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Speaker 1: This is on the Job, a podcast about finding your

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Speaker 1: life's work. On the job, is brought to you by

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Speaker 1: Express Employment Professionals. This season, we're bringing you stories of

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Speaker 1: folks following their passion to carve their own career path.

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Speaker 1: During the pandemic, the restaurant and service industry have changed immensely,

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Speaker 1: and in the wake of these changes, tons of weight

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Speaker 1: staff and cooks and managers and caterers have all lost

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Speaker 1: their jobs. Well, today we talked to a baker who

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Speaker 1: lost hers, but instead of looking for a new job,

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Speaker 1: she's creating her own. The sound you're hearing is the

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Speaker 1: start of a new business just getting sort of. It's

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Speaker 1: a sound of a standing mixer making chocolate chip cookies.

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Speaker 1: So they're just salted chocolate chip cookies. It took me

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Speaker 1: like two months to get this right. I had to

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Speaker 1: try something here. They are not just salted chocolate chip cookies.

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Speaker 1: They are a masterpiece, lovingly and maybe obsessively concocted in

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Speaker 1: Meg's kitchen. Meg Dawson, I'm thirty years old, I am

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Speaker 1: a baker, and I own operate and bake at Doss Butterhouse.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, I know it's not good to eat

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Speaker 1: on an audio, but this is one of the best

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Speaker 1: cookies I've ever had. Right now in COVID, Meg is

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Speaker 1: baking in a commercial kitchen where she lives in rural Charlotte, Vermont.

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Speaker 1: Doss Butterhouse is her first business. She just started selling

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Speaker 1: baked goods for pickup and delivery. She's been baking for

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Speaker 1: a long time, but for the first time she is

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Speaker 1: doing it her way. Cookies are so controversial. I think

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Speaker 1: that melted butter in a chocolate cookie is like the

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Speaker 1: only way to go. It's a consistent bake every time.

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Speaker 1: She cares a lot, and it's clear when you taste

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Speaker 1: her food that it just feels like this is a

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Speaker 1: person who's deep in a creative process. They're still gooey

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Speaker 1: in the middle with crispy edget like it's just like

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Speaker 1: a perfect cookie every time, and people are like, cream

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Speaker 1: your butter. As we set up top. The restaurant service industries,

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Speaker 1: they've taken a huge hit during the pandemic, and Meg,

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Speaker 1: like many people who worked in culinary, had their career

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Speaker 1: a bit derailed by the pandemic. But instead of looking

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Speaker 1: elsewhere for a job, she's doubling down and frankly thriving.

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Speaker 1: You really are. You don't seem like you're wasting much

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Speaker 1: time in this pandemic. I'm so grateful to be able

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Speaker 1: to make cookies like like, it's like my six year

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Speaker 1: old child's dream, Like you can work with cookies and

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Speaker 1: chocolate your entire life if you wanted to. For money,

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Speaker 1: people will pay you to make cake. Isn't that awesome? Okay?

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Speaker 1: To hear more about Meg's story and how she got

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Speaker 1: here taking this leap of faith with Doss Butterhouse. I

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Speaker 1: sat down with her outside the kitchen. Are you gonna

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Speaker 1: make hear me a sound? With her two black cats,

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Speaker 1: Hobart and Cornishan. Hobart like the mixer, and Cornishan like

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Speaker 1: the pickle. She lives here in Charlotte with her fiance,

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Speaker 1: not far from the kitchen she bakes in. She definitely

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Speaker 1: found her place in this tight community here. But she's

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Speaker 1: originally from the South. I was born in New Jersey,

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Speaker 1: but I grew up in Richmond, Virginia. Yeah. Definitely a

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Speaker 1: weird kid. Definitely have been cooking my whole life. I

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Speaker 1: was like that weird kid that would like bring risotto

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Speaker 1: to like a potlock in sixth grade. That's so weird.

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Speaker 1: It's super weird, but people loved it. It's cheesy, it's delicious.

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Speaker 1: Me grew up in a household of cooks. Her dad cooked,

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Speaker 1: her mom cooked, But my grandmother was like an amazing chef. Amazing,

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Speaker 1: Like she would watch Julia Child and then go into

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Speaker 1: her kitchen and make that for dinner. Like she would

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Speaker 1: be like ironing watching it and then being like I

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Speaker 1: can do that and just start making Like she was

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Speaker 1: like a five star chef. So she was watching Julia Child,

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Speaker 1: you were watching her. Yeah, yeah, basically. So even though

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Speaker 1: Meg was the weird Risotto kid, she said, she went

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Speaker 1: to a pretty nerdy high school and fit right in there.

