“Deborah Joy knew from birth that she was going to be an actress,” gospel music superstar BeBe Winans proclaimed about his niece, Deborah Joy Winans ― who stars as CeCe Winans in the musical “Born for This: The BeBe Winans Story,” currently playing at Washington DC’s Arena Stage until August 28th.
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Do you ever get those days when (like a paleolithic cave girl, literally!) all you crave is meat? Not fruit or nuts or berries but solely some tasty meat?
Well, this was exactly how I felt the other day and as I’m a firm believer of giving the body what it wants as cravings can often be an indication of what the body may actually need (be it food, drink… a couple of shots of top quality tequila…), that’s just what I did!
The funny thing was that I really wanted some chicken and I’m more of a red meat type of gal.
I mean steak. I absolutely love steak.
Thick, juicy, succulent steak is something I could eat all day, every day but not wanting to end up like Henry VIII with a bad case of gout, I mix up my diet by adding other stuff like fruit and veg. (Only joking guys, I love fruit and veg too!)
Anyway, I say it’s funny that I felt like chicken because, preferring red meat, I can’t recall a time when I felt like eating just chicken. Also, chicken is something that I’m very particular about in that I don’t like it wet — or moist, instead preferring it to be oven cooked to the point that most would call it dry.
I’m not sure if this is a culture thing as I’ve noticed that it only seems to be in the Western world that wet moist chicken is considered the best, with TV chefs (like the wonderful Jamie Oliver) and adverts squeezing a cooked chicken to release the juices in order to prove how moist it is.
As nice as that may look, it just ain’t my thang!
Back in the day growing up I never even liked KFC chicken as I found it to be too wet, instead preferring to eat from a “Burger King” version called Morleys in Brixton as maybe because the people working there were Asian, they also fried the chicken for longer, making it a lot drier and more to my liking.
It’s kind of weird as I like my steak mega thick and medium rare.
I only cook my steak on either side for a few minutes to the point that some (my entire family and friends!) consider it so rare that they reckon they can actually still hear the meat moo-ing on my plate, so my issue with moist chicken is kind of weird, I know!
I also love to pre-season my chicken with several spices as well as serve it afterwards with thinly sliced scotch bonnets, whilst preferring my steak to be seasoned with nothing more than a little salt and pepper.
(I don’t know but maybe it also has something to do with the fact that moist chicken reminds me of fish, which I am allergic to.)
The comparisons with how I like my like my steak versus my chicken could go on and on…
Anyways, whether you like your chicken moist or not, this recipe for thyme and lime spicy chicken is tasty hot, literally! You can adapt the ingredients to reduce the amount of heat if too spicy for you but other than that I know you’ll love the flavors bursting through with every bite.
The lime adds a lovely tangy twist and compliments the curry and pepper.
Serve with whatever you wish or like me, have with some raw red onions thinly sliced with some peppers or salad.
Ingredients
1 whole chicken, cut up into breasts, legs, wings and thighs,
1 whole onion, grated/roughly cut,
3 cloves of garlic, minced,
Juice of 1/2 fresh lime,
Small handful of fresh coriander, chopped,
Small handful of fresh thyme,
Knob of ginger, grated,
1 scoth bonnet, de-seeded and chopped,
1/5 cup of All Purpose seasoning,
1/5 cup of hot curry powder,
2-3 tablespoons of cumin,
1-2 tablespoons black pepper,
1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
After cutting up the chicken into sections to get the thighs, breast, leg and wing pieces, place in a large bowl and add all of the remaining ingredients.
Rub the ingredients well into the chicken, in fact, MASSAGE the ingredients well into the chicken ensuring that all of the pieces are coated really well.
Cover the bowl and place in the fridge to allow the seasonings to soak into the chicken for at least thirty minutes but preferably overnight.
Pre-heat the oven to 180c/356f and heat up the oil in a frying pan/skillet.
