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Tamara Kaye

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Tamara Kaye runs her business out of her garage, but it’s no ordinary garage.

The floors are white with bright-colored splatter paint, the shelves are lined with bins full of feathers and googly eyes and rainbow-colored storage closets line the back wall.

Tamara actually doesn’t call the space her garage, she calls it Art Planet.

It’s a place she dreamed up five years ago, and offers art classes, events and activities geared toward encouraging imagination and growth for everyone who participates.

But it’s not just a place for kids. Tamara created Art Planet just as much for adults as for kids, and it really started as a way to rebuild her own life.

In 2011, Tamara felt stuck. She had a Fine Arts degree and a Master’s degree in special education, but her creativity had dried up and she didn’t feel like herself anymore.

Her mind was full of questions – What now? What’s next? Will I make it?

Tamara was navigating a painful divorce, homeschooling her three kids and trying to figure out a way to support herself.

She had a friend ask her if she’d ever thought of combining her two degrees to form a hybrid job, and that’s when Art Planet was born.

Tamara had always been a creative kid. She grew up doing art projects at a little table in the family room and her mom encouraged her to pursue art when she got to college.

But after college, life sped up. She had kids, life was busy and she started to question if doing art was even a good use of her time. Maybe she wasn’t an artist after all? Maybe it didn’t matter. Art is just for fun anyway, right?

Lies, lies lies.

Tamara knows those thoughts were lies because of the fact that when she’s creating art she feels free and uninhibited, she feels alive and like herself.

“Art is not an end unto itself,” Tamara said. “It’s not meant to just hang on the wall and look pretty, art touches the human spirit in a way that other things cannot.”

For Tamara, art has been a way to restore herself, but it’s also been about helping others do the same.

Over the years, Tamara has grown Art Planet into a space that hosts birthday parties, family events, after school art classes and even dates. She mentors young artists and hosts summer art camps.

Her business has grown, and she’s proud of what she’s cultivated – both for her family and her customers. But something was missing. After four years of building Art Planet, Tamara wanted to do more.

Sure, people were coming to Art Planet and it was great, but what about the people who couldn’t get to her garage?

So, Tamara started The ArtReach Project, a non-profit that works to integrate art into the community. It’s been less than a year since she’s started this project, but it’s already taking off in ways she never imagined.

Tamara explained that each ArtReach project looks different. So far she’s helped organize a traveling art installation of a 3D Van Gogh painting that’s toured LPS. She’s worked with City Impact to design and create a student-made mosaic art for their new building. She’s inspired shoppers at Gateway Mall to create ornaments by painting on wood slices while they were spinning on record players. She’s even set up at coffee shops asking people to make pinwheels for a student-led organization, Fork in the Road, at Lincoln High. Currently she’s collaborating with Lincoln Parks and Recreation to make a 200+ foot banner of drawings made by people playing in parks to celebrate Lincoln’s nationally recognized status as a ‘Playful City’.

Her goal is to get anyone she can involved in her latest project, despite their age and skill level.

Sometimes people timidly walk past her booth or shy away because they say they’re not ‘creative’ or ‘artistic’ enough.

Tamara can totally relate.

Her story is about questioning her creativity, and coming to the realization that everyone is created to be creative. She’s learned that art can simply be fun and expressive, it doesn’t need to be intimidating or overly complicated.

To say that art has been a major player in Tamara’s story would be an understatement. It’s given her courage, a career, joy, confidence and compassion.

Art is Tamara’s constant. It’s her way of reaching in and reaching out, it’s how she found her story again and it’s how she’s giving back to the community.

June 1, 2016
Love8

Lawrence De Villiers

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The son of a notable French politician, a member of the aristocratic De Villiers family, a comedian and a chef – Laurent De Villiers has been all of these things, and now he’s a Nebraskan.

