her two daughters, his two daughters were owners. I think we still have Scott. So, that's 7. John sold to somebody else, so that's 8. 15? I don't know.

TEM: So, I guess I'm curious how active all of those owners, partners, voices, were some people more active than others? How do you present a united front as a 01:09:00business, or is that common to have that many different stakeholders or chairholders in a business?

KA: I would not know how common it is, and I don't know how united we always were, but I think we tried to keep the business, not speak out of school, to try and do the right thing. For me, my little role as, you know, I was kind of the baker kitchen manager, so I saw people from the backside of the restaurant and what was important to me, and I didn't even know it at the time, we'd have vendors or the drivers come in and on a hot day I'd offer them a drink or, you know, are you hungry? Here are some scraps from the cake I just made or 01:10:00whatever. You know, sometimes, oh gosh, I just spilled some flour this place is a mess. They'd tell me, no. You have no idea, I have been in some really gross, dirty restaurants. I'm like, oh. Thank you for saying ours isn't, because it was just clutter or whatever. I was trying to advocate from my vantage point. I think they all probably did. Different roles-Emile's mom was retired, and the reason she was an owner was because she had money and could invest and that paid her dividend, which was important. Abe invested because he wanted to see us succeed, but he also wanted money. The daughters now are interested in money as well, which is, you know, it's kind of why you're in business. You want to earn 01:11:00something, so they're figuring that out.

TEM: So, you left in 2007. What does that mean? So, you two are no longer actively involved in the business.

KA: Right.

TEM: Did you still have an investment and a voice in how the business was run?

KA: An investment.

TEM: Okay.

KA: Because I wasn't really the one that was, technically I was an owner and I said I was an owner, but I don't know that, I did not get to vote. It was his voice that voted. The reason, and I don't know where this goes, but the reason we left was because I think he feel like he wasn't, he didn't have a voice or 01:12:00his voice was being overridden. I wouldn't have, at the time I thought, well, if you're not going to be here, you're my husband. I'm going to see what you do. So, we still came to meetings. You know, we have an annual board meeting. There wasn't a whole lot of other communication. One of the perks of ownership was getting money each month to spend at the restaurant, so I tried to use that, because I thought well that's something I can do. I can bring home dinner now and then or invite a friend. I think family dynamics change and we were going 01:13:00through stuff, so it was just...

TEM: Time for transition.

KA: Mm-hmm [yes].

TEM: Your kids were, I guess, in middle school-ish at that time.

KA: In 2007, my daughter graduated high school.

TEM: Oh, okay.

KA: My son was just going in the other end.

TEM: Okay. Did you think that they, that this would become a family business that they would be involved in? Did you see it as, so it was certainly a family business within a certain generation. Did you think that it would be a family business in the sort of long-term generational family business?

KA: I don't think so. In fact, for the longest time, I mean, my daughter was a dishwasher for a little while, and then she was a line cook for a little while 01:14:00just to make money. I did not see her doing that for long. My son was too little, so he never got to work there. When my son left home in, oh gosh, say 5 years ago, the next thing he's doing, he's working in a restaurant. I said, you're doing what? He goes, well, you know how much I love to cook. I'm like, no. It's not like you ever cooked for me or hardly ever. But to him that was a natural progression. I just did not see that coming, because he has not, he did not choose to go to college. Money was definitely a factor, but once he decided it meant nothing, he was done. I'm hoping someday something will work that way, but who knows. He loves to cook. He loves to send me photos of things that he's 01:15:00made. He'll call with questions now and again, and I love that. My daughter's 900 miles away from even cooking. Again, she, I'm always suggesting, hey you should make a pot of soup once a week so that you have a couple of meals, blah, blah, blah, and then I go into her kitchen that's the size of a postage stamp, and I go, I know why you eat out. I'm sorry. So, I'll cook while I'm there, and leave her a meal or two for the week, and then I'll be like, okay you're on your own until the next time I come. I totally get it, because there's no space. There's no space.

TEM: What did you do in 2008? The year after...