Place the chicken pieces in the pan and fry on high for a few minutes on either side until the chicken is browned.
Then remove the chicken pieces from the pan before putting in an oven tray and placing in the oven to cook throughly for approximately thirty minutes.
Notes
Cook in the oven till the chicken is as desired, leaving for less time if you prefer your chicken to be more moist.
Also, you can omit the scotch bonnet from the ingredients if you find this pepper to be too hot!
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You’d be forgiven for assuming the team behind the podcast “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text,” in which two hosts dissect J.K. Rowling’s classic series as if it were the Torah or the Bible, were raving tinfoil-hat superfans.
But while they adore the boy wizard anthology, the team approaches their subject matter with reasoned academic discipline like the Harvard Divinity School members and graduates they are. Each episode allows hosts Vanessa Zoltan and Casper ter Kuile, along with producer Ariana Nedelman, the chance to reread a chapter of the series (starting from the beginning, with one chapter given to each episode) and analyze the characters’ struggles and motivations, picking out moral teachings along the way. (Give it a listen here.)
The show got its start through Zoltan and ter Kuile’s friendship (notably, an essential Harry Potter theme). After they briefly considered giving Jane Eyre a “sacred text” treatment, the co-hosts ― one an assistant Humanist chaplain at Harvard and the other a minister-in-training for non-religious people ― settled on the Potter series due to its length and popularity. Both connected with the books in their own way: Zoltan as she discovered them for the first time in her mid-20s, and her co-host as he reread them in divinity school only to realize they resonated more with him than the Bible.
“The same things are in these books as are in the traditional sacred texts,” Zoltan explained. As of this writing, they’ve made it through Chapter 13 of The Sorcerer’s Stone, but plan to dissect all 199 in the series.
The Huffington Post spoke with Zoltan about blessings, why talking about a children’s book series like a sacred text isn’t as crazy as it sounds, and whether aliens might confuse Harry Potter for a real religion.
How much do you think J.K. Rowling legitimately thought about the themes you talk about on the podcast, and how much does that even matter?
We took the position that it doesn’t matter. I think that it’s completely valid way to read a text, and sometimes I think it’s a really interesting way to read a text. You know, that’s the way that I’ve read Phillip Roth novels ― I think a lot more about his intentions, and the arguments he’s trying to make, and the way that his arguments matured and evolved over the years that he wrote. And I think that there’s a lot to be said for doing that with these books, with Rowling’s.
It’s just not how we chose to do it here. We’re trying to talk about the books the way that people talk about religious texts in religious settings. The way that you talk about the Bible in church, the way that you talk about the Torah in temple, the way that you talk about the Quran in mosques. And authorial intent is not the way that those things get discussed in those spaces. You know, you don’t go to church, or you don’t go to most churches, [to discuss authorial intent.] There are certainly some churches and certainly some temples and obviously some mosques in which we talk about historical, critical theory ― you know, who were the people who sat around and actually transcribed these texts? ― but most places of worship aren’t like that. And we think it is to the benefit of our hearts and our spirits to not get tripped up by that.
We’ll never know what Rowling intended. If you do a Freudian interpretation of Rowling, Rowling will never know what she intended. So we don’t want to get distracted by that.
Do you think people naturally want to analyze any entertainment media they love to this extent and try to draw meaning from it? As such a powerful communication tool, the internet has certainly given fans a way to do that, and we’ve seen so many fandoms crop up there.
The way that we talk about it is: If you love something, and it’s complicated enough, we encourage you to practice treating something as sacred. What you’re doing is practicing loving something, and practicing loving things can only be a good thing. You get better at loving, and it’s a time in which you’re having a positive emotional experience. We just think that is always good.
But I think that it depends on the intention. I think that if you’re on “The Bachelorette” website, you can think that being absorbed by this is really interesting ― [maybe] it’s distracting from something really stressful in your life ― but I don’t think that’s treating “The Bachelorette” as sacred. And I think that is fine. If you’re on the website because you love the gossip, and no judgment in that, I just don’t think that your heart is being fed by that exercise. I certainly do a lot of things in which my heart is not being fed! But I just think that if you pick these things with intention, and apply practice to it, a lot of things can end up being sacred texts.
