Speaker 1: This is on the Job, a podcast about finding your
Speaker 1: life's work. On the job, is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Express Employment Professionals. This season, we're bringing you stories of
Speaker 1: folks following their passion to carve their own career path.
Speaker 1: During the pandemic, the restaurant and service industry have changed immensely,
Speaker 1: and in the wake of these changes, tons of weight
Speaker 1: staff and cooks and managers and caterers have all lost
Speaker 1: their jobs. Well, today we talked to a baker who
Speaker 1: lost hers, but instead of looking for a new job,
Speaker 1: she's creating her own. The sound you're hearing is the
Speaker 1: start of a new business just getting sort of. It's
Speaker 1: a sound of a standing mixer making chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker 1: So they're just salted chocolate chip cookies. It took me
Speaker 1: like two months to get this right. My had to
Speaker 1: try something here. They are not just salted chocolate chip cookies.
Speaker 1: They are a masterpiece, lovingly and maybe obsessively concocted in
Speaker 1: Meg's kitchen. Meg Dawson, I'm thirty years old, I am
Speaker 1: a baker, and I own operate and bake at Doss
Speaker 1: butter House. Oh my god, I know it's not good
Speaker 1: to eat on an audio, but this is one of
Speaker 1: the best cookies right now in COVID. Meg is baking
Speaker 1: in a commercial kitchen where she lives in rural Charlotte, Vermont.
Speaker 1: Doss Butterhouse is her first business. She just started selling
Speaker 1: baked goods for pickup and delivery. She's been baking for
Speaker 1: a long time, but for the first time she is
Speaker 1: doing it her way. Cookies are so controversial. I think
Speaker 1: that melted butter in a chocolate of cookie is like
Speaker 1: the only way to go. It's a consistent bake every time.
Speaker 1: She cares a lot, and it's clear when you taste
Speaker 1: her food that it just feels like this is a
Speaker 1: person who's deep in a creative process. They're still gooey
Speaker 1: in the middle with crispy edget like that. It's just
Speaker 1: like a perfect cookie every time, and people are like,
Speaker 1: cream your butter. As we set up top. The restaurant
Speaker 1: service industries, they've taken a huge hit during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and Meg, like many people who worked in culinary, had
Speaker 1: their career a bit derailed by the pandemic. But instead
Speaker 1: of looking elsewhere for a job, she's doubling down and
Speaker 1: frankly thriving. You really you don't seem like you're wasting
Speaker 1: much time in this pandemic. Um. I'm so grateful to
Speaker 1: be able to make cookies like like it's like my
Speaker 1: six year old child's dream. Like you can work with
Speaker 1: cookies and chocolate your entire life if you wanted to.
Speaker 1: For money, people will pay you to make cake. Isn't
Speaker 1: that awesome? Okay to hear more about my story and
Speaker 1: how she got here taking this leap of faith with
Speaker 1: Doss Butterhouse. I sat down with her outside the kitchen.
Speaker 1: Are you going to make hear me a sound? With
Speaker 1: her two black cats, Hobart and corners like the mixer
Speaker 1: and cornishan like the pickle. She lives here in Charlotte
Speaker 1: with her fiance, not far from the kitchen she bakes in.
Speaker 1: She definitely found her place in this tight community here.
Speaker 1: But she's originally from the South. I was born in
Speaker 1: New Jersey, but I grew up in Richmond, Virginia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely a weird kid. Definitely have been cooking my whole life.
Speaker 1: I was like that weird kid that would like bring
Speaker 1: risotto to like a potlock in sixth grade. That's so weird.
Speaker 1: It's super weird. But people loved it. It's cheesy, it's delicious.
Speaker 1: Me grew up in a household of cooks. Her dad cooked,
Speaker 1: her mom cooked, But my grandmother was like an amazing
Speaker 1: half amazing, Like she would watch Julia Child and then
Speaker 1: go into her kitchen and make that for dinner. Like
Speaker 1: she would be like ironing, watching it and then being
Speaker 1: like I can do that, and then just start making
Speaker 1: like she was like a five star chef. She was
Speaker 1: watching Julia Child, you were watching her. Yeah, yeah, basically.
