Reconnecting with Maria and building a new business

Between 2000 and 2022, our catering company employed over five hundred employees. Many of our family of workers were from outside the United States. They came on student work visas, and there are many who stand out even fifteen years later.  (photo of Farmer’s market team in 2014)

Maria and Antonia were teenage sisters from Croatia, and they held a strong tug to our hearts. Although neither of them was a cook, they held up the functions of our hectic catering operation––schlepping equipment and serving pieces, seeing to the needs for a makeshift chef’s kitchen, unloading and reloading the vans, keeping on top of the lists of needs, all of which had little to do with food. We would roll in late, and get up early and start all over again the following day. It’s enough to conjure up post-traumatic stress syndrome for me, but these two beautiful young women were masters of knowing what needed to be done, and they brought a bolt of lightning to our operations. Maria and Antonia worked tirelessly and always with a smile and enthusiasm. We worked together for four summers, and then they went on with their lives, and although we tried to stay in touch, life moved on.

When our son headed to Israel one summer, and was disenchanted with it, he headed up the coast of Croatia, where he met up with Maria and Antonia and their family. With their help, he secured a teaching position for the summer at the University of Zadar. He loved Croatia, and returned the following summer to tour the coast of Dalmatia by bike. He shared his stories and memories with an insistence that I go.

At the height of COVID and after many silent years from Maria, she appeared on my doorstep here one morning. She was tired, and burnt out from her marketing career in Zagreb. One never knows where an experience or conversation will go, but my Maria was an old soul, familiar, family, and somehow I knew that together we would get through the uncertainty. “Let's go paddleboarding and sort it all out,” I said. (That was my response to everything, during COVID. I went paddleboarding and played a lot of tennis to get me out of the house and back into the world.)

It was out on the water of Quitsa that Maria and I caught up. She brought me up to date on where she had been. She was tired and wondered what her next steps should be. I felt the same way: I wanted to run away from life, bury my head and forget about the burden. 

Getting out on the water, paddling away, allows the soul to set sail. Somehow that weight of the world of the unknown depended on me and Maria getting through. We had it so easy compared to everyone else––it was hard to complain or even admit to having heavy hearts. We paddled across Quista Pond, we talked about life; what was important to us, what did we wish to see in the world, how could we find clarity? 

Keeping a journal, meditating, paddleboarding, and showing up for my staff were at the forefront for me. For Maria, she was a detailed person and she did well with tasks at hand, but without knowing her calling, she was searching. 

The pandemic hit all of us hard. Running a business during COVID took me to a different level of patience and perseverance. Before the virus, I had nearly secured the sale of my very busy catering business and was ready to move on. When COVID hit, the sale fell through, and I was left with fifty part-time and ten full-time employees, all dedicated, and I just could not let them down. We had to do a 180-degree pivot and change our operations from a catering business to a takeout restaurant, and our farmers’ market became our mainstay rather than a little side business. We had to start over, with all new rules, procedures, and basically a new business. We had to retrain staff and learn how to do that, too.

COVID had a way of getting us to reach into our depths and bring out the things that showed us what didn’t work in our lives. There was an opportunity to do things differently, to sit with the uncomfortable and work through it.

Since 2009, I have dabbled in offering experiences to folks. And while they were always focused on health and wellness, once I started collaborating with my friend John Bagnulo, they were about so much more. When I first met John, his teachings on the science behind our food brought a fresh understanding to what I knew but had lacked words for. My deep sense that the health of food is at the core of life was validated. We can follow the roots of food and study the cultures, but learning about  the connections between food and health was what I had been looking for without knowing it.
I studied horticulture in college, and I knew the damage of monoculture farming. I knew the importance of saving seeds and heritage animals, and I could see a correlation to health, but I learned there was alsovalue in knowing your community. I knew this expanded to the health of our planet––but these connections were just pies in the sky until John provided the framework and the science behind it all and the dots were connected for me.

What we eat, and how that food is produced, affects our health, but also the environment. When we bring in cultures that have preserved a healthy way of life, we can easily see the direct correlation between wisdom and reason. 

When the pandemic hit, I was nearing the end of my catering career. I loved bringing food to the table and that will always be a deep part of my foundation, but the teacher in me wanted to help others make the connection between good food and why it matters, and to bring that subject fully alive. Catering reminded me too much of what was wrong with our food systems. It had gotten me to where I was, but that no longer really mattered to me. Maria’s burnout matched mine and we found each other.
The fall before COVID, my son and his new wife had just returned from Croatia, and they returned with amazing tales of happy cows living on 100% grass, artisanal cheese made with A2A2 milk, and the beauty and culture of the tropical archipelago in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It was calling me, too.

Maria came to the Vineyard as a stopover, on her way to visit family on the West Coast, but she decided to stay longer. We continued to define what our worlds could look like beyond her marketing career and beyond my catering. Yes, there was a book for me to write, but the teacher in me was calling also, the need to continue to define where food comes from and to reinforce why we need to preserve those making a difference. Maria and I studied our strengths and found both of us wanted similar things. I loved her spirit, her youth (with well beyond 30 years between us), and her drive, so much like mine.

Maria’s ninety-day tourist visa was running out and she needed to head back to Europe. I told her that Croatia and the Azores were on my list to visit. And as the universe aligns itself, Maria could make a free stopover to the Azores, and she decided it was worth a stop. She would check it out and we would see if maybe there was a place there to share with others.

“And once we nail the Azores, let’s see about offering a retreat in Croatia,”

I said to Maria as she was about to take off for the Azores. It was as though it was all a future plan––and perhaps it was. I outlined a list of qualities I would look for when meeting farmers or chefs and what type of accommodations, foods, and standards we would need in order to offer a retreat. 

After Maria’s initial visit to he Azores, I met her on the island of Sao Miquel and we finalized the details for the retreat. The Azores is a timeless place, with much of the old way of life and a pace that aligns with what I believe is important in showing, tasting, learning, and experiencing.

Within a year, we had taken a group of twelve to the Azores, with Maria as our coordinator. She was the one who made sure our guides were on time, made each detail seem effortless as she led us on a dance across the villages. Together we shine, reflecting each other’s strengths.

Yes, the Azores are simply amazing, and we are offering the retreat again, and it will be even better than the last trip. What can I say? We now have family there. Helena and Manuel own the estate that has been part of this royal family for centuries. Nature, vegetable gardens, horses, cows, goats, fruits, all nestled in a valley of ancient forest with a great diversity of birds, butterflies, and bees. Add to that chefs sharing their passions, and wine tasting overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, with cows grazing nearby. There will be tinctures, teas, and water tasting along with cheese and fish and pottery. The hikes, the thermal baths, the tidal dips in the ocean . . . are all a part of the experience that explores all the senses.

And based on the great success of the Azores trip, this year we offer you Croatia as well. This is Maria’s home. This is the place where the Adriatic Sea laps at ancient coastal towns reminiscent of Venetian life. Maria has taken all of the excellence of the Azores and wrapped it into one outrageously beautiful experience of Croatia. Of course we are submersing our trip into a tidy arrangement of the best of the best that Croatia has to offer: olive oil, truffles, goat’s milk cheeses, fish, chefs sharing their passions and yes, hikes––an immersion into nature while we take in the coast of the distant past.