At the end of each episode, the two of you each pick a character from that chapter to bless. Why?
We do it for two main reasons. One is that so much goodness is invisible in the world, and so we want to call out people’s goodness that isn’t entirely obvious. So you reread a positive quality on a character that we had negative associations with ― seeing something positive in Aunt Petunia or Aunt Marge ― or draw attention to secondary or tertiary characters, pointing out that just because somebody isn’t a primary character in your life doesn’t mean they don’t have an entire inner life. And we’re trying to draw attention to that.
But then the secondary purpose is that we’re hoping, in some ways, that we’re offering blessings to our listeners. So if we are blessing the fact that Hermione is a recreational reader, we’re hoping that people who feel introverted and alone in their reading ― and feel like that’s something private about them ― that they feel recognized in that blessing. We hope that people feel a sense of community and feel a lack of aloneness in hearing these blessings.
What is your take on the fundamentalists who tried to ban Harry Potter from school libraries in the early 2000s on religious grounds?
First of all, I’m just against banning books. So there’s just that. But I also think that they haven’t read the books. I went and gave a talk at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, which is one of the most conservative Christian seminaries on the East Coast, and I was talking about Harry Potter. And somebody said to me, “Well, it makes sense that you’re treating Harry Potter as a sacred text because it’s such a Christian text.” And I grew up atheist and Jewish so I was like, “How is it a Christian text?” And the guy was like, “Well, he literally dies and rises from the dead in order to save humanity.” And I was like, “Oh, right.”
It certainly has very traditional Christian values like generosity and love and non-violence, and [based on] my understanding of Jesus from [divinity] school and my minister friends, I think Jesus would really dig the Harry Potter books. People ban things because they’re afraid of them. I don’t think that there’s a lot of hate involved ― it’s just fear. They were really popular. They were capturing kids’ imaginations, and [people] want to control the narrative of what is capturing kids’ imaginations. The irony of all of it is that the Church was playing the same role that the Ministry of Magic was. They’re such loving, traditional-values-oriented texts that it’s funny.
So, 5,000 years from now, do you think archeologists or aliens might look at the rubble of our lost civilization and legitimately confuse Harry Potter for a religious text?
Yes and no. I think the artifacts of Judaism and Christianity and Islam and Zoroastrianism or whatever ― they have much more archeological history of, you know, buildings and churches that go back thousands of years. So it depends on the sophistication of their tools. But certainly we have Harry Potter World, which is a church, of sorts, and you only have one Bible on your shelf but you have seven Harry Potter books on your shelf.
Not to mention all the book parties and movies.
Right! And costumes. Absolutely. The Harry Potter universe has a lot of things that look a lot like a religion. It has rituals. It has sayings. You say, “mischief managed!” Or, “Raise a glass to the Boy who Lived!” You have certain arguments; there are these [conventions] where they do all sorts of rituals. I haven’t been to a con yet but we’re supposed to be going in the spring and I’m really excited to see it. The midnight release parties are absolute rituals. There are movie-watching parties. There are all sorts of rituals associated with it. There’s a central text associated with it. I mean, it has a lot of the requirements of being a religion.
I, at minimum, think it would confuse them. I also think football stadiums will confuse the aliens in 10,000 years.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
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So this is what I made last weekend: the most satisfying Sunday paleo roast, consisting of succulent oven roasted lamb, oven roasted vegetables, paleo (cauliflower) mash, paleo mint sauce and the richest paleo onion gravy I’ve ever tasted.
All I can say is, man, was it good!
The lamb was seasoned to perfection, the vegetables were so sweet and juicy, the cauliflower mash was just heavenly and the onion gravy and mint sauce, well, I could just go on!