KA: I went back to school in '06, fall. So, right before we left, I started a 01:16:00master's program in SOU, and did their master in management program. It was sort of, because my kids were getting out of school and I was beginning to wonder what my role was, and my first go through college was kind of about getting a job. This time through was more about who am I and what am I doing? It was interesting. I still, I don't know that I've ever gotten a job from having the masters in management, because I think that program was designed for people that were already managers.

TEM: Oh.

KA: It would just give you better skills to do the job that you had. It opened me up to another group of people and different live experiences and I don't 01:17:00know. I graduated in '08. We did some other. We renovated the hospital somewhere, I guess, somewhere maybe '07 or '08. The hospital wanted to renovate their kitchen and come up with a better program for serving meals to patients. Ashland Community Hospital was rather small, and it can handle a la carte service. So, when you're in the hospital typically at 8:00 you get breakfast, or thereabouts. At noon you get lunch and 5:00 you get dinner, whether you're in surgery, whether whatever. Or they might bring you your lunch because you circled all those things on that form, and it sits there for 2 hours and then you come out of surgery and open it and you go, I'm not going to eat this. Then you say, well, dinner will be here in a few hours. What we did was make menus 01:18:00and recipes that were simple enough that they could do them fast, put together a dinner. Cook a little piece of salmon, sauté some spinach and scoop out some rice and people could get meals when they wanted them. That is still in effect, so that was kind of nice.

TEM: One thing that as you were saying, for some reason salmon and spinach reminded me of... what role did local ingredients play in both Standing Stone but just maybe your approach to cooking, catering, this kind of post Standing Stone life? What did it mean to be here in Oregon in Ashland from a kind of, I 01:19:00guess a local food perspective. I'm asking this really, really long question, but I guess where I'm thinking, this is coming from the place of assuming that the local food was part of bigger conversations that people were having in this community. Was that even a question? I think I got diverted by the thought of dinner salmon.

KA: You're hungry. Well, I was not, I was doing what we had. It wasn't on my radar. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law were pushing more organic, and when we opened we were trying really hard to have a bottom line that was not negative. I don't know then, I mean, it became more and more people were wanting 01:20:00that later on. In the beginning everybody wanted, how much is the hamburger? You weren't going to say, well, we've got buffalo from Montana or we've got local raised beef for $4.99. You couldn't. So we had two competing groups, and I was just trying to walk the line, so I don't know that that was me. When they left they, when Dan and Alex opened Common Block, I don't know that they did a lot of, we didn't do, Emile and I didn't do a lot of the like recycling. I did recycling and we did those things, but they would say, you know, this much 01:21:00organic or this whatever. But that's not what they're doing in Medford, not necessarily, because they have a different clientele. They have to also make money, and I can't remember if I answered that long question.

TEM: Yeah, well, no it would have been a tough one. I guess what, just part of the question comes, too, from just the what Standing Stone is known for, and that it feels like a company that does good work from an environmental awareness standpoint, does good work from a I don't just want to come to this restaurant and eat a McDonald's hamburger, that there is this care. I'm kind of curious 01:22:00where that came from or how that fit in, maybe, to the larger sense of Ashland in the late '90s or early 2000s. That might have been a tighter question.

KA: I think what was important to us was that we made everything fresh, that nothing came out of an already, here's the cake. We'd have purveyors come in and new ones would try to get our business, and I said have you looked at our menu. They'd be like, sure, sure. Hey, can I show you this deep fried cheesecake? All you have to do is deep fry it and people love it. I said, so you didn't look at the menu, because we don't make anything like that. That's not our schtick. We make everything from scratch, the dressings, the bread, whatever. We made our 01:23:00own focaccia buns for the sandwiches in the beginning. That was important, that we weren't just slopping things together and to be involved in the community and to give back was important and get to know people and what I really liked was walking, sometimes I was a host. Sometimes I was a wait person. Those were the early days, and then I was in the kitchen more. Seeing people from the community in there and then be able to just say, hey, isn't this your anniversary? Let me get you a bottle of wine, and to have them feel it was a special, it was a community place. We somehow had made that happen. It took time. It took a lot of time. It's funny. I can go in there now, and until fairly recently I was an owner and people would say, I'd say, I'd like to sign for my account and they'd 01:24:00go, who are you? Because you have these young whipper snappers that don't know who you are and you're like, oh, boy. I used to love that we had a book on the counter in the beginning of what it looked like before and after, because I thought it tells a lot of where it came from, because it was a mess. That building was a mess.

