from our Founder, Deb Walsh

Was starting a micro granola bakery always part of the plot for me? Was it all foreshadowed in the scenes of my youth?

I’m a girl who came of age in the 70s, when granola famously fed 400,000 hungry hippies at Woodstock. Little did we know it would become the snack that would define a generation.

I was a mere 9 years old back then, too young to be protesting (politics, at least), and too little to understand the seismic counterculture wave that would be forever baked into my point-of-view: with the right people beside you, anything is possible.

But I wasn’t too young to know about butter - or the lack thereof in my childhood. Convenience food had arrived, and Mom was serving us Swanson fried chicken TV Dinners and Betty Crocker’s Bisquick “impossible” cheeseburger pie. And when “tub margarine” appeared on the scene, Mom embraced it full-on. The only butter in our fridge was a few lonely sticks at the very back, outcasts in a cold new Fleishman’s spreadable world.

But my butter story was destined to persist.

When Mom baked back then, she used Crisco. But when her mom, my Grandma, came to visit, there was butter. She’d arrive with a giant wood-woven picnic basket laden with her legendary confections: gooey chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon sticky buns heady with yeast, shards of homemade English toffee bark with buttery pecans and chocolate, and most famously, her lattice-crust cherry pies made from the fruit tree in her tiny Bethesda backyard.

It was Grandma who taught me the many magical mysteries of butter, and helped me fall in love with baking — the ritual feel of flour and dough beneath my hands, the aromas wafting from the oven, and perhaps best of all, the joy it brought people. Whenever I felt anxious or bored, or creative, there was always the balm of baking.

Fast-forward through a few decades of butter-adjacent scenes: high school short-order cook jobs, sunrise shifts slinging home fries and eggs, and a years-long tsunami of an eating disorder (and finally, recovery).

Seems the kitchen — its joys and tribulations — has always been central to this girl’s story.

So we land in 2026: I’m a writer, musician, producer of women’s storytelling circles; 8+ years sober; and proprietress of a near-200-year-old home called “Rose Cottage”, complete with an old servants’ kitchen in the basement I’ve long dreamed of renovating. And a lover, still, of the craft and joys of baking.

It was on a serendipitous day in late 2025 that “the granola” was born. The world had filled my heart with existential anxiety. And as always, I turned to baking.

I was craving a buttery balm for my heart, something sweet and salty but not a cake or cookie or scone. When I stumbled on a random recipe for granola. Oddly, it seemed to me, I’d never made granola before. Was it my time?

This particular recipe was loaded with the usual suspects: oats, raisins, coconut oil, and more seeds and nuts than would fit in an average backyard birdfeeder.

I flashed back to the 70s and felt a mischievous cosmic dare: ‘Make your own granola,’ it said. ‘And let it be rich and sweet and unapologetically comforting.’ I set out to try.

By some miracle of fate, I hit gold on the first batch: a decidedly decadent blend of old-fashioned oats, sweetened coconut, roasted cinnamon pecans, and brown sugar bound with lots of beautiful, salty, Irish butter. One taste, and my troubles melted away.

I shared a batch in my kitchen. Then another and another. Friends came for “the granola.” Word spread and it dawned on me that I might have a little venture ahead making this sweet comfort food. The granola was more than just a snack. It was bringing people together around something that was just plain joyful, and deliciously fun.

So perhaps this baby Butter Bar Kitchen I’m bringing to life is indeed pulling the golden thread in my story. Wherever it leads us, I’m glad you’re along for the ride.

We think you’ll love it as much as we do, and have as much fun enjoying it. We also predict you’ll hide it from your crazy Aunt Gladys, take it to bed, and toss it in your favorite ice cream. And on a day when butter is the only cure, we hope it transports you back home to a kitchen you love and to people who love you just as you are.

Come hungry, leave hopeful.

xxx,
Deb