I haven’t really got much to waffle on about (as per usual) this time round, instead wanting you to appreciate the pictures enough to then go out, get the ingredients and try out the full recipe this weekend for yourself.
I don’t usually do a full meal recipe like this, instead opting for treats such my Strawberry, Blueberry & Granola Smoothie Bowl and my Paleo Chocolate Protein Truffles, but had to share this full Sunday roast dinner with you as being so good, I wanted to show that one can indeed do a traditional roast dinner – paleo style – without loosing out on flavour.
If you remember my last recipe post for Thyme & Lime Spicy Chicken where I spoke about how much I love steak, well I have to say that lamb comes a close second.
I especially like a delicious roasted leg of lamb, seasoned well with loads of garlic and fresh herbs. Well, that’s exactly what I fancied last weekend but unlike last time, where I felt like eating solely meat, this time round, like a full English fry up, I felt like a full roast dinner consisting of meat, mash, veg, sauce and of course, gravy.
For a long while when doing a Sunday roast for the family, I would sit there with a half empty plate, eyeing up everyone else’s that was full of creamy buttery mash, totally unfulfilled afterwards as I felt that without the mashed potatoes, something was missing.
I could have substituted the potatoes for sweet potatoes but the thought of having orange mash whilst everyone else was enjoying the creamy color of regular mashed potatoes just didn’t cut it for me, until one day whilst doing cauliflower cheese (which I ABSOLUTELY love but for some reason, find that it makes me soooo sleepy afterwards), I decided to mash up the boiled cauliflower and voila!
Paleo creamy white mash in my household was born!
You can’t have lamb without mint sauce and no Sunday roast would be complete without onion gravy so of course I had to include both, paleo style!
The gravy and mint sauce, along with the mash, were all lapped up by the family thus concluding that going paleo doesn’t mean sacrificing on flavour so do give this full Sunday dinner a go with lovely sweet vegetables like beetroot and carrots, guaranteed that it will be a sure winner with all the family.
For the Lamb
1 whole leg of lamb,
2-3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
¼ freshly squeezed lemon juice
Pinch of salt and pepper
Handful of fresh rosemary (half leaves removed and roughly chopped)
6 cloves of garlic, minced
For the Vegetables
Fresh beetroot, unpeeled, washed and leaves cut close to the tip
2-3 carrots, cleaned and roughly cut
2 handfuls of radishes
1 red onion, peeled and roughly chopped
5-6 whole cloves of garlic, unpeeled
Small handful of fresh parsley
3-4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Pinch of salt and pepper
For the Cauliflower Mash
1 whole cauliflower
Pinch of salt and pepper
2-3 tablespoons butter or ghee
3 tablespoons of double cream
For the Gravy
2 tablespoons of butter or ghee
1 white onion, finely chopped
Sprig of fresh thyme
2 tablespoons Tapioca/arrowroot powder
2 gluten free stock cubes
1 cup of boiled water
Pinch of pepper
For the Mint Sauce
Handful of mint leaves
2 tablespoons of raw honey
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons of hot water
Pinch of salt and pepper
For the Lamb
Remove the lamb about one hour before roasting.
Pre-heat the oven to 180c.
Massage the oil, lemon, salt, pepper, chopped rosemary and 1/6 of minced garlic into the leg of lamb.
Then with a sharp knife, cut about 20 1nch deep incisions all over the lamb and stuff the remaining garlic and sprigs of rosemary into the incisions, leaving the small sprigs of rosemary sticking out.
Place the lamb in the oven and roast for approximately an hour and a half before removing and leaving to sit for about 15 minutes, covered loosely with foil.
For the Vegetables
Wrap the beetroot individually in foil and place on a baking tray. Place the tray in the oven and roast the beetroot for approximately 1 hour or until the beetroot is cooked through and soft.
Remove from the oven and set aside till cool. Once cooled, rub the skin off the beetroot.