TEM: I do want to ask you about the pies, for obvious reasons.

KA: Okay.

TEM: But one thing, I mean, I'm curious how often you go in there now? What is your relationship to...?

KA: Well, it's absolutely fine, because when Alex and Dan left, I knew it would be a difficult time, because, you know, institutional memory, all kinds of 01:25:00things would be changed. I volunteered, too. I said, you don't even have to pay me. If you need me, I would love to help to make sure that we do well. One of the daughters said to me, no Amarotico is going to work there ever again.

TEM: Oh.

KA: That's what I said. Oh. So, I haven't, haven't even thought about it, but they hired Scott, who was a friend, and he's worked for McMenamin's so he had plenty of experience, and he's so calm and even-keeled, just lovely. The women that I used to work for in the kitchen, a few of them until recently, well, there's one, she's been there longer than anybody. She's like however many years, it'll be 21 years this year. She's been there since day one. I can go in 01:26:00and visit with them, and I try to be not a snotty owner, but like somebody that would come in and if there was a problem I'd be like, excuse me? So, this dressing? You know, just somehow indicate that I'm not saying anything bad, but I just don't think it's what you want to do, or whatever. They would, no problem. Take it away. Because you don't want to, just because you can be nasty doesn't mean you should. I have no problem, and right now I had to make dinner for a friend's mom's memorial last week and I needed chicken and I called the chef at Standing Stone and I said, can I order a case of chicken through you? And he was a new chef. He said, oh yeah, I've heard about you. No problem. I'll have it. I thought, isn't that lovely? The same thing with building connections, 01:27:00you don't want to let them go. You don't want to let them go.

TEM: Well, and I guess, that's the thing that feels so amazing to me about your pie a day. So this was 2011-2012, so we're, it has...

KA: It's been a while.

TEM: That intensity of your 365, I know that you have continued to make pies for people, but I just I love the idea that that kind of intentional kindness and that intentional connection, can you talk about why you started doing that project? I remember when we met for dinner, I remember you saying that there were times when it wasn't the most convenient thing to be making pies, that logistically it got a little difficult.

KA: There were challenges, but it was never insurmountable, and we had gone to 01:28:00Mexico, and this is my story. When we went to Mexico, I was, there was a lot going on, maybe it was because I wasn't having the perfect job. I was still doing little hit or miss catering and realizing that these people that had, we were in a little fishing village, that had absolutely nothing seemed pretty happy. I thought, how do I get that? How do I get to be like that? To walk away from here were are on a beach in Mexico and now we're back in Ashland and look at this house that has so much stuff in it. They don't have half of what we have, none of the conveniences. How do I make this work? Oprah and her gratitude project, or write 3 things you're grateful for each night. I tried that. I would always fall asleep, or I couldn't think of something, or I was just, it wasn't working. I read a book about a guy who wrote a thank you note every day and so I 01:29:00tried that and I sent the first one to my dad, who was a little curmudgeon, and never got a response. I only wrote one. I thought, let me see how this goes and I'll see if I want to proceed. It was months later, and I was doing pies by then. But it was months later, I said, Dad I thought maybe he never got it, and I've been holding this grudge. I said, so, I never got a response of the thank you note I sent you. He said, I didn't get any thank you note. I said, well, I don't mean like last week. I mean, like 3 months ago. He went, oh yeah. I got it. That was it. Okay. So, clearly that was not the right path for me. Then, one morning on NPR the woman, it was a Sunday she was interviewing somebody. I think it was Liane Hansen.