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Speaker 1: School where for your senior year you pick your own

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Speaker 1: mentorship at a job. In the real world, most people

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Speaker 1: would do their mentorships at like a doctor's office or

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Speaker 1: like a law office. And I asked if I could

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Speaker 1: do it in a restaurant, and they're like, sure, whatever

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Speaker 1: you want. That was like my first intro into like

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Speaker 1: actual kitchens. So you love cooking, but you've never been

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Speaker 1: like in the food culinary kitchen world. What was it

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Speaker 1: like when you get thrown into the fire. It was

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Speaker 1: a total I mean, when you cook at home. It's

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Speaker 1: a totally different experience because you're cooking for yourself and

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Speaker 1: so you can screw up as many times as you

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Speaker 1: want to. But when you're cooking in a kitchen, and

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Speaker 1: especially in like a small family owned thing, it's like

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Speaker 1: you can't really mess up. That's their money, that's somebody's business,

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Speaker 1: and there is a slim margin of error. And where

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Speaker 1: that might have been a daunting environment for a regular

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Speaker 1: teenager to step into, Meg was hooked. I loved it.

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Speaker 1: I loved being in a kitchen. I loved working. I

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Speaker 1: loved I know this is gonna sound stude, but it

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Speaker 1: makes you feel important, Like it makes you feel like

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Speaker 1: you're doing something for a reason, and like that was

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Speaker 1: kind of the first time that I felt like I

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Speaker 1: was good at what I was doing. Meg played sports

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Speaker 1: in high school but said she was never the best

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Speaker 1: on the team. She was a good student but usually

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Speaker 1: got bees. But in the kitchen she felt like she excelled,

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Speaker 1: and she felt right at home and accepted. They thought

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Speaker 1: it was cool that I was the weird Zoto kid,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like like it felt right.

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Speaker 1: She started off college at BU. She then transferred back

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Speaker 1: home and went to the University of Virginia while working

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Speaker 1: at two restaurants. Basically worked like forty hours a week

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Speaker 1: at two different jobs and went to school. And then

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Speaker 1: I graduated and immediately moved to New York. What you

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Speaker 1: got there? She applied for about twenty five jobs in

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Speaker 1: restaurants before she even got one break. I've got a

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Speaker 1: job working with a really amazing pastry chef. I never

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Speaker 1: wanted to do pastry, like I was always a cook,

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Speaker 1: and I never thought pastry was where I was going

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Speaker 1: to go. I thought, like, I'll take this for a

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Speaker 1: couple of months, I'll figure out what I want to do.

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Speaker 1: And turns out I loved it. For Meg, this was

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Speaker 1: a new medium she could express herself with, like cooking,

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Speaker 1: but more organized. It made it really fun to be creative.

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Speaker 1: I could take these very specific ratios. It's like, you

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Speaker 1: know that, like this plus this plus this makes this

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Speaker 1: Like it's very specific. It comes out the same every time.

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Speaker 1: From that, you can kind of morphit into what you

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Speaker 1: want to do. So she kept working in different kitchens,

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Speaker 1: each time picking up on more aspects that helped her

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Speaker 1: understand the business more and more, and she eventually found

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Speaker 1: her way to Vermont, where she ended up landing a

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Speaker 1: huge gig running the bakery and an esteemed farm and

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Speaker 1: restaurant in Charlotte, where she could only make a menu

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Speaker 1: based off of what was seasonally available at local farms

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Speaker 1: around her. To have to think, like that is so

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Speaker 1: great for your brain and it's so great for creativity.

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Speaker 1: You thrive when you have constraints to work with them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like having parameters where it's like, okay, like you only

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Speaker 1: have rhubarb for two weeks. Good luck. By the time

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Speaker 1: she got into the swing of things at this farm restaurant,

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Speaker 1: Meg already had a decade of experience. This was a

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Speaker 1: great job, but by this point she knew enough about

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Speaker 1: baking and about the business itself to start concocting her

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Speaker 1: own ideas. I felt like there were parts of myself

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Speaker 1: that I was like tamping down constantly, which is just

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Speaker 1: what you do when you work for someone else, is

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Speaker 1: like you're constantly doing what other people tell you do,

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Speaker 1: and that's part of the job. Meg was running the

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Speaker 1: kitchen here when COVID hit in twenty twenty, and like

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Speaker 1: most restaurants, hers pivoted to pick up and delivery, and

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Speaker 1: they were slammed. It was especially now when she got

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Speaker 1: overworked that she started squirreling away ideas for Doss Butterhouse. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a dream bakery where she had the freedom to make

