Humble Beginnings
As a child, our founder Julie was surrounded by a family full of female gourmets.
By the time Julie was ten, she was spending every Friday with her grandmother, Rocci Valentine, and every Sunday with her other grandmother, Marguerite Percy, cooking and listening to their stories—some too incredible to be true. That time in the kitchen amounted to an informal master class in both cooking by heart from Grandma Rocci and cooking by precision from Nana Marguerite. Where Nana Marguerite had a formal and well-measured...
Her time in the kitchen gave her not only a love for food but also an ear for storytelling and a sense of adventure nurtured by trips around the world with Nana Marguerite.
After arriving at college, Julie’s room soon became an informal canteen for her dorm mates as they marveled at the creative concoctions she was able to make with a simple hot pot and a packet of noodles. Julie took an internship in London during her junior year and spent the summer afterward backpacking around Europe. It was there that she met her first love, Portuguese ceramic pottery.
Starting a ceramic business was surprisingly easy for Julie.
Following in the footsteps of the Pampered Chef, Julie started holding house parties where she would showcase the latest finds and share stories from her adventures in Portugal. Soon Julie had recruited a close-knit team of moms to help her run her business. After the first couple of months, Julie’s early success started to wane. With the leaves quickly turning colors, her customers were no longer looking for pieces for...