These days Laurent goes by Lawrence, but that doesn’t mean he’s forsaken his heritage. He’s French through and through. You can tell by his accent, his general mannerisms and the fact that he owns The Normandy, a local French bistro.

His story is complicated. It spans continents and is marked by periods of rebellion, confusion, joy and renewal.

But Lawrence says his story really started went he met his wife, Renee.

The two met when Lawrence was doing volunteer work with a Catholic Franciscan order in the Bronx. Renee was working at a local shelter and the two quickly became friends. They were from very different backgrounds – Lawrence grew up in a high-brow, political family, Renee grew up in the small, laid-back town of McCool Junction.

After they started dating, Lawrence and Renee moved to Paris for a year before coming back to Nebraska and settling in Lincoln.

It was around this time that Lawrence noticed the lack of French cuisine in Lincoln. He craved it and realized the only place he could find it was in his own kitchen. So, he started small. He opened up a booth at the farmer’s market where he sold crepes and pastries and then started catering authentic French meals to his more eager customers.

Lawrence knew that he needed a full-scale restaurant, and Renee encouraged him to keep exploring this idea.

So, after a short stint in the Railyard’s Public Market, Lawrence bought a former bar and grill at the corner of 17th and Van Dorn streets and transformed it into his French bistro.

“It looked nothing like this when we moved in,” Lawrence said, looking around at his manicured dining room. “But it also took time.”

He was patient when it came to growing his business. He started with authentically French food that he catered to the palettes of Nebraskans and his atmosphere followed suite. In France, he said, you find a lot of small mom and pop shops that serve amazing food and that’s what he wanted to create in Lincoln.

He knew it didn’t need to be complicated, but it needed to be done right and that’s what he did.

Having a local restaurant in Lincoln is hard, it takes time, resources and lots of patience, but Lawrence does it for his family. He and his wife now have three daughters, and carving out a place for his restaurant and his family have become a major part of his story.

It’s a story he didn’t anticipate being his own, mostly, because it’s the opposite of so much of his early life.

Lawrence’s childhood was full of expectations. His family was wealthy and well-known and they hope he’d follow the same path, but early on Lawrence knew that wasn’t what he wanted.

He wanted to start something, run his own business, make and earn his own money – he wanted to be free of his family’s expectations. This search for freedom, along with marrying his wife are what led Lawrence to Lincoln.

It’s a place that’s vastly different from France, but also so different from his elite childhood. Lincoln has quickly become his home, and a chapter in his story that he’s proud to share with his customers.

“We’re not rich, but we’re making it,” he said. “I couldn’t find a better place to raise my children, for my marriage, for my relationships with people – we’re very blessed here.”

May 4, 2016
Love3

Angela Garbacz

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Goldenrod Pastries is closed on Mondays and is quiet except for the occasional hum of the mixer.  

Angela Garbacz is starting with macarons – espresso macarons with just a hint of cardamom. She pipes out the purple macarons with a quick flick of her wrist and then adds a sprinkle of sanding sugar to the top before putting them in the oven.

“I’m really on a coffee kick right now,” she said. “Espresso is in everything.”

This type of creative baking is exactly how Angela pictured Goldenrod. She wanted her pastry case to be filled with an assortment of pastries guided by her gut feelings and the availability of locally sourced ingredients, all while catering to alternative diets.

And for the past year that’s exactly what she’s created.

One day the Goldenrod pastry case might be filled with towering layered cakes, dairy-free muffins and macarons, and the next it’s stacked with gluten-free almond cookies, fruit galettes, mini cupcakes and gooey vegan cinnamon rolls.

It’s what Angela pictured when she was dreaming up Goldenrod, but it’s also so much more than she expected.  

Angela said she can’t remember a time in her life when she wasn’t baking. It was her childhood hobby until she visited a restaurant that was in cooperation with a culinary school and realized baking could also be her career.

She got her Food Science degree at UNL, worked in a handful of restaurants and then attended the French Culinary Institute in New York. Shortly after she graduated from culinary school, Angela discovered her own dairy intolerance and began making pastries to accommodate her dietary needs.