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Speaker 1: what she wanted to make, which had like sprinkles and

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Speaker 1: like salt and all of these things that like I

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Speaker 1: loved and especially like during COVID. It was almost like

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Speaker 1: a coping mechanism of like being so insanely busy that

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Speaker 1: I wanted to cry, and then coming home and like

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Speaker 1: thinking about what I would do better if I did

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Speaker 1: it myself. And then late into twenty twenty, she got

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Speaker 1: hit by a rogue wave. Even though the restaurant had

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Speaker 1: one of the best seasons had ever had, they started

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Speaker 1: letting people go. Yeah, they laid off a huge part

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Speaker 1: of their staff, including myself. There were a lot of

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Speaker 1: really amazing people that I worked with. It was really

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Speaker 1: surprising and really sad. Yeah, it kind of sucked. What

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Speaker 1: were your initial feelings when you think I can constantly

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Speaker 1: say a workaholic, Well, suddenly without a job and a

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Speaker 1: job that you were very intimately tied to running this

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Speaker 1: entire kitchen, I kind of and this I don't I

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Speaker 1: know that a lot of people wouldn't do this. I

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Speaker 1: basically within like three days, was like, Okay, I've been

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Speaker 1: thinking about Doss butter House. I guess I'll just make

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Speaker 1: dossboter House a thing. She did make Doss butter House

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Speaker 1: a thing, in in case you're wondering. The awesome name

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Speaker 1: is inspired by German pastries and her love for pretty

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Speaker 1: much all things German. I was really inspired by like

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Speaker 1: Grimm's fairy Tales with like the Gingerbread House, where it's

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Speaker 1: just like a big plaval house full of butter instead

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Speaker 1: of candy, because I don't like candy. I like butter.

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Speaker 1: Meg was laid off in October of twenty twenty, so

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Speaker 1: she was looking down the barrel of starting Das Butterhouse

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Speaker 1: in the holiday season. I knew that the big thing

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Speaker 1: I wanted to do was Thanksgiving, though, because I knew

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Speaker 1: that Thanksgiving was like is a huge thing in Charlotte.

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Speaker 1: It was a huge thing at the farm. The farm

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Speaker 1: where she had just worked sold about sixty pies that

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Speaker 1: last Thanksgiving, which is a lot for this little community.

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Speaker 1: I just kind of started putting the word out that, like,

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Speaker 1: they're still gonna be pies in Charlotte. Nobody worry. This

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Speaker 1: is gonna be fine, das Butterhouse is here to say Thanksgiving.

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Speaker 1: Suffice to say it did, and so we had one

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Speaker 1: hundred and thirty pies. You as yourself dos Butterhouse sold

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Speaker 1: more pies, so over double what we made at the

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Speaker 1: farm the year before. Full restaurant that you'd worked out before.

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Speaker 1: She started doing events, gathering equipment and researching, licensing, learning QuickBooks,

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Speaker 1: all the things you've got to do to start a business,

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Speaker 1: and the whole time baking like a madwoman, posting up

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Speaker 1: at a local restaurant that lets her bake in the

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Speaker 1: kitchen and set up a table for pickup at the

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Speaker 1: front door. So what was the initial response. I think

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Speaker 1: people loved it. I have a lot of repeat customers,

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Speaker 1: like every week repeat customers, which is really really nice.

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Speaker 1: Besides loving her community and wanting to serve them on

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Speaker 1: a personal level, she was making her first awesome decision

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Speaker 1: as a business owner. The farm she worked at was

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Speaker 1: known for their pastries in Charlotte, and that went away.

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Speaker 1: Meg was now filling a gap in the market in

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Speaker 1: the best way possible. Yeah. When I started, it was

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Speaker 1: like I want everybody here to know that, like, pies

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Speaker 1: are gonna be fine. You're gonna have pies and you're

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Speaker 1: gonna have cookie boxes like no one is gonna forget

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Speaker 1: about you. We'll get back to our store in a second. First,

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Speaker 1: a word from Express Employment Professionals. A strong work ethic,

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Speaker 1: takes pride in a job well done, sweats over the details.

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Speaker 1: This is you. But to get an honest day's work,

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Speaker 1: you need a response. You need a callback, You need

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Speaker 1: a job. Express Employment Professionals can help because we understand

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Speaker 1: what it takes to get a job. It takes more

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Speaker 1: than just online searches to land a job. It takes

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Speaker 1: someone who will identify your talents, a person invested in

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Speaker 1: your success. At Express, we can even complete your application

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Speaker 1: with you over the phone, will prepare you for interviews,

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Speaker 1: and will connect you to the right company. Plus, we'll

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Speaker 1: never charge a fee to find you a job at Express.

