Zen Blends “Our Seasonal Growth”
Today we reached an exciting milestone – our Zen Blends are now available to purchase online! We share our journey below.
When people ask me “why did you start the zen of slow cooking?” The answer has two reasons:
- the first is that I want to share the ease and simplicity of slow cooking and how it can bring a little zen into the life of the home cook,
- the second poignant and real reason behind creating the business was my son, Doug.
Doug is tall (6’ 3”), handsome, has a big smile and an engaging personalty. He dreams of being a salesperson and has the energy and enthusiasm to be successful in that field. However, he also has a language based learning disability which could make a sales career challenging. With his infectious personality envisioning Doug in a linear task would be a real waste of his talent so I wanted to create something that could help realize both of our dreams.
When I explained my desire to create a business to support adults like my son Doug to my good friend, Ramaa, I shared that I wasn’t sure where to begin and she asked me one simple question – “What makes you happy?” I thought for a moment and said “I love to slow cook” and went on to explain how my cooking prep time became a place of quiet in my hectic day, how the delicious aroma made my whole home feel warm and cozy and how it relieved my Mom-guilt of getting a home cooked meal on the table. She said “I’m not sure I completely understand what you’re talking about but do that” and the idea for the zen of slow cooking started to take shape.
Over the next few months I started to write down my vision for the business and during the winter of 2012, with the encouragement of friends and family – especially my good friend Jeanne McKiernan, the seeds for the zen of slow cooking were planted. But it wasn’t until a few months later when I met my partner, Jane McKay, that the idea took root. You can see by her daughter Lily’s illustrations that Jane and I are a perfect pair….
Spring 2012
In October of 2012 we launched the zen of slow cooking food blog. As our subscribers grew in numbers we knew we were “on” to something and enrolled in a class for Food Entrepeneurs at Now We’re Cookin in January of the following year. Using the feedback from the founder of Now We’re Cookin, Nell Funk, along with our fellow food artisans we expanded our vision from blogging to creating a line of all organic whole spice infusions and ground spice blends designed exclusively to optimize the slow cooking experience.
Spring 2013
In the early days our business was a really family affair with Jane creating the Zen Blends in her home kitchen and bringing them to me with a recipe to test on my family. We would go back and forth until the blends attained our “kids’ seals of approval.” Meanwhile our husbands, Steve and Graham, actively joined us on the journey with Facebook likes and proofing our blog posts. Our friends provided invaluable feedback, especially my dear friend Susan who sent blends all over the country to her college friends – we call them the “Brown Girls” – who tested and wrote copious notes on how to improve our packaging.
Summer/Fall 2013
After all of this input we debuted our blends at the Lake Forest Farmers market last Fall and sold out on the first weekend. By year end we had sold over 1,000 Zen Blends.
Spring 2014
Behind the scenes, Susan Kelsey for insisting we have a blend ready to sell by August 2013, Kym Abrams, Melissa Oakley and Patty Charhut provided invaluable communication advice. Katie Morford has been a wonderful supporter of our young business and Kerri Sherman shot fabulous photography of our products while Michael McAfee produced our Drishti Donation video.
Summer 2014
With our product gaining popularity we decided it was time to take it to the next level and open our online shop to fully realize our dream of helping young adults with developmental challenges gain independence through slow cooking.