Add the carrots, onions, radishes, garlic, salt and pepper to a tray and pour the oil in, rubbing the vegetables into the oil till fully covered.
Roast for approximately 30 minutes or until cooked, adding the fresh herbs and beetroot (roughly sliced) to the tray five minutes before removing from the oven.
For the Cauliflower Mash
Cut the cauliflower into florets and steam or boil for approximately 10 minutes, until tender.
In a bowl, add the florets, butter, salt and pepper and with a potato masher, mash until smooth or desired consistency.
Add the cream and continue to mash until creamy and smooth.
For the Gravy
Heat the butter in a pan and add the onions, frying on a medium heat for a few minutes. Then turning the heat low, add the thyme and cover the pan and allow the onions to cook for a further 5-10 minutes, until the onions are clear and soft.
Then add the flour, water and stock cubes and stir in over a medium heat, allowing to cook for a further 5 minutes before removing the thyme.
Remove the pan from the heat and blend until smooth.
For an extra glaze, add a small knob of butter just before serving.
For the Mint Sauce
Blitz the mint leaves in a blender until finely chopped, then add the rest of the ingredients and blend again till smooth.
Notes
A good way of timing the lamb is to place in the oven around the same time as roasting the beetroot and removing around the same time as the vegetables have finished cooking.
If you like your lamb slightly pink, then reduce the cooking time.
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President Barack Obama, a self-proclaimed feminist, touted women’s role as “leaders at the forefront of progress” in his presidential proclamation recognizing Women’s Equality Day.
Proclaimed annually on Aug. 26 by the president of the United States, Women’s Equality Day honors the suffragists and activists who fought for and eventually realized women’s right to vote. The 19th Amendment, which grants that right, was certified as law on Aug. 26, 1920.
“Today, as we celebrate the anniversary of this hard-won achievement and pay tribute to the trailblazers and suffragists who moved us closer to a more just and prosperous future, we resolve to protect this constitutional right and pledge to continue fighting for equality for women and girls,” the president wrote.
While Women’s Equality Day began as a celebration of women gaining an equal voice in the voting booth, the annual holiday has come to stand for women’s fight for equality on a range of issues.
Obama recapped his administration’s contributions to that fight, from signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and pushing for lower health care premiums for women through the Affordable Care Act, to hosting forums for women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields and putting on the first United State of Women Summit earlier this year. He called for action on issues that greatly affect women, such as domestic violence, campus sexual assault, abortion access and discrimination and violence against the transgender community.
“On Women’s Equality Day, as we recognize the accomplishments that so many women fought so hard to achieve, we rededicate ourselves to tackling the challenges that remain and expanding opportunity for women and girls everywhere,” Obama wrote.
Read the full proclamation here.
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The best word I can use to describe how I felt the first day I dropped off my daughter at preschool is “free.” I felt liberated! Both of my toddlers were in someone else’s care for a whole hour and 45 minutes, leaving me the freedom to do whatever I wanted, and boy did I appreciate the time alone.
Fast forward 15 years, or so. The first time you drop your kid off at college is an entirely different story. Not that I know firsthand, but 35 years later, I can still vividly remember the tears my mom cried on the way home from the University of Michigan, having just taken my sister there. Saying goodbye and leaving your child in a dorm room far away cannot be easy.
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Here we are at the Outdoor Retailer Show with Sutra the amazing motorized polar bear
I’m back from an amazing Outdoor Retailer Summer Show in Salt Lake City — invigorated by everyone’s Arctic Refuge passion found throughout the Giant Salt Palace and across the street at KEENfest! The best part of the show was the energy building for the We Are The Arctic Campaign, working side by side with our partners and our combined efforts to protect our Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, located in the northernmost corner of the state of Alaska.
