The Varneys have seated
their share since planting the Star Garden and renovating the stone
house. In addition to creating the other gardens they refurbished
the small barn as a second gift shop and candle manufactory, turned
one of the other buildings into a day spa with professional masseuses,
and remodeled the midwife's cottage into a cozy bed-and-breakfast.
A few years ago, they constructed a multipurpose building whose front
half serves as the company office, warehouse, and manufacturing facility
and whose back half, overlooking the Secret Garden, serves as their
home.
 They
also opened a restaurant that features herbs and vegetables grown
on-site, demonstrating the way fresh herbs can be used in foods.
"I cooked for the restaurant for three or four years,"
Sylvia says, "but the restaurant expanded, and we hired a chef."
In creating recipes, Sylvia says, she rarely re-invents the wheel.
"I often adapt old recipes to what I need to accomplish, and
new recipes are a combination of brainstorming, what I have on hand,
and what I know works." It sounds easy, but Bill has another
take. "Sylvia is so intellectual it's scary," he says.
"When she cooks, she's like a scientist; she measures and checks
everything."
Recently, Sylvia attended
Peter Kump's Cooking School in New York. " I wanted to improve
my cooking credentials," she says, "I took an intensive
program in culinary techniques where I Really got the backbone of
cooking. I though it would make me a better writer, too. It certainly
created a demand at home — Roy will say, "Oh, Mamma, couldn't
you cook something from Peter Kump's?"
The Varneys retail and
wholesale business continued to flourish as well. They now manufacture
about six hundred products on-site, including beauty and bath products,
perfumes, scented candles, and herbal food products and teas. All
their cooking oils and vinegars contain herbs grown on the farm.
Often their products and fragrances are developed by Sylvia and
Bill, but employees and even Roy lend a hand. One example is Fleurs
de Redstone, a fragrance inspired by wildflowers that grow on the
famous Redstone Ranch. Other scents are based on fruits and spices
as well as herbs and flowers. All their scents have stories behind
them, most of which have been penned by Sylvia.
 Making
it all happen takes a staff that now numbers 30. When the employees
threw a Christmas party for the Varneys a couple of years ago, Sylvia
looked around at them and their families, then said to Bill, "You
know, it's overwhelming that we're responsible for this many people."
But maybe not surprising. Shirley Keyser, who's been with the Varneys
since the first little shop on Main Street, says, "They are
fun people to work with and easy to get along with. " And as
office manager Gil Becker puts it, "How many places can you
look out your office window and see an herb garden growing?"
The Varneys still make
four or five presentations around the country each year, lecturing
on herbs and their uses. They used to do more, but with everything
else that was going on, the schedule became too taxing. Instead,
they instituted an annual, weekend-long Herb Festival in mid-April,
where they and other herb experts teach classes, serve food, listen
to live music, and celebrate everything herbal.
Through it all, Sylvia
has kept at her writing. "Being a writer is humbling and frustrating
as well as gratifying and exciting," she says "Rice taught
me to work very hard at whatever I was doing and not to do anything
halfway. I learned to expand my horizons and not give up on myself.
Those lessons have carried through, both in working with my husband
on the farm and in my writing."
Sylvia returned to campus
in 1989 to participate in the Rice Publishing Program, then offered
by the Rice School of Continuing Studies. "I wanted to improve
our catalog as well as my own writing," she says. "I can't
say enough good things about the program. I was inspired to go back
home and modify my approach to the catalog — to not just say,
'Here's the product and here's what it costs,' but to use a more
holistic approach and integrate all we did into a nice smooth braid
of cooking, cosmetics, health, and spirituality."
Her fresh ides eventually
resulted in the Varneys' two books, Along the Garden Path
(review in the summer 1996 Sallyport) and Herbs"
Growing & Using the Plants of Romance and in a quarterly
newsletter, Farm Family, now in its fifth year. Farm Family enables
the Varneys to reach a wider audience of people interested in growing
and using herbs. "Sylvia is a phenomenal writer," Bill
says. "In addition to or books and the newsletter, she does
all our labels, press releases, and articles." Sylvia acknowledges
Bill's tremendous support. "He's often the impetus for many
of the ideas. It's a real gift to have somebody who loves what you
write and yet who can be as effective as he is in saying, 'Well,
you've almost got it, but not quite.' He couldn't be a better coach."
|
by:
Christopher Dow
photos by:
Tommy LaVergne
Originally
Published in
Sallyport
The Magazine
of Rice University
Summer 2001
Click on any of
the small photos
to view full size
|