Speaker 1: So even though Meg was the weird Risotto kid, she said,
Speaker 1: she went to a pretty nerdy high school and fit
Speaker 1: right in there. School where for your senior year you
Speaker 1: pick your own mentorship at a job. In the real world,
Speaker 1: most people would do their mentorships at like a doctor's
Speaker 1: office or like a law office. And I asked if
Speaker 1: I could do it in a restaurant, and they're like, sure,
Speaker 1: whatever you want. That was like my first intro into
Speaker 1: like actual kitchens. So you love cooking, but you've never
Speaker 1: been like in the food culinary kitchen world. What was
Speaker 1: it like when you get thrown into the fire. It
Speaker 1: was a totally I mean, when you cook at home,
Speaker 1: it's a totally different experience because you're cooking for yourself
Speaker 1: and so you can screw up as many times as
Speaker 1: you want to. But when you're cooking in a kitchen,
Speaker 1: and especially in like a small, like family owned thing,
Speaker 1: it's like you can't really mess up. That's their money,
Speaker 1: that's somebody's business, and there is a slim margin of error.
Speaker 1: And where that might have been a daunting environment for
Speaker 1: a regular teenager to step into, Meg was hooked. I
Speaker 1: loved it. I loved being in a kitchen. I loved working.
Speaker 1: I loved I know this is gonna sound stude, but
Speaker 1: it makes you feel important, Like it makes you feel
Speaker 1: like you're doing something for a reason, and like that
Speaker 1: was kind of the first time that I felt like
Speaker 1: I was good at what I was doing. Meg played
Speaker 1: sports in high school, but said she was never the
Speaker 1: best on the team. She was a good student but
Speaker 1: usually got bees. But in the kitchen, she felt like
Speaker 1: she excelled and she felt right at home and accepted
Speaker 1: they thought it was cool that I was the weird
Speaker 1: Risotto kid. I mean, like if like it felt right.
Speaker 1: She started off college at BU. She then transferred back
Speaker 1: home and went to University of Virginia. While working at
Speaker 1: two restaurants. Basically worked like forty hours a week at
Speaker 1: two different jobs and went to school. And then I
Speaker 1: graduated and immediately moved to New York. What you got there?
Speaker 1: She applied for about twenty five jobs and restaurants before
Speaker 1: she even got one break. I've got a job working
Speaker 1: with a really amazing pastry chef. I never wanted to
Speaker 1: do pastry, like I was always uh cook and I
Speaker 1: never thought pastry was where I was going to go.
Speaker 1: I thought like, I'll take this for a couple of months,
Speaker 1: I'll figure out what I want to do, And turns
Speaker 1: out I loved it. For Meg, this was a new
Speaker 1: medium she could express herself with, like cooking, but more organized.
Speaker 1: It made it really fun to be creative. I could
Speaker 1: take these very specific ratios. It's like, you know that,
Speaker 1: like this plus this plus this makes this like a
Speaker 1: very specific it comes out the same every time. From that,
Speaker 1: you can kind of morph it into what you want
Speaker 1: to do. So she kept working in different kitchens, each
Speaker 1: time picking up on more aspects that helped her understand
Speaker 1: the business more and more, and she eventually found her
Speaker 1: way to Vermont, where she ended up landing a huge
Speaker 1: gig running the bakery and an esteemed farm and restaurant
Speaker 1: in Charlotte, where she could only make a menu based
Speaker 1: off of what was seasonally available at local farms around her.
Speaker 1: To have to think, like that is so great for
Speaker 1: your brain and it's so great for creativity. You thrive
Speaker 1: when you have constraints to work with them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like having parameters where it's like, okay, like you only
Speaker 1: have rhubarb for two weeks. Good luck. By the time
Speaker 1: she got into the swing of things at this farm restaurant,
Speaker 1: Meg already had a decade of experience. This was a
Speaker 1: great job, but by this point she knew enough about
Speaker 1: baking and about the business itself to start concocting her
Speaker 1: own ideas. I felt like there were parts of myself
Speaker 1: that I was like tamping down constantly, which is just
Speaker 1: what you do when you work for someone else. Is
Speaker 1: like you're constantly doing what other people tell you do,
Speaker 1: and that's part of the job. Meg was running the
Speaker 1: kitchen here when COVID hit, and like most restaurants, hers
Speaker 1: pivoted to pick up and delivery and they were slammed.