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Speaker 1: We could put you to work with companies of all

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Speaker 1: sizes and industries, from the production floor to the front office.

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Speaker 1: Express Nose Jobs, get to No Express, find your location

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Speaker 1: at Express dot com or on the Express Jobs app.

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Speaker 1: Now back to on the job. Back in the kitchen

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Speaker 1: where we started this episode, Mega's finishing up baking and

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Speaker 1: putting together some orders for pickoff during the holiday season.

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Speaker 1: Her pies blue people away and the community is really

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Speaker 1: rallying around her now, even six months in. And the

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Speaker 1: variety of pastries she's putting together today is mouthwatering. These

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Speaker 1: are like a nutty and current ruggle off. This is

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Speaker 1: the lemon poppy or cootact. These are the chocolate brownies

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Speaker 1: with hazelnuts, and there's like hazelnut praline kind of throughout it.

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Speaker 1: She's of course got those insane chocolate chip cookies from

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Speaker 1: earlier with big flaky salt on them. She's got a

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Speaker 1: crazy delicious banana bread cake with milk, chocolate, butter cream

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Speaker 1: and hints of coffee. Oh, the pecan tart. There's candied

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Speaker 1: two more oranges in it, a little bit of time

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Speaker 1: and a little bit of honey. And these nice little

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Speaker 1: cardboard boxes tied up with thread. They look like you're

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Speaker 1: giving away little presents. Yeah, people treating themselves. It's hard

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Speaker 1: right now, it's hard out there. Just as we're talking,

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Speaker 1: a woman comes in to pick up her order. Her

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Speaker 1: name's Charlotte. He's getting lemon poppycake and the banana breadcake.

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Speaker 1: My family's addicted to Meg's baking, so inventive It's like,

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Speaker 1: I can't even fathom how delicious everything is and how creative.

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Speaker 1: I would say my favorite was Thanksgiving magnate a chocolate

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Speaker 1: silk pie that is literally the best thing I ever ate.

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Speaker 1: She also raised about the scones, which she says live

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Speaker 1: up to the Doss Butterhouse name, Like you know, there's

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Speaker 1: like a stick of butter in each one, but it's

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Speaker 1: so worth it. Yeah you don't care, Yeah, exactly good.

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Speaker 1: It's really good. Do you pick up every week? I do?

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Speaker 1: I do. This is such a great addition to the

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Speaker 1: area to have this quality of pastry and cakes and inventiveness.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's nothing like this around here, So what

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Speaker 1: Meg is doing is fantastic. Charlotte really lingers for a

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Speaker 1: few minutes, box in hand with endless compliments. Meg is

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Speaker 1: standing about ten feet away while Charlotte turns from me

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Speaker 1: to her, raving about her food from the New York area.

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Speaker 1: And this is the kind of stuff like you go

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Speaker 1: to New York City and buy and pay sixty dollars

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Speaker 1: a cake for I can see that Meg is kind

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Speaker 1: of rubbing her hands together, smiling out of her mask

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Speaker 1: and saying thank you. It's kind of obvious that she's

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Speaker 1: a little uncomfortable. It's like I really recognize, like, not

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Speaker 1: only are you so talented, but the quality and what

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Speaker 1: you're doing is amazing. Yeah. Yeah, how do you feel

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Speaker 1: now that you're finally making these things you've been creating

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Speaker 1: in your head this whole time and seeing people buy them?

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Speaker 1: It's so complicated. It's such a complicated emotion because I

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Speaker 1: have always worked in a basement, and like I would

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Speaker 1: meet people that would be like, oh my god, you're

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Speaker 1: the baker. Oh that's so exciting, and like that's really

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Speaker 1: nice to hear it. But it's like it's really overwhelming

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Speaker 1: when it's oh, what you mean is you you were

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Speaker 1: removed from the customer for all these years? Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: so like the it's like the face to face interactions.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I get really uncomfortable when people like even

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Speaker 1: say like I like your shoes. So when it's something

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Speaker 1: that like you've put your heart and soul into, like

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Speaker 1: your whole life. I mean, like even Charlotte earlier today

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Speaker 1: she was she was telling me how much she loved

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Speaker 1: all your food, and she's very emphatic about it in

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Speaker 1: front of you. How did that make you feel? Well?

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Speaker 1: While she was saying all that. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: you saw me, but I was like basically like up

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Speaker 1: against the wall. Yeah, I almost cried then too. It's hard.

