Tag Archives: Work From Home

The Queens of Lumban Embroidery

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Words by Glenn Martinez
Photograhy by Jamie Barredo

Morning sunshine generously streams through a narrow door inside the home of 61-year-old
Lolita Lakbay-Rosales providing natural lighting while she moves in silent concentration over her labor. Her deft hands diligently shift the needle along the beginnings of a meticulously-embroidered piña fabric. In her living room, she is joined by other women from the neighborhood doing the same fine handiwork. They are all related by blood and by profession. They are the women embroiderers of Lumban.

Embroidery has thrived as a lively cottage industry in Lumban. Ask any of the women embroiderers how this needle craft was introduced to this lakeshore town of fishermen and farmers and nobody can give a definite history. Their answers would echo Lolita’s. “I’ve learned embroidery from my mother when I was 13. My mother learned it from my grandmother. I taught my daughters and my husband to do embroidery.”

Lolita’s husband, Apolinario Rosales, shares the daily labor by stretching gossamer cloth over a rectangular bamboo frame locally called a bastidor. The delicate fabric is cleaned with soap and water and whitened with starch before it is placed under the sun to dry.

Like most family men in Lumban, Apolinario casts his net in the nearby lake for that first catch at dawn. In the afternoon, his coarsened fisherman hands balance a tambor, the round wooden stretcher where the piña fabric is stretched out as tight as a drum, while he intricately embroiders rosettes and floral patterns. Apolinario claims he learned embroidery by simply watching his wife Lolita. However, embroidery remains the turf of Lolita in the Rosales household. She is the only one who gives approval to Apolinario’s embroidery and provides directions on how to improve his style. As Lolita explains in jest “every man of the house in Lumban accepts this kind of set-up because in our town embroidery is king and we women are the queens.”

Want to know more about these queens? Subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

Helen Nurse’s Parlour of Style – TracyChambers Vintage

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Words by Molly Hays
Photography by Jacklyn Greenberg

Many a woman working from home soon finds her professional life elbowing in on her dining room. Rare, though, is the entrepreneur that converts her dining room into a retail space, sets regular business hours, and opens up her home to the public. Meet Helen Nurse, founder and proprietress of New York’s TracyChambers Vintage: determined, creative, and—yes—rare.

In early 2012, Nurse spied a market gap in affordable vintage clothing and so set out to rent a storefront, only to learn that rents in her Brooklyn neighborhood were sky-high. Beyond-reach sky-high. Most aspiring entrepreneurs would have shelved their idea as unfeasible and moved on. But not Helen. She redoubled her efforts, revisited her options, and arrived at an elegant, if unconventional, solution.

In March of that year, she opened a vintage clothing boutique very close to home. In her home, actually.

Impeccable

Helen credits her grandmother with her lifelong love of vintage. “My grandmother didn’t have very much money; she had just a few things. But the quality of her clothing was amazing. Every time she went out, she looked impeccable.”

Fast forward a few decades, and here is Helen Nurse, mom to three young kids, former Event Planner, fashion-aficionado, and enterprising eye which sees both the value in that storied craftsmanship, and the demand for vintage that fits Everywoman. “I choose vintage based on real women’s bodies,” she explains, an exercise in editorial purchasing that yields styles women can actually wear.

She started small, testing the waters, selling her collection at street fairs on weekends. The response was good, but with young children in tow, ages 3, 2 and 1, the hours and impact weren’t worth it. The seed, however, had been sown. And the concept, proven.

And so, caught between prohibitive rents and family demands, Nurse paved herself a third way. Noting how many brownstones in her neighborhood already sported ground floor businesses, she pitched the idea of transforming their little-used, street-level dining room into retail space. Her executive board—a.k.a., her family—assented. TracyChambers Vintage, named after Diana Ross’s enterprising, ambitious, impeccably dressed character in Mahogany, was off and running.

To read more about TracyChambers Vintage, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

Mr. Lentz: The Genuine Chivalrous Cowboy

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Interview by Laura Zolman Kirk and Megan Smith
Photograhy by Evan Lentz

Walk us through a typical work day.

Rolling out of bed when the sun’s just about rising is not typically my thing, but I’ll do it if the work requires me to. Every now and then I will heat up a pot of cowboy coffee: just some grinds, boiling water, and my cup to pour it into. Off to the workshop, I fire up the lights and start sorting out the day’s orders. My first step is usually custom branding people’s leather goods with their names. I then go through a full process of cutting, dyeing, oiling, waxing, assembling, and hammering everything into shape. I tend to work long days, as I am a bit of a perfectionist and love creating good looking products for my customers. During busy times I get a lending hand from an assistant or two who may become part of the workshop for some time. It’s great to have extra help when you need it. On some days the cowboy hat comes off early, and I might head down to the beach for some relaxing.