When people found out she made dairy-free pastries they eagerly asked for gluten-free, vegan and other alternative diet baked goods and Angela started experimenting with various flours, sugars, fats and flavors.

She got so busy that she quit her day job and opened up Goldenrod Pastries in May 2015.

Opening Goldenrod gave Angela a place try out new things and really engage with her craft. She cooks with precision, but also leaves room for experimenting.

She loves watching singular ingredients merge and transform into a cohesive treat that’s both beautiful and tasty. It’s satisfying work to create and feed others, she said, and most of the time she just wants to give her pastries away.

That’s the thing about Angela, she didn’t start a bakery to get herself noticed or even to be her own boss, she did it to meet a need in Lincoln.

She started off simply with a blog and a few followers, but the day she opened her doors she had a line of people waiting to try her pastries.

She started off as a lone shopkeeper and baker and is now the boss to five hardworking employees.

She started off with a vacant space in the cutesy College View neighborhood and has transformed it into a place where life happens.

Angela and her staff have made cakes for sweethearts and expectant mamas, only to have them show up in the shop a few months later with engagement rings new babies. And last week a kid asked his girlfriend to go to prom with him at Goldenrod.

Angela is a woman with a clear creative vision, but even she didn’t anticipate the kind of growth and support she would receive from the community. Take one look at the Goldenrod Pastries Facebook or Instagram feed and you’ll notice people commenting, tagging friends and planning dates to meet up at the shop.

Goldenrod has become more than a place to eat pastries, it’s become a place where people want to be. It’s not something Angela manufactured or planned for, it just happened, and it’s beautiful.

So much of Goldenrod feels like home. It feels safe and comfortable, it makes you want to stay and be yourself. And all of Goldenrod is Angela. She didn’t just breed community out of nothing, she’s intentional about the way she runs her business, reaches out to customers and cares about her roots.

Her story has quickly become a part of Lincoln’s story. A story of creating and sharing, of welcoming and inviting.

“This is my life, this is everything I do,” Angela said, looking around her shop. “So if I’m not happy and grateful for everyone who comes in the door then it doesn’t matter, so I really don’t take a customer for granted.”

April 6, 2016
Love2

David Claus

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David Claus has woken up a lot of people while painting. Not because he’s a loud painter, but because he’s a singing painter.

His voice is deep and booming as he belts out, ‘Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day…’

Whether it’s interior or exterior spaces, it doesn’t matter, David sings when he’s on the job, and he’s been doing it this way for nearly 30 years.

He doesn’t advertise his services or carry around a business card, because being a singing painter definitely gets him noticed. He’s a character with connections and he does all of his work by word-of-mouth, but David became the singing painter in a pretty roundabout way.

In college, all David really wanted to do was sing. He went to school at Nebraska Wesleyan and started out in the music department, but ended up with a business degree after his music professors wanted him to learn to play the piano.

“I didn’t like that,” he said, describing his confusion with cords and scrunching his face in a look of played-up disgust.

After college, David tried his hand at real estate and the railroad before joining the Peace Corps in Malaysia.

As a Peace Corps intern David’s official job was to be a business advisor at the local farmers cooperative, but he said he spent most of his time entertaining the locals. He sang, danced and animated his way into the hearts of the people he worked with for two and a half years.

But when he got back to the states he was a Malay-speaking kid with 39 cents in his pocket and no idea what to do next.

So, David went back to school for a little while. He worked as a bartender, partied a little more than he should have, and then got involved in the theatre scene in Lincoln.

David rattled off the names of various actor friends who he was in plays with as well as a few famous people he met along the way, like Gordon McRae, best known for his role in Oklahoma! and Carousel.

