Overview
My husband and I met working on a very busy restaurant line together. We both fell in love with cooking & hospitality at a young age and have developed those skills over many years in the business. He has pursued a career as a chef in some of Portland’s best restaurants and currently heads up the kitchen as Magissa full time while helping Milk Bottle in production and bottling. I worked my way up from the dish pit to general manager over the course of 20 plus years in the industry. Flavors & hospitality have always been at the core of my development. When the pandemic hit we were both out of a job and had time, for the first time, to actually focus on something we could bring to the community. Build something of our own. My sister told me about the program Propeller through the Women’s Business Center at CEI and I figured I would give it a shot. It was so inspiring to take an idea, mold that into a product, and take it to market alongside other women doing the same thing at various steps in their journey. I went ahead and took Propeller 2 as well and sought out advising from the SBDC. It has been some of the most rewarding years of my life so far. My favorite part of this adventure is being at a farmers market and finding something fresh and at peak season to use for a farm collaboration. Roasting fruit and pairing it with an herb or spice to make something interesting and fun for people to enjoy truly keeps me going. Working alongside my husband is a dream come true, creating flavor pairings, new products, and testing out our mixers together is so rewarding. The community around makers, artisans, farmers, and crafters is such a welcoming one, I feel a sense of belonging akin to my time in restaurants. I have helped build a few businesses up from the ground and I have always wanted to build something of my own. I hope to take this dream all the way to the moon while staying in Maine and using Maine ingredients whenever possible.