Mountain Grown® Independently Owned.
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Karen Henderson is the effervescent personality and entrepreneur behind many food-based businesses and endeavors. She now lives in Livingston, Montana and seeks to create memorable experiences for her customers through great food. She runs the Dreamboat Market and Bakery, Apples and Anglers catering service and Engine Room Pizza.
She takes the responsibility of delivering the best product very seriously. Since she arrived in Montana, she’s developed relationships with farmers and ranches, to bring her clients the best possible products with consistency they trust.
Beyond the Maker
This series from KÜHL goes beyond getting to know an artist's work and inspiration. We dive deeper into their origin stories and struggles to learn how they cope with failure, critics, and success, yet still find time to do the things they love. Born in the mountains, raised in the workshop—these are their stories.
Food is Friendship
“Baking is a great way to earn allies in a big family.”
Karen has a lot of allies. Baking was her first love. She earned the respect of her two sisters growing up in Sacramento, California with baked goods. Today she continues to win the hearts of fly-fishing guides, outfitters, tourists, and residents of Paradise Valley with her thoughtful and intentional foods from her three food-based businesses located in Livingston, Montana.
Getting there, however, took a lot of work. It was thanks to her talent and discipline on the volleyball court that the foundation for her success was set. Karen went to college at California State University on a volleyball scholarship and graduated with a degree in environmental studies, hall of fame status and All-American honors for volleyball.
Her passion for food came from many inspirations. Growing up, her mom approached the kitchen with a business mentality and it taught Karen efficiency. She is more of a free spirit when she ties an apron around her waist. Her dad was also an inspiration, not just for his sweet tooth, but his knowledge of local flora and fauna he passed on to her whenever they went on a hike together.
Although she never wanted to go to school where she grew up, looking back, she’s grateful for the opportunity to have been in a region with so much food diversity. She loved the beauty that surrounded the city, the gardens in people’s backyards and the long growing season.
When she graduated, she ran to the mountains with every intention of coming back to earn her master’s degree. But the kitchen never let her go.
The Italian Way
Shortly after graduation, she accompanied a friend and her boyfriend to Italy. It was there she found a lifestyle and approach to food that seemed familiar to her, even though it was her first time there. She loved the cadence of the meals and how much value and significance they put into not just the food, but the entire experience surrounding it and the relationships that grew from it.
Italy opened her eyes to the life she desired and as soon as she got back to Sacramento, she got a job at her favorite restaurant. She was driven to create experiences for people centered around delicious food and quality ingredients.
Karen learned to cook for 100 people before she did for four. The kitchen became her home – she met her best friend there, honed her culinary expertise in the chaos and learned what she needed to know to seek a meaningful life doing what she loved. This experience led her down many different paths, all of which would eventually converge in a sleepy mountain town in Montana a few decades later.
In 2012, Karen’s daughter convinced her to compete on the popular food network show “Cupcake Wars.” And she won. Her competitive background, unique pallet and creativity was unbeatable.
Custom wedding cakes, award-winning cupcakes, catering businesses, cafés, bakeries, farm-to-table school programs, food marketing expertise – Karen’s full list of accolades and accomplishments is too long to list here. Her humility stands in the way of learning just how outstanding and talented she is. Her business acumen is razor sharp and her expertise extends far beyond the kitchen.
Outfitting Appetites in Paradise Valley
Fast-forward to 2021 when the pandemic had everyone questioning their life trajectories, Karen remembered a visit to southwest Montana when she was 20. She boarded a train with her best friend and their bikes, and they spent the summer touring the Treasure State.
She wanted to revisit that feeling of freedom, exploration, and fresh air so she packed her bags and moved to Bozeman, Montana in 2021. When she arrived, she found work on a local farm specializing in organic vegetables and events. While she worked, she recognized a need for a creative twist in the kitchen with local ingredients and used her diverse culinary background to build a catering business in a commercial kitchen on the north side of town. The food spoke for itself, and as word spread, her business grew.
A year later, she relocated to Livingston, Montana in Paradise Valley. Since she moved, she’s opened up Dreamboat Market and Bakery – a tidy little market serving pastries, breads, soups, sandwiches and coffee on Park Street.
In addition to the market, she also runs Apples and Anglers, a catering business known for its boujee shore lunches for fly guides and their clients floating the local trout rivers. As if two businesses weren’t enough, Karen recently opened Engine Room Deep Dish Pizza as well.
These endeavors are simply outlets for her creativity in the kitchen. She continues to build relationships with the community and strengthen her ties with local farms and ranches that supply the food. She speaks proudly of her team that has helped her succeed and recognizes how hard it would have been without them.
Karen takes the responsibility of feeding people very seriously. She feels obligated to deliver excellence despite the on-going challenges; short growing seasons, menu selection, long hours and more. She hoards seasonal ingredients and cans and preserves the ingredients of spring and summer she can’t find year-round.
Full Steam Ahead
In her past, Karen used to choose the hardest path, meeting every opportunity with resilience. This approach has calloused her spirit and her work ethic. Since she opened three businesses in Paradise Valley, she found a discipline she didn’t know she had, which is hard to believe based on her past. She is grateful the tight-knit community in southwest Montana has welcomed her and her recipes.
Being an independent business owner is demanding. It requires every ounce of her attention and focus but she wanted this life and is willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen. She’s been doing this long enough to know that it’s a never-ending learning process – not just in the kitchen but with her personal relationships when the stress follows her home.
She finds peace and clarity in the short walks to work and in her cold plunge at home. Yoga, bikes and hikes used to offer her the rest and separation she needed. Now that it’s full steam ahead to keep her dream alive, she finds what she needs in the shorter and smaller moments between the chaos.
The joy in the craft keeps her coming back. She lets ingredients inspire her and never forgets to remind herself how lucky she is to have earned the trust of a community.
Learn more about Apples + Anglers on their website or hire them for your next event for unforgettable food. Follow them on Instagram to keep up with their latest seasonal offerings.
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