These are the five guiding principles of Meg Barnhart and Jane McKay, the founder and partner of Yogini, LLC who co-created the popular spice blends the zen of slow cooking. These principles permeate through everything they do: their recipes, their spice blends, their leadership and even their home lives.
These principles have been there since the conception of the company. Meg’s journey through entrepreneurship began as a busy mother of three, with one child with special needs. Meg simply wanted to feed her family quality home cooked meals. Amidst the struggle to find a way to nourish her family, she discovered the slow cooker. She also found that the 20 minutes per day it took her to prep the recipes, was an optimal time to unplug and to really be mindful. In utilizing the Slow Cooker, she was also able to accomplish:
- Quality home cooked meals ready for my family each night.
- A period of calm during her daily meal prep.
- Free time to assist her children in their key after school hours.
- More variety in her meals and a daughter who just “couldn’t eat anymore thick meat.”
After seeing a noticeable shift in her own life, Meg is a proponent of giving yourself time to be silent everyday and is happy that the practice has found its way into the mainstream. It was during one of these moments of silence—while hiking the 50 mile Inca Trail— that Meg decided to give entrepreneurship a go. At the top of the trail, she called Jane and asked her to join her on the journey.
Prior to meeting Meg, Jane was on her own journey to the zen of slow cooking. Her story begins in an 8 foot community garden in Chicago. She had a background in food marketing and artisanal recipe development, butgrowing her own herbs and food from scratch allowed her to tune into her own livelihood with a new found mindfulness. Her work in the garden inspired her to begin writing what would later become the zen of slow cooking food blog. Jane continues to this day to be a from-scratch cook. She grows her own herbs, makes her own spice blends and chops her own vegetables. She has truly made an art out of slow cooking.
The home cook’s best friend — their “why”
In 2012, Meg and Jane launched the zen of slow cooking recipe blog as a place for home cooks to find inspiration for their slow cookers. They wanted to create a friendly place where busy cooks could find inspiration for keeping family meals exciting night after night.
Today, they consider the blog to be the best friend of the slow cooker. A place to find comfort, advice and inspiration. The blog offers simple tips to make the experience of cooking for family easy and enjoyable. They’ve toiled away in the kitchen to convert traditional recipes into delicious slow cooked meals so the home cook doesn’t have to.
Meg and Jane truly believe that the home cook brings the life force into the family — if this person feels inspired and supported, then their family will be the beneficiaries. With the zen of slow cooking, Meg and Jane were able to bring nourishment and love into the homes of families all around the world. With the resurgence in popularity of the slow cooker, with the Instant Pot, their impact will continue to grow.
In 2013, using their most widely searched recipes coupled with customer requests, they created even more simplicity for the home cook by debuting a series of gourmet inspired spice blends at the Lake Forest Farmers’ Market.
Today they sell 9 spice blends in stores nationwide.
Taking water breaks
One of Meg’s sons has a developmental disability and she has spent countless hours dedicated to his support. During a particularly rough time in his upbringing, her husband said to her: “Honey, I think we’re in a marathon – not a sprint and I want you to learn to take water breaks.” This sage piece of advice has stuck with her through the development of her business. When things don’t feel right, or they feel stuck along the way, the entrepreneurs will mindfully take a breather. Clarity is almost certain to follow.
Part of the conscious capitalism community, Meg and Jane approach their business with the same mindfulness they cultivate in the kitchen. They realize that sometimes the roadblocks are there for a reason and that maybe the right pathway actually exists elsewhere. This philosophy shines through as they tell me of their path to becoming non-GMO certified. They had to completely rework their supply chain to meet the rigorous standards, but they managed it and came out the other side as a better team and company.
Successes
In 2013 after just one week in the farmers’ market in Chicago, the zen of slow cooking spice blends sold out. In 2017 their Sichuan Spice Blend won a sofi Award and in 2018 Barnhart received the Specialty Food Association’s 2018 Leadership Award.
Their mindful approach seems to be working.