Our partner organizations were doing great things at the Outdoor Retailer Show – getting attendees excited about the Arctic Refuge through presentations like OutdoorAfro Rue Mapp’s plenary speech about her trip and experience in the Arctic Refuge. And, also like conservation photographer Florian Schulz’s presentation, sponsored by Conservation Alliance, that brought the Arctic Refuge to life through both video and photographs – capturing truly wild places and also the essence of the Arctic Refuge. Florian said of a recent trip to Arctic Village, “Why do I do this? For me, it’s because my kids will get to see this in the future…My kids were just with me in Arctic Village picking blueberries with the Gwich’in people that live off the land, live off the caribou – it was a very beautiful circle for me, doing this for future generations.”
And, through the amazing energy of 27 participating partners (check out the ad) that gave away We Are The Arctic books and helped us get thousands of signed postcards asking for the strongest possible protections for the Arctic Refuge. Check out Clif Bar’s beautiful postcard collection box that they made for the show. They found rocks to carry on the rocks from the photo of the Arctic Refuge on our box! 
What’s more, KEEN hosted Sutra the motorized polar bear in their outside adult playground also known as KEENfest. Sutra was a super friendly and photogenic Arctic Advocate. Everyone, young and old climbed on top of Sutra and shared their #WeAretheArctic post! All the KEENfest employees helped us hand out books and encouraged everyone to fill out a postcard to President Obama and to be entered into a sweepstakes for a trip to the Refuge. Drum roll: Sarah Yeakel from Keen was our winner! Congrats to Sarah. 
More than 4,000 cards were filled out and more than 2,500 books have new homes. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) posed by Sutra proudly wearing his Alaska Wilderness League hat!
Truly, the We Are The Arctic Campaign is moving full speed ahead with this momentum gained from our retail partners.
While at the show, we also spoke to many retailers about joining our letter to President Obama. More than 100 businesses have signed our letter to the president to say – now is the time to protect the Arctic Refuge once and for all!
There are many, many people and organizations that I need to thank for their energy, time and dedication to getting out the word at the show! Top of the list is the “Arctic Braintrust” who have been instrumental throughout this multi-year Arctic campaign: Conservation Alliance, Patagonia, KEEN and our very own Board members Gareth Martin and Steve Barker.
In fact, check out the amazing thank you video that we shot at the event AND check out our new amazing partner Sutra the polar bear that encouraged folks in in very un-Arctic temperatures to protect the Arctic Refuge!
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California is preparing to create a mandatory state-run retirement plan for an estimated six million workers at companies that do not now offer any retirement benefits.
The move could make California the first state to require companies to take part in such a system. Colorado was considering the idea but decided against it in May, and New Jersey and Washington have opted instead for programs with very limited state involvement. But Connecticut, Oregon, Maryland and Illinois are moving forward with their own state-run retirement programs and are looking to California as an example.
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Woody Allen still refuses to acknowledge any truth in the allegations that have dogged him for two decades.
The director accused of sexually abusing his daughter Dylan when she was only 7 years old dismissed talk on the subject as simple gossip in a new interview with The Guardian.
“I have no interest in all of that. I find that all tabloid stupidity. That situation had been thoroughly, thoroughly investigated up and down the line by New York social services in a 14-month investigation,” Allen said. “It had been investigated by Yale and conclusions were clear and I have no interest in that whole situation. I get harassed all the time on it. But it doesn’t affect me and I just have no interest in it.”
Journalist Catherine Shoard notes that the director ― sounding “weary, sad, flat” ― has never before used the word “harassed” in reference to the allegations.
But, as Allen’s estranged son Ronan Farrow wrote in a fiery piece for The Hollywood Reporter in May, Hollywood (and the media) have been nothing but kind to Allen. In his piece, published as Allen was premiering his film “Café Society” at the Cannes Film Festival, Farrow pointed out the controversy has not seemed to affect the director’s career in the least. Allen is currently doing press for his new Amazon series.
“Amazon paid millions to work with Woody Allen, bankrolling a new series and film,” Ronan wrote. “Actors, including some I admire greatly, continue to line up to star in his movies. ‘It’s not personal,’ one once told me.”