Speaker 1: It was especially now when she got overworked that she
Speaker 1: started squirreling away ideas for Doss Butterhouse a dream bakery
Speaker 1: where she had the freedom to make what she wanted
Speaker 1: to make, which had like sprinkles and like salt and
Speaker 1: all of these things that like I loved um and
Speaker 1: especially like during COVID it was almost like a coping
Speaker 1: mechanism of like being so insanely busy that I wanted
Speaker 1: to cry, and then coming home and like thinking about
Speaker 1: what I would do better if I did it myself.
Speaker 1: And then late she got hit by a rogue wave.
Speaker 1: Even though the restaurant had one of the best season
Speaker 1: had ever had, they started letting people go. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: laid off a huge part of their staff, including myself.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of really amazing people that I
Speaker 1: worked with. It was really surprising and really sad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it kind of sucked. What were your initial feelings when
Speaker 1: you think I can conflantly say a workaholic, Um, well,
Speaker 1: suddenly without a job and a job that you were
Speaker 1: very intimately tied to running this entire kitchen, I I
Speaker 1: kind of and this, I don't. I know that a
Speaker 1: lot of people wouldn't do this. I basically, within like
Speaker 1: three days, was like, Okay, I've been thinking about Doss
Speaker 1: butter House. I guess I'll just make dossboter House a thing.
Speaker 1: She did make Doss butter House a thing, in case
Speaker 1: you're wondering. The awesome name is inspired by German pastries
Speaker 1: and her love for pretty much all things German. I
Speaker 1: was really inspired by like Grimm's fairy tales with like
Speaker 1: the gingerbread House, where it's just like a big plable
Speaker 1: house full of butter instead of candy, because I don't
Speaker 1: like candy. I like better. Meg was laid off in October,
Speaker 1: so she was looking down the barrel of starting Dust
Speaker 1: butter House in the holiday season. I knew that the
Speaker 1: big thing I wanted to do was Thanksgiving, though, because
Speaker 1: I knew that Thanksgiving was like, it's a huge thing
Speaker 1: in Charlotte. It was a huge thing at the farm.
Speaker 1: The farm where she had just worked sold about sixty
Speaker 1: pies that last Thanksgiving, which is a lot for this
Speaker 1: little community. I just kind of started putting the word
Speaker 1: out that, like, they're still gonna be pies in Charlotte.
Speaker 1: Nobody worried this is gonna be fine. Dust butter House
Speaker 1: is here to say Thanksgiving. Suffice to say it did.
Speaker 1: And so we had a hundred thirty pies. You as yourself.
Speaker 1: Dust Butterhouse sold more pies over double what we made
Speaker 1: the farm the year before, full restaurant that you had
Speaker 1: worked out before. She started doing events, gathering equipment and researching, licensing,
Speaker 1: learning QuickBooks, all the things you've got to do to
Speaker 1: start a business, and the whole time baking like a madwoman,
Speaker 1: posting up at a local restaurant that lets her bake
Speaker 1: in the kitchen and set up a table for pick
Speaker 1: up at the front door. So what was the initial response.
Speaker 1: I think people loved it. I have a lot of
Speaker 1: repeat customers, like every week repeat customers, which is really
Speaker 1: really nice. Besides loving her community and wanting to serve
Speaker 1: them on a personal level, she was making her first
Speaker 1: awesome decision as a business owner. The farm she worked
Speaker 1: at was known for their pastries in Charlotte, and that
Speaker 1: went away. Meg was now filling a gap in the
Speaker 1: market in the best way possible. Yeah. When I started,
Speaker 1: it was like I want everybody here to know that,
Speaker 1: like pies are gonna be fine. You're gonna have pies
Speaker 1: and you're gonna have cookie boxes, Like no one is
Speaker 1: going to forget about you. We'll get back to our
Speaker 1: store in a second. First, a word from Express Employment Professionals.
