Sharon Hanks
A Grand Rapids mother of four is hoping old secret recipes from her grandparents, Amos and Maude Hamacher, is her secret to living a comfortable life in retirement.
Sharon Kay, 62, says that when she received her first Social Security check this year, she knew it would never be enough to live on during her retirement years. Her part-time sales job at a Rockford gift shop, Sage & Roses, helped. But she dreamed of doing something else.
At the urging of her grown daughter, Katie, she became convinced that the family's long-time favorite recipes she discovered in her grandmother's button box years ago might become a favorite among paying customers as well.
Given to her by her mother, Kathleen, the cloth-covered box contained many of the same buttons Sharon played with as a child along with a surprise. Tucked in small pockets along the sides were the treasured recipes typed on index cards, the same recipes her grandmother, Maude, used in preparing dishes with herbs grown by her grandfather, Amos.
Amos and Maude Seasonings was launched earlier this year, a home-based business featuring 50 different kinds of blended spices and herbs used for fruit dip, cheese balls, veggie dips, and herb-flavored olive oils and butters. Its packaging includes the 1905 wedding portrait of Amos and Maude, a couple now long gone after raising nine children on the Northside of Grand Rapids, including Sharon's father, Gordon.
Hundreds of little sealed plastic bags filled with various seasonings have already been sold at Sage & Roses gift shop. Her first craft show, the John Ball Park Arts & Craft show earlier this month, proved to be a hit, too. Among the most popular mixes are the Roasted Garlic Party Ball mix and the Texas Ranch blend, she says.
"I'm just happy to see that they loved them as much as my family did," she says. "I think people like our dips because they are nice and bold. They're full-flavored."
The entrepreneur says the seasonings are available at Parkside Foods, 1153 W. Fulton St. in Grand Rapids. She also intends to begin selling them at the Fulton Street Market, area arts and crafts shows, and through a website she hopes to launch later this year: www.amosandmaude.com. Customers can also e-mail her at [email protected].
One packet costs $4, three sell for $10 and five cost $15.
"We'll wait and see where Amos and Maude want to go!" she says.
Source: Sharon Kay, Amos and Maude Seasonings, Grand Rapids
Sharon Hanks is innovations and jobs news editor at Rapid Growth Media. Please send story ideas and comments for the column to Sharon at [email protected]. She also is owner of The Write Words in Grand Rapids.
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.