What does your craft mean to you?

Leatherwork, to me, means hard work. It means a good solid day, where you tire yourself out by the end but feel fulfilled by the entire process.

Your profession as leatherworker/woodworker takes a lot of precision—how do you keep things fresh, and what goals do you set for yourself to stay motivated on a daily basis?

Well, once you start making a style that people like…you find yourself making a whole lot of that design. In the process you tend to make things over and over again. I take a lot of pleasure in getting things right. Leatherwork is tricky business since the material you are working with was at one point alive. Each piece is different and reacts differently to cutting, dyeing, branding, and oiling. I have not yet had a day where I am not amused at how something very different and strange is happening with one of my processes―and I tend to constantly modify my approach because of it. Other than that―I have a lot of sticky notes in a lot of places! Goals galore!

Want to read more about Evan? Order Issue 8 here.

The Contented Life of JoJo Johnson

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Words by Megan Smith
Photography by Sarah Beaty

318. That’s the number of curves I experienced on an 11-mile stretch of the mountain pass known as Deals Gap, North Carolina. This is the trek that one must take (at least on a maiden voyage) to the DeGroot/Johnson property tucked far into a holler of the Great Smokey Mountains. The drive is not for the faint of heart, and the final climb—a one-mile narrow pebbled road to the house—is cause for a deep sigh of relief upon ascension.

Unexpectedly, and thankfully, every bit of road anxiety quickly dissipates as Neil DeGroot greets me with a broad smile, twinkling baby blues and a glass of champagne. “You’ve made it!” he exclaims, embracing me in a bear hug and leading me down the walk, through the colossal wooden front door and into the zen-like retreat he and his wife built to both calm and amaze. It doesn’t disappoint.

The house itself is an Architectural Digest article waiting to happen. But my weekend visit is not for a house tour. It’s to find the heart of the home. And for that I look no further than steps inside. Joanne (Jojo) Johnson, tall, gregarious and confident, rushes over to greet me with a radiant smile, a nurturing hug and infectious enthusiasm that fails to wane over our next 36 hours together. I found what I came looking for.

I had heard about Joanne a few months prior during a chance meeting with her husband of nearly 30 years, Neil. A widely respected and world renowned TV producer, director, theater and film actor, Neil isn’t really enamored by anyone in the industry. I’ve prodded to no avail. Beautifully he seems most awe-struck by his own bride. Over coffee on one of the hottest spring days in the south, Neil told me the story of Joanne. Abbreviated yet poignant. I needed to know more.

Curious about JoJo? Subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

Emily Dickinson – Poetry of a Homebody

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Words by Laura Zolman Kirk
Imagery provided by Amherst College Special Collections

Many of us were introduced to Emily Dickinson during high school English class, finding her work elusive and over our heads. Yet, behind the oddly-placed dashes and lines that make our minds zing, there is a woman who―aside from sharing her complex thoughts in verse—doesn’t differ much from many of us trying to blaze a trail of our own.

Visit the Dickinson homestead in Amherst, Massachusetts on a late winter afternoon and you can watch the sun set from Emily’s bedroom window, just as she would have seen it working from home and just as she described it, likely from that very spot:

“Soft as the massacre of Suns/ By Evening’s sabres slain” (Fr1146).

Well, maybe not all of us would describe a New England sunset quite like Emily Dickinson did, but there is something alluring about experiencing her home-based muses as a modern-day visitor.

It makes her more real. Her poetics are often so difficult to grasp, intentionally construed so only those who work at her words enjoy them. However, looking out to see the same sights as she once did somehow makes her words more tangible.

At her core, Emily Dickinson was simply a woman who worked from home. She was distracted by dirty dishes, scribbled down lines while baking bread, and sent her poems directly to her readers through letters.

To read more about Emily Dickinson, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

The Cirque de Soleil of Her Imagination

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Words by Bethany Miller   
Photography by Natalie Morris

There is no “they.” This is but one of the many truths spoken by Vanessa German. To call her an artist would be such a dull illustration of her talents. Performance artist, virtuoso, storyteller, sculptor―her medium is her voice, the neighborhood, repurposed relics, paint and pure love. She is a community savior and dazzling truth teller. She is self-taught by life’s experiences, careful attention to history, and the example of her mother. She gives life to the stories of history forgotten and believes her ancestors are alive within her. She spreads love and creativity and possibility despite the tragedies and anger that exist in downtrodden places. “Why don’t ‘they’ fix it?” she wonders. And the truth is there is no “they.” But there is WE.