At the mention of Gordon, David started in again… ‘There’s a bright golden haze on that meadow…’

He explained how during one of his performances he met Gordon and his wife and they offered him a job as Gordon’s traveling companion. David traveled with Gordon to Chicago, Pittsburg, California and Miami and met all sorts of famous actors.

Shortly after Gordon died, David ended up in California where his brother was flipping houses. He started painting with his brother and trying to get acting gigs, and eventually realized he was doing more painting than acting so he moved back to Lincoln.

He continued painting and returned to the acting community, and for a while things settled down for David. He met his wife – who he met when she needed her apartment painted – got married and they had a baby girl who they named Melody – yes, the name was intentional.

At this point David was the singing painter without the official title. He sang while he worked as a way to rehearse for whatever production he had coming up, and people loved his unique spin on the job.

Before long, David said people started referring to him as the singing painter and he started to book official gigs at weddings, funerals and nearly every Husker sporting event.

David never imagined actually making a living as a singing painter, but after nearly 30 years that’s what he’s done.

But it’s more than the singing and the painting that seem to draw in customers, it’s his goofy smile and comical laugh. David is kind of like a cartoon character who you can’t help but like, and that’s the point.

“I’m a one-man show,” he said with a smirk. “If I can’t make you my friend by the time I’m done working with you, well that’s your loss. Some people just want the paint job…silly them.”

That’s the thing about David, he’s himself 100 percent of the time – his goofy, loud, silly, entertainer self who just wants to be a part of everyone’s story. He doesn’t care if his boisterous singing catches people off guard, it’s who he is and it’s what he does.

David’s story is about finding a way to mesh his hobby with his work, being true to himself and injecting joy into everything he does, because that’s what the Singing Painter does best.

Photo courtesy of The TADA Theatre. 

March 30, 2016
Love3

Dan Nelson

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We’ll cut to the chase and let you know that you’ve probably never met Dan Nelson or heard his story.

But, you may have tasted his kettle corn.

If you’ve ever had kettle corn at the Lincoln Farmers’ Market, there’s a good chance it was made by Dan.

He’s the guy in the tent meticulously watching and stirring the big, metal pot with bubbling sugar and freshly popped corn. His wife and sons often help him sell bags of the still warm kettle corn or give out the coveted sample cups to anxious market browsers.

But this is just Dan’s summer/weekend job. During the week, Dan is the owner and founder of Vahallan, a hand-painted wallpaper company.

“I can’t imagine doing anything else,” Dan said. “I’m a professional finger painter.”

The lead-up to Dan’s “finger painting” career was about as nontraditional as his job. He graduated from the University of Kearney with a degree in business administration, considered going back to work on his family’s ranch in Alliance, Neb., and then decided ranch life wasn’t for him.

He moved to Omaha and worked as the manager at Blockbuster Video before trying out the insurance world for a few years. Eventually Dan moved to Lincoln, took a few more college classes, got a job in the medical field and then worked as a manager at Applebee’s.

Then, his brother told him about some hand-painted wallpaper he’d seen and was making, so Dan thought he’d try to make it too. Dan worked 60 hours a week and painted paper for another 40 hours, finding time before and after his day job.

He tested his designs in his sister’s garage and hung the papers over the fence in the backyard to dry.

Yes, that’s really how it all started. No art degree, no risk assessment, no second thought, just jumping in full speed.

Dan said that’s pretty typical for him. He sees something he wants to try and he goes whole hog.

That’s how he got into the popcorn business too. He saw kettle corn at an event, bought a kit to try it out and then started selling at the farmers market. His methods often cue an eye roll from his wife, but she’s always been extremely supportive of his ideas, Dan said. 

But just because Dan quickly got into the paper and popcorn business, doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Most of the time it’s borderline crazy, Dan said. Starting a company comes with a host of demands that require Dan’s full attention at all hours of the day. And while his natural creativity propels a large part of his business, the technical elements of managing people, developing a workflow and coming up with ideas to help his company grow are all daily challenges.