“Café Society” star Blake Lively twice defended the controversial director, drawing ire for claiming Allen is “empowering to women.” Actor Adrien Brody, who appeared in “Midnight in Paris,” recently suggested that asking the director about claims against him is “unfair,” stating, “I think life is very complicated.”
Actress Kristen Stewart, who also appears in “Café Society,” said she choose to ignore the director’s alleged sexual abuse on the crumbling logic that “if we were persecuted for the amount of shit that’s been said about us that’s not true, our lives would be over.”
Hollywood heavyweights seem to be doing their best to make life easier for a possible sex offender. If only we could say the same about victims of sexual abuse.
To read the rest of Allen’s interview with The Guardian, head here.
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Sam Davidson is a native Nashvillian with an uncanny amount of local pride. On the phone with him, you get the sense that Nashville, Tennessee is where the party is at — not New York City, Los Angeles or Chicago. However, most people traveling to and around the U.S. seldom consider Nashville a first-priority tourist destination. So, to give his city the attention and platform it deserves, Davidson partnered with friends Rob Williams and Stephen Moseley in 2013 to co-found and launch Batch, a gift and retail company that originally aimed to, as Davidson describes, “share what we loved about our hometown with as many people as possible.” The team bundled items they believed were well representative of why their city was awesome — from its locally roasted coffee to artisan goods — and sold geographically-themed subscription boxes. And things went surprisingly well.
By the end of Batch’s first month in business, the company already had 200 customers. By month three, Batch was selling more than 1,000 orders of its locally curated gift boxes. Their service spread like wildfire and Davidson, Moseley and Williams had a full-fledged business going.
Early on, the company realized that it was not an ordinary product subscription business. First, it was focused exclusively on locally produced products. Second, a large majority of its “batches” were given as gifts. Eventually, the trend was clear; with shipments going out to 12 different countries, the team behind Batch knew that its customers were excited about giving the “gift of Nashville.”
For the average Joe, a Batch subscription was an easy way to share a taste of his favorite southern city. And over the past three years, the Batch team has expanded its Southern coverage and now works with a variety of independent makers across Nashville, Memphis, Charleston, and Austin.
By dedicating their business to locally sourced products across the American South, Davidson, Moseley and Williams found their company playing at an international stage. And three of the mechanisms that fueled this business’s growth are well worth understanding.
The peculiar secret to Batch’s growth over the years lies in its service’s innate ability to spread word-of-mouth. Davidson explains, “Our product touches two consumers with each purchase — the gifter and the recipient.” And that alone can spur additional orders from completely new customers. For instance, Jane may purchase a batch for her mother, who later orders a subscription for Jane’s father, who buys a whole bunch of batches for his golf buddies. “We have a LOT of repeat customers who are gifting to multiple family members or colleagues,” shares Davidson. Indeed, if surprising results from social experiments posted to YouTube do not restore your faith in humanity, perhaps the simple gestures of love demonstrated by Batch customers will. “We’re always amazed at the generosity of people as so many customers find occasions to give gifts beyond the typical gifting reasons like birthdays or anniversaries,” says Davidson.
As a gift-giving company, Batch is uniquely positioned to create a compelling customer experience for two different individuals with each unique purchase.
Another way Batch became popular was through public relations. “We earned a lot of good local coverage [in Nashville] for our launch, and have since said ‘yes’ to every media opportunity that falls into our lap,” tells Davidson. And it is this ‘yes-man’ attitude that led to favorable media coverage which put the spotlight on Batch’s service. “Early on, Style Blueprint wrote a glowing review about our new service and that was the tipping point locally. A few months later, Southern Living featured us nationally in print and online and that took our business well outside of Nashville to folks across the US.” Since then, the company has also received public nods in The New York Times, Inc., BuzzFeed, and Travel + Leisure, which have expanded Batch’s reach beyond U.S. borders.
