Tue Feb 09 2010
Cindy Briscoe’s story might actually be one found in Southern Living. In fact for 14 years, she was a food stylist, cooking school promoter and ultimately an editor for the magazine.
Now living in Frankfort, Cindy uses her culinary skill to make and market her confections – caramels. For the holiday season she has created chocolate, gingerbread and the buttery true caramel.
“I wanted to create a mouth-watering caramel that did not taste like wax but tasted fresh and homemade,” Briscoe said. “There are no preservatives in the candy,” she said, alluding to the chemicals that allow candies to sit on shelves for months.
Finding a local store to sell her candy has been difficult. But in Lexington, the confections can be found in Pretty in Pink and at L.V. Harkness.
She has a developer working on her Web site.
“I ship candy all over the place almost every week. It is made fresh and shipped fresh.”
A one pound box of the mouth-watering morsels sells for $21 and shipping is approximately $6.
A Christmas red-and-white striped box with around 12 pieces sells for $8.50.
“If you are a caramel lover, you will immediately recognize the difference, the freshness in this candy. They melt in your mouth.”
Briscoe rents kitchen space from the Woodford County extension office. There she spends several days a week making the caramels and preparing them for distribution.
Briscoe grew up in Louisville, earned a dietetics degree at Morehead State University and then headed off to culinary school at Johnson and Wales in Providence, R.I. She also earned an advanced degree in dietetics from Indiana University.
She spent 12 years in hospital dietetics in Charlotte, N.C.
But doors flew open when she grew bored with her work and decided to go in another direction.
Briscoe said she was amazed at the offers from General Mills, Procter & Gamble and Southern Living.
“But Southern Living kept calling. So I headed to Birmingham where I remained for 15 years.”
Briscoe worked in marketing and advertising for the magazine. One of her responsibilities was media work promoting the Southern Living Cooking schools held around the country.
“We were in 42 cities each year and often had audiences as large as 3,000,” Briscoe said.
The magazine would test and present 10 recipes from each of its sponsors such as Pillsbury Pie Crusts. One recipe from each category would be completed on stage for the audience.
But Briscoe said after too many years she grew tired of the road and decided to take another position with the company as a stylist. In addition to the magazine, she also did design for special events for parent company Time Warner.
Briscoe said Southern Living works six months ahead on its magazines, and 80 percent of its recipes are supplied by readers. Every recipe is prepared in their test kitchens, about 10-12 recipes per day.
“Yes, the photos the reader sees in Southern Living are of real food,” Briscoe said. “The magazine has high standards and they extend to showing real pictures of the finished product.”
Oxmoor House, the book division of the magazine, offered her a position as editor of a new magazine under design. But after about six months in development, the company pulled the plug on the project.
“It was right at the beginning of the economic downturn when the handwriting began appearing on the wall that magazines were going to be a tough sell in a failing economy,” Briscoe said. And she was anxious to come home.
She landed a job as communications director for the Kentucky Department of Travel and learned quickly.
“I came about two years into the Fletcher administration and believe me, I am not political,” said the novice in Kentucky politics who did not realize non-merit positions were subject to change at the end of a governor’s administration.
With that job behind her, she worked for a year at Spindletop Hall recruiting members.
The idea of branching out on her own grew in her mind, particularly the development of a caramel candy market. “I could find no one selling them by the pound, and everything I read said many candy companies used preservatives to hold their shelf life.”
Briscoe is animated and grows excited when she talks of the quality of her candy. She has received high praise from many of her associates at Southern Living.
“I do need to go back to work to make a living right now,” she said. “But I hope this year the candy will do well because it is something I am really proud of.”
Cynful Confections
Phone: (502) 848-0038
E-mail: cindy@cynfulconfections.com
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