It’s stressful too. Creating and selling hand-painted wallpaper is a delicate process. It takes creativity, design know-how, patience and physical strength. The hand-painted look is intricate and freestyle, but it also needs to be uniform and consistent enough to fit seamlessly into homes, offices, hotels and restaurants.

And while Dan doesn’t have any direct competitors in Lincoln, he does have competitors, big ones.

At times, Dan feels like a little fish in a big pond, and other days he gets a call from BCBG, Saks Fifth Avenue, one of his international suppliers or a famous baseball player who wants Vahallan paper in their space.

It’s a constant up and down, and as he gets older, it’s harder for him to handle.

Dan isn’t a peppy guy with a flashy smile. He’s simple and to the point. In true Nebraska form, he says what he means and works until the job is done.

He has a seemingly endless stream of ideas for designs, many of which use natural elements like pine needles and twine to give his paper a unique look and feel. But Dan is more than a finger painter, what he’s creating is art.

His story is about laying his chips on the table, going all in, because he’s proud to stand behind two businesses that he’s grateful to call his own.

He’s a fighter and a risk taker, and Dan wouldn’t have it any other way.

February 3, 2016
Love4

Meg Hasselbalch

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“I don’t really have much of a story,” said Meg Hasselbalch as she stood in Paper Kite, her little boutique sandwiched between other locally-owned shops on Prescott Avenue.

I smiled a little at her comment, because in my head her story was already taking shape. Meg has a story, even if to her it feels like she’s been ‘winging it’ most of her life.

Meg said she always felt like she was faking it. 

In college she jokingly referred to herself a “fake” art student, because she loved art, but never latched on to any one discipline like most other students.

When she discovered her love for boutique shops she got a job at a maternity boutique in San Francisco. People would often say to her, ‘Wait, you’re 22 and you don’t have any kids, but you work in a maternity store?’ Meg would respond with a quick, ‘Yep!’ and then go back to work.

That’s the thing about Meg, she’s present and focused on the task at hand. So despite the fact that working in a maternity shop wasn’t exactly what she pictured doing in her 20s, it was an important part of her story.

She loved working at the maternity boutique and her boss quickly became her mentor, inviting Meg to assist with buying, go to market and pick out items for the shop. The fake feeling was starting to wear off.

Four years later, Meg moved back home to Lincoln. She missed her family, her community and was ready to do something a little different.

She briefly worked in Omaha, designing extravagant window displays for Anthropologie and then came back to Lincoln when she heard about a shop on Prescott Avenue that was moving out of its space.

The name of the shop was Scout. Meg had kept her eye on this shop, thinking that someday it might be a place she could fill with her own ideas. She loved the little architectural touches, the cozy neighborhood where it was located…and the fact that Scout was her middle name.

It finally just fit.

Now, it wasn’t like all the pieces fell into place, but things did happen quickly. Meg ran the idea for her boutique by her friends, family and a financial advisor to see if it was just plain crazy or possible.  

She threw together a business plan and talked with her former boss and mentor.

She pieced together various word combinations to land on just the right name and feel for her shop.

It was like a dream, she said, a really stressful but beautiful dream. Meg said her family pitched in right away, painting her space and helping her decorate in record time. She stocked her shelves with gift items and clothing catered to ‘baby, home and her,’ and featured as many local and regional makers as possible.

And on October 1, 2013, Meg opened Paper Kite.

It was a whirlwind, but it was her whirlwind and she was so proud to call Paper Kite her own.

Three months later, Meg and her husband found out they were pregnant with their first child.

Cue whirlwind number two.

“What are we going to do?!” was Meg’s first thought. But in true Meg-style, she kept moving forward.

Battling morning sickness while working six to seven days a week was a full time job that kept Meg plenty busy until her daughter, Mary Frances, entered the world nearly a year to the day after she opened Paper Kite.

It was insane, Meg said, but it worked. She continued working with her dozing daughter snuggled with her in the shop.