She was talking to a woman about making pies, and the lady, I don't know if it 01:30:00was national pie day. It wasn't March. It was February, I think. She said, you know, today is whatever pie day. I think the best thing you can do is make one pie for yourself and one pie to give away. I thought, I can do that. I went immediately to the freezer and I had a big bag of marionberries and I started thawing them and then I started thinking who am I going to make this for? The woman whose name came to mind is Shirley Patton. Her husband had recently died. He was in his 80s. It was well-planned, if a death can be. She was not walking around like a basket case. She was remarkable. I thought, I want to bring her a pie, and so I made the two pies. I knew if I saw Shirley I would cry, so I 01:31:00called her daughter-in-law, who lived right next door. I said, hey, Amy. I made a pie for Shirley. Can I just bring it to you? She said, sure. She had no idea what I was afraid of. So, I get there and she takes it from me and she goes, it's still warm. I went, yep. Okay. Bye. I left with no explanation. Shirley called me an hour or two later and said, you know, Karen. It was dark on Sunday night by then, we had such a busy day and we came home and we were wondering what are we going to have for dinner. And we look and there's this berry pie. She said, so we had berry pie and ice cream for dinner. It was wonderful. I'm like, wow. That is so great. That was the perfect moment. I still had no idea what I was going to do, but I thought that was fun. Probably within the next week or two or three, my friend's husband called and said Linda has to have 01:32:00surgery, and I'm trying to line up meals for her. Can you make a meal this week? I said, absolutely! What does she like? He's like, she likes everything. I said, but you know what sometimes you don't feel hungry at the right time. How about I make you a quiche? Because it's lunch, dinner or whatever, breakfast. He said, great. That's it.

So, I go to bed. I don't write things down often enough, thinking, make Linda a quiche in the morning, like that's going to memorize it, or remind me. About 2:00 in the morning I sat up and I thought, I could give a pie away every day. That could be my gratitude project. Really, it felt like the heavens had opened and everything was like, ah, it makes sense. Then I went back to sleep, like done. Then I woke up in the morning and I thought, you're out of your mind. 01:33:00That's ridiculous. So, I called my friend Debbie, right away. I said, Debbie, meet me coffee I want you to talk me out of something. She said, okay. I told her what I wanted to do, and she said, oh. No. You're doing this. I said, no. No. Debbie, this is too much. It's crazy. She said, no but you love to tell stories and you love to make pies. This is what you're doing. Oh, dear. Then, that can of worms was opened. It just started. I did not even think ahead, I just, Linda was my first, and I think I gave her a glass pie dish. After a week, I didn't have any more glass pie dishes and Debbie sent me a case of tins, because she knew I hadn't thought it through. That was a good step, and then, I mean, I think I wrote from the beginning, I'm pretty sure I did, but how that would morph. I wasn't even sure. Because sometimes the stories I could tell, and 01:34:00every day, before the end of the night, except once I think and that was because I was on the east coast and there was a time change and it was just confusing and I thought I hit send but I didn't. When, where was I going? Every night... oh, I had to write. Sometimes I told stories and sometimes I didn't. If you were sick, I might say today I brought a pie to a friend who just had surgery or whatever, and I wouldn't say anything about you or your kids or anything. I would just kind of leave it really vague. But somebody like Judy, who was this school nurse, I might have said a little bit more, because what prompted me to bring her a pie was thinking, she's got a hard job.She's got to deal with teenagers in high school that are sick that are probably experiencing all kinds 01:35:00of challenges. She can't tell anyone about them because she's got that confidentiality thing.

TEM: How did that, did you feel more intentionally grateful and connected afterwards?

