Valentines Day is fast approaching and we all know that a little love makes everything taste better. All of our Foodzie producers have a love for good food. But for some, their love of food goes hand-in-hand with their love for each other. Meet Clare & Matt, the owners of Quince & Apple in Madison, Wisconsin.
1. How did you meet?
CLARE: Matt and I both went to school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison but we didn’t exactly meet there. It was the week before the Iraq war started in 2001 and there was a big protest on campus. For some reason it involved a giant tent being erected and people sleeping in it overnight (this was February in Wisconsin!) and for some reason we both thought this seemed like a great plan. We spent a lot of time huddled together in twenty-degree weather and found it all to be very romantic.
MATT: Clare’s pretty much got the story. I had had a crush on Clare for awhile before then, but I don’t think she had any idea who I was. I remember I went to a big meeting to plan this tent protest and she was there and even though the whole idea of sleeping outside in the dead of winter seemed crazy to me, I kept going to meetings because Clare was there. I don’t think either one of us was ever totally sold on the whole tent idea because once we started hanging out I don’t think either one of us ever went back.
2. How did you decide to start a food business together?
CLARE: I’ve always been interested in food, in fact I came to the UW to study sustainable agriculture initially. It turns out I’m a horrible gardener! We both are. But Wisconsin has a very strong local food infrastructure and throughout our relationship we’ve always been CSA members and big appreciators of local farmers. Ever since college, I’ve been employed in various entrepreneurial endeavors, mostly music-related, and hadn’t quite hit on the right thing yet. I had been developing a passion for organizational development, and I’ve always been a logistics lady, so when Matt hit on Q&A, it was a perfect fit. Now he’s the operations, big-picture and sales guy – he kind of runs the core cogs of the business – and I run the strategy, financial and marketing end of things. What I’m really into is business and what he’s really into is making and distributing preserves.
MATT: I’ve always loved cooking. As a kid, I used to tell people that I wanted to be a chemist because I just wanted to mess around and mix different chemicals together all day to see what would happen. My parents bought me a chemistry set but after I kept blowing up test tubes in the laundry room they sat me down and told me that if I wanted another set I would have to follow the instructions. Well, that’s never been my strong suit, so I gave up on chemistry. But, as I got older, I realized that cooking, not chemistry, was the job I was looking for. It get to combine all sorts of things in interesting and new ways, there’s no exploding test tubes and I get to eat whatever I make! What’s not to like? I went to culinary school after college and spent a couple of years in high-end restaurant kitchens. The restaurant lifestyle wasn’t a great fit for me, so I left and started working for Potter’s Crackers, an artisan cracker company here in Madison as their Sales and Kitchen Manager. It was there that it became clear to me that starting a wholesale food company was the right path for me. I had been making preserves for awhile at home and really loved it and before long I was selling them to friends and family. But, the word spread and it quickly got too big for me to do alone, so Clare started helping and the rest is history!
3. What is the best thing about working together?
CLARE: We’re a perfect fit in so many ways. I’ll always say, Matt, today, I really want you to do all our deliveries while I sit at the computer and administrate, but I feel so guilty!! You have to do all the hard work while I relax and do fun business-y things. And he’s like, what? I feel like I’m pulling one over on you! You have to be penned in at your desk all day! So we both always feel like we’re getting away with something and our jobs are too good to be true.
MATT: Like Clare said, we complement each other very well. I really enjoy the physical aspects of the job and can only sit at my desk for a few hours a day or I go crazy. She would much rather sit and focus at her desk for hours at a time. It makes it very easy to divide up the work when we take on a new project. Basically, there’s no way I could do this without her, my brain would turn to mush trying to do all the administrative and organizational work she does. But, she couldn’t do it without me and all the physical, logistical work I do. We’re lucky to have each other.
4. Any funny stories or challenges that have resulted from working with your significant other?
CLARE: We worked so hard this Christmas, I have actually never worked so hard in my life. We’d come in at 8 or 9 and work until 1, 2, 3 in the morning, routinely. When we got back from our holiday break, we were like zombies. I was like, Matt, I can’t do anything. I can only sit at my desk. But we were completely out of all of our flavors of preserves, so the first week back we had to do four different production runs. The only way I could make myself do it was production dance party. We’d be peeling oranges and blasting Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z. We’d take a break to get down for awhile and then go back to more peeling. I was like, what’s going to happen when we get employees? And Matt was like, they’re gonna have to be dance party employees.
MATT: One of the funny things for me is when we spend all day together at work, meeting or talking or doing production and then we go home together and we walk in the door and I look over and there’s Clare, I always think, “Oh, you again. Didn’t I just see you at work?” And like Clare said, it can get pretty goofy at work, especially when it’s late and we’re tired and we’ve been working a long day. It helps keep things light. When we hire our first employee, we’re going to make sure they can dance and work at the same time because I have no intention of stopping.
5. Who comes up with better flavors?
CLARE: Our flavors are a pretty collaborative process. Matt comes up with tons of ideas and we filter them to find our favorites. Basically, he has to really feel a flavor and be passionate about it in order for it to work. Sometimes I am the subject of extended experiments in non-amazing flavors. But sometimes he doesn’t know until he tries. Yesterday I said to him, “Matt, don’t ever make me eat cocoa nibs again.” And he said, “I’m sorry, I will not.”
MATT: We usually work together on new flavors. Basically, I am always coming up with some new crazy idea for a preserve and Clare helps me winnow these ideas down to ones that will actually taste good in the real world. Once we settle on a flavor concept, I start making test batches and just keep making adjustments until I get it right. Sometimes the end product is just what I envisioned and sometimes it ends up very far from my original idea. I often make 20 to 30 test batches per idea, so we end up trying a lot of bad preserves along the way. But, it’s the only way to get the recipes just right.
Stay tuned for another great Foodzie Love Story tomorrow!