Speaker 1: A strong work ethic, takes pride in a job well done,
Speaker 1: sweats over the details. This is you. But to get
Speaker 1: an honest day's work, you need a response, You need
Speaker 1: a call back, You need a job. Express Employment Professionals
Speaker 1: can help because we understand what it takes to get
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Speaker 1: or on the Express Jobs app. Now back to on
Speaker 1: the job. Back in the kitchen where we started this episode,
Speaker 1: Mega's finishing up baking and putting together some orders for
Speaker 1: pickup during the holiday season. Her pies blue people away
Speaker 1: and the community is really rallying around her. Now, even
Speaker 1: six months in and the variety of pastries she's putting
Speaker 1: together today is mouth watering. These are like a nutty
Speaker 1: and current ruggle off. This is the lemon poppy orcott case.
Speaker 1: These are the chocolate brownies with hazel nuts, and there's
Speaker 1: like hazelnut praline kind of throughout it. She's of course
Speaker 1: got those insane chocolate chip cookies from earlier with big
Speaker 1: flaky salt on them. She's got a crazy delicious banana
Speaker 1: bread cake with milk, chocolate, butter cream and hints of coffee. Oh,
Speaker 1: the pecan tart. There's candies, two more oranges in it.
Speaker 1: Um a little bit of time and a little bit
Speaker 1: of honey. And these nice little cardboard boxes tied up
Speaker 1: with thread. They look like you're giving away a little presents.
Speaker 1: People treating themselves. It's hard right now. It's hard out there.
Speaker 1: Just as we're talking, a woman comes in to pick
Speaker 1: up her order. Her name is Charlotte. He's getting lemon
Speaker 1: poppy cake and the banana bread cake. My family is
Speaker 1: addicted to Meg's baking so inventive. It's like, I can't
Speaker 1: even fathom how delicious everything is and how creative. I
Speaker 1: would say my favorite was Thanksgiving magnate a chocolate silk
Speaker 1: pie that is literally the best thing I ever ate.
Speaker 1: She also raised about the scones, which she says live
Speaker 1: up to the Doss Butterhouse name, Like you know, there's
Speaker 1: like a stick of butter in each one, but it's
Speaker 1: so worth it. Yeah you don't care, Yeah, exactly, It's
Speaker 1: really good. Do you pick up every week? I do?
Speaker 1: I do. This is such a great addition to the
Speaker 1: area to have this quality of pastry and cakes and inventiveness.
Speaker 1: You know, there's nothing like this around here. So what
Speaker 1: Meg is doing is fantastic. Charlotte really lingers for a
Speaker 1: few minutes, box in hand with endless compliments. Meg is
Speaker 1: standing about ten feet away while Charlotte turns from me
Speaker 1: to her, raving about her food from the New York area,
Speaker 1: and this is the kind of stuff like you go
Speaker 1: to New York City and buy and pay sixty dollars.
Speaker 1: I can see that Meg is kind of rubbing her
Speaker 1: hands together, smiling out her mask and saying thank you.
Speaker 1: It's kind of obvious that she's a little uncomfortable. It's like,
Speaker 1: I really recognize, like, not only you so talented, but
Speaker 1: the quality and what you're doing is amazing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: how do you feel now that you're finally making these
Speaker 1: things you've been creating in your head this whole time
Speaker 1: and seeing people buy them? It's so complicated. It's such
Speaker 1: a complicated emotion because I have always worked in a basement,
Speaker 1: and like I would meet people that would be like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you're the baker. Oh that's so exciting,
Speaker 1: and like that's really nice to hear it. But it's
Speaker 1: like it's really overwhelming when it's oh, what you mean
Speaker 1: is you you were removed from the customer for all
Speaker 1: these years? Yeah, and so like that. It's like the
Speaker 1: face to face interactions. I mean, I get really uncomfortable
Speaker 1: when people like even say like I like your shoes.
Speaker 1: So when it's something that like you've put your heart
Speaker 1: and soul into, like your whole life. I mean, like
Speaker 1: even Charlotte earlier today she was she was telling me
Speaker 1: how much she loved all your food, and she's very
Speaker 1: emphatic about it in front of you. How did that
Speaker 1: make you feel? Well? While she was saying all that.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw me, but I was
Speaker 1: like basically like up against the wall. Yeah. I almost
Speaker 1: cried then too. It's hard it's like really great, but
Speaker 1: it's also it's scary because it's I think it puts
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure not to fail, and I'm somebody
Speaker 1: who really really tries hard not to fail. So it
Speaker 1: just like adds on this other level of like, now
Speaker 1: they know who you are, your business is you? What
Speaker 1: do you think? Will you buy my stuff? Like? What
Speaker 1: do you do? You like my stuff? Do you like me?