Of course, to consistently get the brand’s name out there, Davidson and his team regularly pitch the media when they have conjured up a newsworthy angle. Examples of broad categories the business touches on include entrepreneurship, local business, urban revival and renewal (specifically in Nashville & Austin), subscription-based businesses, and eCommerce.
Currently, Batch generates 7-figures in annual sales, half of which comes directly from consumers purchasing batches for themselves and loved ones while the other half comes from corporate customers. Among eCommerce companies, it seems counter-intuitive to approach businesses for sales. However, brands that fail to do so stand to lose out on a lot of money. According to Forbes contributor Peter Cohan, “The market for employee incentives in the U.S. is estimated at $38 billion.” And for Batch, corporate client sales have been a boon for business.
While the average consumer might order as little as one box to as many as four for a yearly subscription (boxes now ship quarterly), most corporate clients place an order for between 25 and 40 boxes outside of holidays. “In December, the average order range triples to 75 to 120 boxes per client,” says Davidson. But the firm has fulfilled as many as 1,500 custom boxes at one time for enterprise buyers. Batch’s corporate offering often helps employers show their thanks and gratitude to their hardest working employees. Also, it is especially attractive for: “Client-based businesses, where winning and keeping customers is crucial, as well as staying top-of-mind. So law firms, PR folks, accountants, financial advisers, realtors,” notes Davidson. A custom Batch box works particularly well among organizations that need to “wow”‘ their own customers. For instance, Davidson shares, “We also have healthy sales among hotels and other hospitality-related businesses, from stocking local amenities hotels can use as welcome gifts or ‘sorry we messed up your room service order’ apologies. Likewise, because we are used often at events and meetings as welcome or VIP gifts, hotels are great referral sources for us.”
Batch’s corporate offering often helps employers show their thanks and gratitude to their hardest working employees. Also, it is especially attractive for: “Client-based businesses, where winning and keeping customers is crucial, as well as staying top-of-mind. So law firms, PR folks, accountants, financial advisers, realtors,” notes Davidson. A custom Batch box works particularly well among organizations that need to “wow”‘ their own customers. For instance, Davidson shares, “[We also have healthy sales among hotels and other hospitality-related businesses], from stocking local amenities hotels can use as welcome gifts to ‘sorry we messed up your room service order’ apologies. Likewise, because we are used often at events and meetings as welcome or VIP gifts, hotels are great referral sources for us.”
Though it may be unusual for an up-and-coming eCommerce brand to begin selling to corporate clients in bulk, the advantages of corporate sales make it an opportunity that can be hard to resist. The typical corporate order allows for better margins, easier fulfillment and extremely high brand loyalty, explains Davidson. He expects happy corporate customers will consistently source their employee gifts from Batch for decades to come. Also, staffing your sales team does not have to be a daunting task. To keep its sales pipeline steady and flowing, Batch has two full-time salespeople, one in each of its two biggest markets: Nashville and Austin.
Good gifts naturally spread positive word-of-mouth making every purchase an opportunity to go viral. While most stores sell gift cards, they should also consider developing new offerings that are better made for gifting or creating easier opportunities for shoppers to gift existing products. Davidson recommends, “Figure out what is hard or confusing for potential customers about gifts in [your industry] and devise a solution. Then, perfect it.”
Sell a product that people would be proud to gift and one that anyone would be excited to open and consume. With that, you have the foundation of what could be a really successful growth channel for your online store.
This post originally appeared on Receiptful’s eCommerce Success Academy and is republished with permission.
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Danny Wong is the co-founder of Blank Label, an award-winning luxury menswear company. He also leads marketing for Receiptful, a platform to supercharge all customer interactions for eCommerce stores, and Tenfold, a seamless click-to-dial solution for high-performance sales teams. To connect, tweet him @dannywong1190 or message him on LinkedIn. For more of his clips, visit his portfolio.
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