People started coming to Paper Kite to see Mary Frances almost as much as to shop, and Meg realized she was well into the second year of owning her own shop. Paper Kite was busy, people loved her shop and Meg loved her job.

It was the right fit.

Meg wandered around her shop telling me about her favorite items and rearranging stacks of notecards or smoothing a sweet little baby outfit just to feel the soft cotton.

Meg said it was important to her that everything went together, even though she was selling everything from candles and cards to corn cob rattles and patterned leggings – it all needed to look like Paper Kite.

Meg’s story is like herself, humble and gracious. It’s about finding her place, mixing her loves and her skills and moving forward when the unexpected turns out better than you expected.

Paper Kite is Meg’s art. It’s not overly complicated – it’s simple, it’s beautiful and it’s hers.

January 26, 2016
Love4

Jennifer Rosenblatt

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Kurt Knecht turned his chair toward Jennifer Rosenblatt to ask her a question. She leaned over and explained a few things and then two of them went back to their respective work. This is what running two startups with a spouse looks like, said Jenn with a smile.

She and her husband are Florida natives who joke about the fact that they’ve “survived” ten winters in Nebraska. But this Nebraska chapter of Jenn’s story is about way more than surviving the winters, it’s where she started connecting the dots.

After raising two kids and working nearly ten different jobs, Jenn is now the CEO of two Lincoln-based startups. Yes, two.

One side of her office space is home to Argyle Octopus, a print and graphic design company that started in 2011. The other side is MusicSpoke, a marketplace for composers to promote and sell their music.

You might think it’s a little wild to have two startups in one place, run by the same person, but it’s not that strange for Jenn.

Remember when we said she had a lot of jobs? Jenn said she always thought there was something wrong with her because she didn’t stick with one job, or even one industry for more than a few years. 

She said it took having an “entrepreneurial seizure” to see that she wasn’t doing anything wrong, she just needed space to let her ideas grow. So when Jenn started Argyle Octopus she slowly began to connect the dots.

When she hired an intern and added employees it all felt even more real. She realized that it wasn’t about having a job, it was about doing work that felt like herself.

It was bold, exciting, fun and serious, but not too serious. She had people tell her that naming a company Argyle Octopus was ridiculous, and it probably was, she said, but now it’s just fun and memorable.

A few years later she and her husband came up with the idea for MusicSpoke and wasted no time getting the new venture up and rolling.

Jenn is proud she started two companies and has become a well-known figure in the startup community, but it’s been far from easy.

Some might confuse her bright lipstick and bubbly personality for total confidence, but Jenn said there were and still are many days when she wants to give up. Being an entrepreneur isn’t glamorous.

Sure, there’s a sense of gritty independence that comes from setting your own schedule and pursuing a problem you’re passionate about, but it’s also hard.

The fear of missed deadlines and disappointed clients is work that feels all too personal. There are complex employee relationships and realizing that your close friends don’t want to always talk about startup-ish topics.  And then there’s the night you eat at Taco Bell because it’s a cheap meal and you’d rather put money into your company than dinner.

So why do it? And why do it twice?

It’s kind of like childbirth, Jenn said.  If you think about it too much you wouldn’t do it because it’s painful, but the other side of it is awesome.

It’s also about context and perspective. The first few years of a startup are incredibly challenging and time-consuming, but it’s a season, and at some point the crazy ends, she said. Unless you start something else, which is always a possibility for Jenn.

But for now, she’s pretty content with the way her story is unfolding. She’s no longer the newbie in the startup space. Now she’s the one people ask to speak on panels, to students and at events, and Jenn gladly accepts.

She no longer feels like she’s doing something wrong or weird in a job that she hates. Now, she’s just Jenn – a local entrepreneur and community cheerleader – and it feels just right.

December 8, 2015
Love1

Joe Horacek

By

When Joe Horacek sees someone wearing one of his hand-printed shirts he oftentimes just smiles and nods. If the opportunity presents itself he might ask about the shirt to see what the wearer says, but he’s not fishing for a certain response.