Vanessa stands alone on the stage. She doesn’t need props. Her voice booms. Her attire is colorful. Her hands constantly move. Clearly, she is artistic. Forceful. Rhythmic. Every word she speaks is rich, and her verbose vocabulary drips with savory spiritual hope in the midst of a troubled reality. On stage in front of the TEDx camera, in front of audiences, for small media outlets, and now a global business audience, Vanessa German shares stories of unfortunate reality: a reality many live in the midst of, and often a reality many choose to ignore.

To read more about Vanessa, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

Heart and Soule

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Words by Molly Hays
Photography by Steve Soule

Writers, accountants, lawyers, artists: there are as many work-from-home arrangements as there are home-based workers. Still, few have masterfully integrated work and home as organically as author, mother, magazine founder, and master blogger Amanda Soule.

As followers of Amanda’s widely-read and deeply-admired blog SouleMama know, she has built a career around home: its pleasures, graces, challenges, rewards, and, above all, its enduring importance. When she launched her blog over a decade ago Amanda was a young mother, at home all day with two young boys, seeking a creative outlet. It was “just a way…to have something tangible at the end of the day.” Fast-forward eleven years, and Amanda’s daily life looks significantly different, with five kids, ages 3-14; three books; one quarterly magazine; an international following; and farm animals beyond count.

Still, the heartbeat of her work hasn’t wavered. In print and online, Amanda explores everything from hand-plucking hornworms, to honoring kids’ art, to making muffins from leftover oatmeal. All the while eloquently re-defining home, not as edifice or landing pad but as vital, essential source of comfort, creativity and potential.

All from within the four walls she calls “home.”

To read more about Amanda, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

The Heart of Mishti Verma: Inner Katha Interventions

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Words by Lanie Anderson
photography by Akash Mehta

For five years, Mishti Verma began every workday the same: a nutritional milkshake, sprouts, and boiled eggs for breakfast; Buddhist chanting followed by meditation; and five minutes for writing down on paper her goals for the day. In that order.

When Mishti started Inner Katha Interventions in 2008, the tiny window of her bedroom—a makeshift office with books that lined the walls—only allowed small beams of light into the room and gave tiny glimpses of the hills, trees, and colony landscape of Mumbai, India, where she lived.

Mishti had no view of its center—a city of over 20 million people—with its busy streets, blaring car horns, and aromatic traces of cumin and coriander.

But she needed no view of the city’s heart to catch the spirit of its people—one of determination to succeed.

Curious about Inner Katha Interventions? Subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

Lemon Rosemary Cakelets with Raspberry Glaze

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Recipe by Elizabeth Marek
Photography by Megan Smith
Test kitchen baker – Canaan Smith

(makes about 18)

For the Cake

Dry ingredients

  • 9 oz cake flour
  • 9 oz granulated sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon plus one teaspoon baking powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt

Wet ingredients

  • 8 oz whole milk
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 oz vegetable oil
  • splash of Grand Marnier Cognac
  • zest of one lemon
  • 1 heaping Tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
  • 6 oz unsalted butter at room temp (should be soft to the touch but still hold its shape when you press your finger into it)

Raspberry Glaze

  • 1 cup fresh raspberries (blackberries or strawberries work also)
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • about 3 cups confectioners sugar (powdered sugar)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. I like to use cake goop (equal parts flour, oil and shortening mixed into a paste) to grease my pans. Combine your wet ingredients, including the lemon zest and rosemary and set aside. Combine the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl. Turn the mixer on low speed and add in your softened butter in small chunks. Let mix until your dry ingredients resemble wet sand. Do not walk away or you could accidentally over mix. Whisk your wet ingredients together to break up the eggs. Pour in about 1/3 of the wet into the dry and turn your mixer onto medium speed. Set a timer or watch the clock and let your batter mix for 2 full minutes. Do not be tempted to stop the mixing sooner or just guess how long it has been mixing.

This is the most important step. If you do under-mix, they will be short and crumbly. I promise you won’t over-mix them. Once the batter has mixed for 2 minutes, scrape the bowl with a spatula. Turn the mixer on low and slowly add in the rest of the liquid until it’s all in there. Scrape the bowl once more and turn back up to medium for 30 seconds. Your batter should be light and fluffy enough to scoop with a spoon.

Place roughly two heaping scoops of batter per bundlette cavity. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned on top. Remove and let cool 5 minutes before flipping the cakes out of the pan and onto a wire rack to fully cool.