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Speaker 1: It's like really great, but it's also it's scary because

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Speaker 1: it's I think it puts a lot of pressure not

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Speaker 1: to fail, and I'm somebody who really really tries hard

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Speaker 1: not to fail. So it just like adds on this

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Speaker 1: other level of like, now they know who you are,

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Speaker 1: your business is you? What do you think? Will you

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Speaker 1: buy my stuff? Like? What do you do? You like

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Speaker 1: my stuff? Do you like me? Because my stuff is me?

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Speaker 1: So it's like you need that response like you in

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Speaker 1: order for your business to continue. It's like you need

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Speaker 1: be able to be like, yes, I like your stuff

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Speaker 1: and I'll buy it. So, like it's not just putting

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Speaker 1: yourself out there. It's so much more than that. Meg

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Speaker 1: Dawson has taken a huge risk venturing off on your

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Speaker 1: own and starting a business in any time. Covid acide

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Speaker 1: is kind of a crazy thing to do when you

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Speaker 1: look at it on paper, there's so many new skills

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Speaker 1: you need to learn just to do the thing you

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Speaker 1: started the business for in the first place. And then

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Speaker 1: still anything can happen. But Meg, that's what working in

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Speaker 1: restaurants has always been for her, chaos, except this time

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Speaker 1: it's hers. I have never felt more creatively free. I've

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Speaker 1: never felt more connected to the farmers that were like

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Speaker 1: I'm using. I've never felt more connected to my other

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Speaker 1: friends who have businesses. So far, I haven't screwed up

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Speaker 1: too big, but like, I know that that's on the

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Speaker 1: horizon and I just have to be like ready and

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Speaker 1: okay with it. Maybe it's not surprising she's got such

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Speaker 1: a good star. Meg's always thrived under constraints, figuring out

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Speaker 1: how to express herself within the parameters she's been given.

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Speaker 1: That's just her personality. But I think there's something in

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Speaker 1: that we can all take a piece of. This pandemic

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Speaker 1: has totally changed our fundamental understanding of work and what

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Speaker 1: we do. It's but a lot of us without work,

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Speaker 1: or made us see that those jobs we thought would

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Speaker 1: always be there could go away at any time. That's scary,

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Speaker 1: But the reality is jobs aren't going away. They're just

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Speaker 1: changing inevitably, and that leaves each of us with a

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Speaker 1: choice to be afraid of this big, scary, changing world

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Speaker 1: or figure out how to evolve and thrive within it.

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Speaker 1: A lot of us, maybe even you listening, we found

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Speaker 1: ourselves out of a job and thinking about doing something

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Speaker 1: totally different, making your own job, and then immediately thinking

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Speaker 1: it's too risky. Who knows what the world will look

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Speaker 1: like even a year from now. But the thing is

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Speaker 1: doing what you love for work has always been risky

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Speaker 1: and always will be and anything could always happen any time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that is owning a business is is you're just constantly

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Speaker 1: pivoting and constantly looking at what worked and what didn't

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Speaker 1: and moving forward like you have to move forward. Life

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Speaker 1: is just uncertain and stressful. And even with all the

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Speaker 1: stress of starting Doss Butterhouse, when Meg is feeling overwhelmed,

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Speaker 1: do you remember something she was told during her first

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Speaker 1: big pastry job back in Manhattan, words of wisdom from

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Speaker 1: her baking mentor, Caitlin. The first time I burned an

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Speaker 1: entire batch of cakes, she threw it away and she goes,

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Speaker 1: it's a lesson in loss. It's just cake. And I

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Speaker 1: think about that like every day, anytime anything is going bad.

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Speaker 1: It's like I am like a child. I'm playing with

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Speaker 1: cookies all day, Like this is the best job. Like

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Speaker 1: how many people get to do that. For On the Job,

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Speaker 1: I'm Otis Gray. To see all of Meg's amazing pastries

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Speaker 1: and follow her business as it grows. Find her on

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Speaker 1: Instagram at DOS Butterhouse. We'll put a link for this

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Speaker 1: in the description of the show. Thanks for listening to

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Speaker 1: On the Job, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals.

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Speaker 1: This season of On the Job is produced by Audiation.

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Speaker 1: The episodes were written and produced by me Otis Gray.

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Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Sandy Smallens. The show is mixed

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Speaker 1: by Matt Noble for Audiation Studios at The Loft and Bronxville,

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Speaker 1: New York. Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard,

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Speaker 1: please consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. For

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Speaker 1: more inspiring stories about discovering your life's work. Audiation