KA: Some days were surprisingly nothing, no, you know, somebody I would give them a pie and they would be like, oh, thanks. Close the door, and you'd be like, well, that was interesting don't you think? Or sometimes the person, like Judy, cried, and I thought, oh, that's not what I wanted to happen, but she had had such a hard day and here I brought her a pie and she thought I was going to bring her more problems. Then a few days later I went to see my son's middle 01:36:00school home room teacher, and I walk in to see him and he's sitting with kids in detention. Immediately, I think, my kid would be here if not for him, and I start crying because it was so real. I hadn't realized how much of an effect Andy had had on Coco. Andy pops up out of the chair and gets me a tissues and goes, are you okay? I'm like, and I said I made this for you. He goes, and you're bringing me a pie? I said, uh-huh, I did. I just walk out of there bawling because I needed to leave. It was never, it was hard to know what was going to happen. I didn't always know where they were going. It didn't really matter. My friend Mark tells a story, I had gotten hit by a bike, by a car while was on my bike. I broke a rib. He was giving me, he's my chiropractor. So, I 01:37:00went to visit him one day and I had made a pie for this old guy that we knew who was in assisted living, because he'd had a stroke and he was recovering, and I'm just dumping this all on Mark, saying Mark, I'm bringing Dave a pie, but what if he can't have a pie? What if he's on a special diet? What if they take it away from him? What if? What if? What if? He says, Karen, it's a fucking pie. Get over it. I said, okay. There you go. I walked into the room, and there's two men that look almost identical, old white men. Not much hair. The both look at me. One look back at the TV and the other one kind of keeps an eye on me. I'm like I think that's Dave. I knew him from years before, and he had said, I think my 01:38:00wife is in love with your husband, because she liked how prompt and, whatever. If he promised something, he was going to deliver it. So, I walked in and that was my opening line. I don't know where it came from. I said, you know, I think your wife is in love with my husband. He said, well, I think I'm in love with you. I said, or the pie, right? Could just be the pie? Then his wife came and she saw that I had brought him a pie and she was so excited. She was running up and down the hall telling people, this lady just brought my husband a pie. I said, Gladys it's just pie. It's just a pie. So, it, I don't know if that answered.

TEM: I guess I'm thinking you have had challenges of late. I'm just, I wonder how that kind of intentional gratitude, or that kind of community building, did 01:39:00you feel like when you really...?

KA: I didn't even realize it was happening.

TEM: Yeah.

KA: I mean, I didn't, because, I mean, I wrote a blog. I think at some point I had 50,000 views or something. I don't think it's gone up much since, because I haven't made, I haven't even written in a few months. It didn't occur to me how many people would hear about it and ask about it and how come I didn't get a pie? Things that might be silly. But it really, it gave me a moment in somebody's life that I would not have experienced. I think that is a big takeaway for me, that my kid's kindergarten teacher, of course I thanked her and I did stuff with her, but when I brought her a pie I was probably with her for 01:40:00about a half hour. She showed me around her house and the pictures, and I learned she, Mrs. cedar is her name, and she showed me a picture of her husband on a fishing boat and told me, at that moment, he fell off the boat and he was lost. I never knew before how come she was a single woman with a Mrs. name. So, like, wow. All those little details and the things that you don't... I hadn't, I don't want to say, generalize, but we often don't take the time to know a little bit more or take 15 minutes to visit with this person. It was so funny, because when I went to see her, I'm taking the pie and a friend, I wonder about that sometimes, but a friend was in the kitchen and I said, he said, where are you 01:41:00going? I said, I'm going to bring my son's teacher a pie. He said, you go ahead. Make someone's day. Like so depressing and whatever. You know, I thought about that on the way, why did he say it like that? What is wrong with him? as I was leaving Mrs. Cedar, she told me that night she was going to a dinner with single women and she said, I always bring salmon. That's what she did every summer. She would go to Alaska and fish with her family and freeze it and have fish. She goes, but tonight, I'm bringing dessert. As I'm going back to the car, she's waving. She goes, Karen, you made my day! I'm like, so there. So, what do you know? How about that? Like, I wanted to go back and tell him.

TEM: But you didn't.

KA: I didn't. So, yeah. I still want to write about it, because it meant so much 01:42:00to me to develop this thing and it's just out of something I liked to do. It wasn't that much money. I mean, I figured each pie was about, if you could average them out maybe $5. A couple of thousand, maybe, over the course of a year. People have hobbies that cost more than that. I got to meet a lot of people and spend time with people and sometimes help people and sometimes nothing. Those you have, you take it all.

TEM: Sort of like every conversation, every interaction.