To make the glaze, put your berries in a blender with the milk to make a puree. Strain out the seeds into another bowl. Add in your sifted powdered sugar one cup at a time until you reach a glaze consistency that is like thick paint. If it’s too thick add a couple of drops of milk. Don’t add too much, a little liquid goes a long way.

Dip your cooled cakes into the glaze and place onto a serving plate. Garnish with a sprig of rosemary, some fresh berries and a light dusting of powdered sugar.

Pay For My Words: How to Set Your Speaking Fees

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Words by Marley Majcher
Artwork by Lucy Driscoll

Poorly negotiated speaking contracts can cost you a lot more than a day or two on the road; in fact, they can cost you not only your time, but key relationships and a potential lost income.

Whether you run a multinational corporation or are a solopreneur working out of your spare bedroom, nailing a speaking gig can be great for your brand AND add a nice chunk of change to the bottom line. IF you do it right.

To read the key fee points your speaking contract must contain, order Issue 8 here.

Keeping it Legal When Your Home is Your Office

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Words by Jennifer Monarch
Artwork by Belinda Del Pesco

Since I left my in-the-box job at a mid-sized regional law firm less than two months ago, my productivity and quality of life have skyrocketed (i.e., I get twice the work done in half the time, and I’m never late for happy hour with my girlfriends). The best part? I rarely have to leave the comfort of my plush reading chair, shearling-lined house shoes, and cozy fireplace (my lap dogs, by the way, are loving this new arrangement).

When I first decided to open my own law practice, one of the many questions that continually crept into conversation was where my new office would be located. To be honest, the idea of leaving one square office with fluorescent lighting just to be stuck in another all day left me feeling claustrophobic. So I did what any resourceful, smart, and sweatpants-loving woman would do: I started working from home.

If you’re like me, the idea of working from your abode has only ever elicited thoughts of comfy lounging, daytime television, and mid-day workouts just for the hell of it. The truth is, however, that there are so many other considerations about the legalities and logistics of working for yourself at home that need to be explored.

To read the rest of the article, subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.

Issue 8 – Editor Letter

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Three years ago I launched CAKE&WHISKEY from my mint-green 1940’s kitchen table. Two years before that I was covered in sticky, sugary fluff helping my son run his mail-order marshmallow company. Earlier still I was taking custom orders for handmade bags and aprons that I would sew from that same kitchen table into the wee hours of the morning while my babes slept. And before that, I was a star seller on eBay, making ends meet with the sale of vintage DVF dresses and Hanna Andersson jumpers. Interspersed in that decade, I was writing fresh content for my blog and navigating my way through the world of freelance writing.

Whew!

For those years, while my little ones napped or played with blocks, endless loads of laundry tumbled in the dryer and Sami and EJ’s latest drama on Days of Our Lives unfolded in the background (ahem), I worked from home. And what I found is that it is both amazingly glorious and enormously grinding…usually simultaneously. Self-discipline became my bedrock because distraction reared its head every hour of every day. Self-affirmation became my closest friend when there was no one to give me the high five I deserved. Self-motivation became the skill that I eventually mastered, because without it I would be out of business.

This issue is an homage to women around the globe who are doing some really amazing things in the world of business, right from the home offices, kitchen tables, front steps, snuggly beds and cozy nooks of their homes.

Some are doing so by choice, others because there is no other option.

Some are corporate, others are entrepreneurial.

Some stay barefoot while others are breaking out their Frye boots to board a flight.

Some are wanting to make their mark. Others look for no fame at all.

What proves to be the thread that connects them all is calling the comforts of home a perk of the job.

Gone are (most of) my days at the mint-green vintage kitchen table. Today I sit at a real office desk with swivel chair. I have a business mailing address and hold meetings in a bona fide office space.

There are days I miss the routine of pouring a fourth cup of coffee from my own coffeepot and listening to Grover’s latest mishap on PBS from the other room while my kid drops more Cheerios into the couch crevices. I miss doing squats and jumping jacks between emails, prepping dinner at 2 pm instead of 6:30 and having a girlfriend drop by for an unexpected visit. I miss letting my mood dictate my work hours (Shutting off that too-early alarm with a promise, “I’ll just work late tonight.”). I miss my marathon wearing of yoga pants (You really CAN wear UGG boots with a sweater and 2-day-worn yoga pants to Starbucks and look PERFECTLY legit!). Most of all, I miss Sami and EJ.

Okay, okay…I tease.

Subscribe to CAKE&WHISKEY magazine or purchase the single issue here.