Speaker 1: Because my stuff is me? So it's like you need
Speaker 1: that response like you in order for your business to continue.
Speaker 1: It's like you need be able to be like, yes,
Speaker 1: I like your stuff and I'll buy it. So, like
Speaker 1: it's not just putting yourself out there, it's so much
Speaker 1: more than that. Meg Dawson has taken a huge risk
Speaker 1: venturing off on your own and starting a business in
Speaker 1: any time. Covid Aside is kind of a crazy thing
Speaker 1: to do when you look at it on paper. There's
Speaker 1: so many new skills you need to learn just to
Speaker 1: do the thing you started the business for in the
Speaker 1: first place, and then still anything can happen. But Meg,
Speaker 1: that's what working in restaurants has always been for her, chaos,
Speaker 1: except this time it's hers. I have never felt more
Speaker 1: creatively free I've never felt more connected to the farmers
Speaker 1: that were like I'm using, I've never felt more connected
Speaker 1: to my other friends who have businesses. So far, I
Speaker 1: haven't screwed up too big, but like, I know that
Speaker 1: that's on the horizon um and I just have to
Speaker 1: be like ready and okay with it. Maybe it's not
Speaker 1: surprising she's got such a good star. Meg's always thrived
Speaker 1: under constraints, figuring out how to express herself within the
Speaker 1: parameter she's been given. That's just her personality, But I
Speaker 1: think there's something in that we can all take a
Speaker 1: piece of. This pandemic has totally changed our fundamental understanding
Speaker 1: of work and what we do. It's put a lot
Speaker 1: of us without work, or made us see that those
Speaker 1: jobs we thought would always be there could go away
Speaker 1: at any time. That's scary, But the reality is jobs
Speaker 1: aren't going away. They're just changing inevitably, and that leaves
Speaker 1: each of us with a choice to be afraid of
Speaker 1: this big, scary, changing world or figure out how to
Speaker 1: evolve and thrive within it. A lot of us, maybe
Speaker 1: even you listening, we found ourselves out of a job
Speaker 1: and thinking about doing something totally different, making your own job,
Speaker 1: and then immediately thinking it's too risky. Who knows what
Speaker 1: the world will look like even a year from now.
Speaker 1: But the thing is doing what you love for work
Speaker 1: has always been risky and always will be and anything
Speaker 1: could always happen any time. Yeah, that is owning a
Speaker 1: business is is you're just constantly pivoting and constantly looking
Speaker 1: at what worked and what didn't and moving forward like
Speaker 1: you have to move forward. Life is just uncertain and stressful.
Speaker 1: And even with all the stress of starting Duss Butterhouse,
Speaker 1: when Meg is feeling overwhelmed, do you remember something she
Speaker 1: was told during her first big pastry job back in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: words of wisdom from her baking mentor Caitlin. The first
Speaker 1: time I burned an entire batch of cakes, she threw
Speaker 1: it away and she goes, it's a lesson in loss.
Speaker 1: It's just cake. And I think about that like every day,
Speaker 1: anytime anything is going bad. It's like I am like
Speaker 1: a child. I'm playing with cookies all day, Like this
Speaker 1: is the best job, Like how many people get to
Speaker 1: do that for on the job. I'm otis gray to
Speaker 1: see all of Meg's amazing pastries and follow her business
Speaker 1: as it grows, find her on Instagram at DOS Butterhouse.
Speaker 1: We'll put a link for this in the description of
Speaker 1: the show. Thanks for listening to On the Job, brought
Speaker 1: to you by Express Employment Professionals. This season of On
Speaker 1: the Job is produced by Audiation. The episodes were written
Speaker 1: and produced by me Otis Gray. Our executive producer is
Speaker 1: Sandy Smallens. The show is mixed by Matt Noble for
Speaker 1: Audiation Studios at The Loft and Bronxville, New York. Music
Speaker 1: by Blue Dot Sessions. Find us on I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard, please
Speaker 1: consider rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. For more
Speaker 1: inspiring stories about discovering your life's work, Ariation