KA: Sometimes they're wonderful. Sometimes they're not. Sometimes... only one pie was refused the whole year, and that was an interesting story, but she's just, she's not open. What was important to me was to be able to tell the fact 01:43:00that somebody had said no and shut the door. When I went back to the lady who asked me to bring that lady a pie, she said, let's go through the church directory. We'll pick someone else. I said, no. I don't want Helen to know that she got a pie because she said no. Instead, I just went to Bi-Mart. We talked about it. She said, there's that guy at Bi-Mart. He sings Christmas carols. He's ringing the bell for the Salvation Army. I said, perfect. So, I get out of the car. I walk over and watch him sing his "Chestnuts Roasting." When he finishes, he's just looking at me and I said, sir, would you like a pie? He said, yes, ma'am I would. There you go. He looked like he had nothing. He was open to taking it, where she had everything and would not. So, that was interesting. One 01:44:00story was just an older woman, when I first brought a pie to her my neighbor said she would love a bacon quiche. I said, okay. Got it. I walked to the house, or get to the house, and a caregiver opens the door for her, and she was in a wheelchair at this point. The guy said, I'll get her. She comes in and she's this very pained look. I'm just standing there with this quiche. He says, (let's go with Helen) Helen, this lady brought you a bacon quiche. I swear, she sat up taller and the biggest, brightest smile on her face. She said, you did? I said, yeah, because your friend told me you love bacon quiche. She said, oh, my gosh. She was so excited. And I left it.

A month or so later, maybe 2, I ask how is she doing? My friend said, she's not doing well. I thought, what if I made another quiche. The friend said, well, 01:45:00she's not going to eat it. I said, but she's got to have someone caring for her so they could eat it. So, I go, and the door is open. I knocked. Nobody answered. The door was open, and I just sat it on the washing machine, and I thought, I'll just leave it here. It's the first thing you could reach. Then I get back to my car, and I thought wouldn't that be weird somebody just sticks a pie on your? So, I wrote a note and I went back and I opened the door without knocking this time and this woman is there, and we both jump. I'm like, oh, and I explain the whole thing, and it's her daughter. She asked a bunch of pie questions and her mom was on a hospital bed, and unconscious, and I, I'm so sorry. She said, no. It's okay. She goes, so what do you do? I said, you know, I'm trying to figure that out. She said, I think you're doing it. That was like, 01:46:00almost permission to say, oh, maybe this could just be what I do. Maybe I don't need to have an income as much as I need to have a reason. So, that was kind of nice to get from a total stranger, a direction. Still don't have a direction, but I still make pie. It really, I mean just, in the Fourth of July parade I was a firecracker queen. I can show you a video. Not now. One of our queens dropped out really early on because her daughter had brain cancer, and then we found out that she was not going, she was in California with her, blah, blah, blah. I asked the friend could we do anything? Let's send her flowers, something. So, we collected money and then the mom came up here and then the daughter died. So, I called around and I got enough information, I said, I don't care if she eats it 01:47:00but I would like to make her pie. Okay, she's home. So, I make this pie. By the time I get there she's somewhere else. Through a number of people we finally figured out, we'll leave it here until she gets home and this guy will bring it over. She was just, so grateful and so, you know, she goes, you didn't have to do that. I said, I know. It didn't change anything. Your daughter still is gone. I know what that's like. I have had enough people in my life die and it's so nice when somebody does something to recognize that, so that's all I'm doing, is just being there. That was just last week, but I don't, and I've been meaning to write and get back to telling stories, but as long as I remember to make pies. There's at least 500 pie stories, maybe more.

TEM: What did you think that I was going to ask you that I didn't ask you?

KA: [Laughs] How many pints of beer do you have and how many pints do you brew? How many barrels? I know nothing of that. In fact, when we gave tours at the restaurant, and I didn't give the tours. Somebody would come in and sign up for a tour or do something, they would say, how do you make beer? I said, well, I'm pretty sure you put the stuff in there and then you turn things on and it gets hot and all kinds of stuff. Then it goes, and over there where the taps are it comes out. It's not my job. I don't have to know. I would like, I have a friend, a woman friend who's a home brewer and she said it's a really fun thing to do 01:49:00because it's mostly guys and me. I said, sign me up. Where do we go? We can do that. It's better than having people tell you, oh you want to meet men? You should go learn how to play golf. Okay. Oh, no. Then I have to play golf [laughs]. That doesn't sound as fun. I've never gotten a ball in the hole anyway.

TEM: I don't even think I'd hit it. I think I would just be hitting grass. They would ask me to leave, because I destroyed the course.

KA: Or when you're the person jumping up and down because you got a hole in one at the minigolf, and they're like, okay, she should leave. She should get out of here now. Okay.

TEM: Thank you for talking with me.

KA: Oh, sure.