He’d rather lay low, make his art and share it with others, that’s really what his story is about –  sharing art.

The soulful melody of Louis Armstrong plays in the background of the little house turned print shop. Tucked between a few other local storefronts on the corner of 33rd and A streets, Little Mountain Print Shoppe is Joe’s own little cabin on the mountain. It’s where his sketches and designs make their debut in the form of shirts and sweatshirts.

Joe is humble and soft-spoken about his shop. One day he’s printing shirts for Sanborn Canoe Company in Minnesota, the next he’s working on a custom local order or doing the bills, but in some ways screen printing is just a front.

For Joe, having a shop allows him to continue to create and design while having a tangible way to see his art come to life.

He opened Little Mountain back in 2011 after working at a screen printing shop in Iowa where he sat behind a desk every day. It exhausted him without ever tapping into his artistic roots, so he knew Little Mountain had to be different.

After buying his first screen printing press there was a lot of trial-and-error work. It was often one step forward and two-steps back during that first year, but it’s how he honed his craft. Joe said he also spent a lot of time learning and researching the best materials for making his screens and ink. Even the angle, speed and pressure he applies to his squeegee is an intentional part of his printing.

But all of those pieces circle back to Joe’s desire to simply create art that matters. He draws inspiration from nature, viewing it as one big garden from which he can create. He loves mountains, because they’re part of nature, but also part of his name.

In Czech, Horacek translates to ‘little mountain’ and Joe said when he learned that he knew it needed to be the name for his shop. It’s his way of paying homage to his family roots – his artistic father who helped him build the racks where his shirts are displayed, his accountant mother who taught him the finer points of QuickBooks and his brother and sister who support his business by simply wearing his designs.

Little Mountain is bigger than just Joe. It’s bigger than screen printing, and that’s the way Joe wants to keep it.

November 11, 2015
Love1

Allison Newgard

By

Every now and then Allison Newgard overhears someone refer to her as ‘the cookie lady.’

That kitschy title cues an internal eye roll, but here’s the thing, she actually fits that title pretty well. After all, she knows her recipes by heart, can smell when a cookie is done before it burns, makes her own vanilla extract and brown sugar…and she’s the owner of Kitchen Sink Cookie Company.

But the thing is, Allison is and was about 10 other things besides just ‘the cookie lady.’

When she was 21 Allison felt stuck, really stuck.

Living with her parents and 3-year-old son in her hometown of Hallowell, Maine, Allison had a college degree that she didn’t want to use and no idea what to do next.

Then came a question, “Allison, what did you want to do when you were eight years old?” posed her mother.

And with one question, Allison was unstuck.

She went to culinary school, graduated, worked in a restaurant kitchen, moved to Nebraska, worked at the University, moved back to Maine, then back to Lincoln, worked at three local restaurants and then started Kitchen Sink Cookie Company in 2014.

Her cookies are creative and spunky, with nostalgic flavor combinations like peanut butter, dried strawberries and Cheez-Its, inviting cafeteria flashbacks in her Magic Lunchbox cookie.

And while you might think baking cookies all day would be the best job in the world, it’s pretty demanding work. In a typical week she clocks of minimum of 10-12 hours each day, plus whatever farmers market she’s selling at on the weekend.

Sometimes she stops and thinks, “What am I doing? Why am I baking cookies??!?!”

She said she has plenty of doubts, but also tons of support from her husband and friends who keep her zoned in on the fact that being ‘the cookie lady’ is a big part of her story.

Allison knows her unorthodox cookies won’t change the world. They’re not actually magical or life-changing in that sense, but cookies are to Allison what hugs are to others – familiar and individually unique.

There’s no playing it safe when it comes to Kitchen Sink Cookies and that’s exactly how Allison knows it should be.

November 4, 2015
Love1
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