When I decided to open my bakery, I was almost overwhelmed with all that goes into starting a business. It had been my main focus for about 5 years, so I had so much of it ready to go; business plan was written, dozens of recipes developed and tested, and a modest following of clients that would hopefully turn into faithful customers.
The one thing I didn’t have was a Mission Statement. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I had a mission; had been on this mission for a long while. But I discovered I needed a statement that would convey my mission to everyone else.
Luckily for me, daughter #2 was working for a company that really liked my goodies and had some very talented marketing people who were willing to help me put what I heard in my head down on paper. So Lavender Box Bakery opened with a Mission Statement:
To provide high quality, fresh products in a way that brings nostalgia. It is our philosophy that every bite should come with a memory. We want to help create those memories by supplying you with fresh-from-scratch products. No boxes, no mixes, no tubs.
Just Decadence in Small Bites.
Just 50 words. But those 50 words illustrate me; they are me. Food, in my opinion, is Life. Not just necessary to sustain life, but essential to my life.
Many of my earliest, and best, memories are of food.
The heavenly aroma of coffee and bacon (with a healthy dose of Pall Mall cigarette smoke) takes me back to waking up in my Grandma Frances’ house, hearing her and Grandpa Hardy getting ready for their day. And I can taste the bright burst of warm blackberries picked (without permission, of course) off Old Miss Boody’s bushes; an amazing summer afternoon snack washed down with a drink from the garden hose.
Coming from a family with strong roots in the Southern states, saying “The Kitchen is the Heart of the Home” is not cliche, it is simply fact. No matter whose house we are in, we gather in the kitchen. As a kid, I can remember coming in from running around like a banshee with my cousins and finding my mom, along with her mom, sisters and any other girl over the age of 14 or so, gathered in the kitchen. Even if there was not a meal to be made or cleaned up after, they were sitting on every available chair or the Costco step stool with the hideous cushion cover, leaning against the formica counter or taking turns wandering outside to make sure we weren’t terrorizing the neighborhood.
I guess my point is simply this…food is life.
I mother with food. I comfort with food. I give praise with food. I celebrate with food. I grieve with food. And I love with food.
As this crazy life of mine spins around and around, there are very few things that I know for certain, but one of those is that whatever happens, good or bad, there will be food.
Lavender Box Bakery 