The Mazama Store

You can always check out musings from the staff by clicking over on the left of our page, under “The Mazama Country Store Staff” category.  Here’s a piece from Samantha Ronich, former staff member:

The mazama store. Hmm. What to write about it.

Country store. The term holds something appealing in this modern hi tech caffe latte wifi facebook omg-who’s-emailing – me era. Something about the term ‘country’ always makes us city folk wax nostalgic for days we might’ve had running around in woods or about people in our heads running around in the woods, like on TV. Big fields of grain with men committing various acts of farming as children play with bikes and dogs nearby. Something warm, of beautiful simple ways and times we’ve never had, but we’ve heard all about and long for.

The other half of the phrase, ’store’, sounds completely unglamorous. It is a non-activity. It is the space between point a and point b. It is between dance class and the bar, church and the restaurant of the evening. Gone are the days of meeting the loves of our lives in the freezer aisle, of running into your neighbours and conversing over what you are making for dinner and how your respective gardens are growing. Life is busy, and there are more important things than gardens and loves of lives. At least, in the store.

The country store in the small town is the center, the unintentional focal point of the community. There may be bars, there may be dance studios, there may be restaurants and there ARE churches. But when you are finished at these places the inevitable stop must be made at the store, and that’s where all the goers to these places bump into each other. This is where instead of over the phone or the internet people catch up over baskets of canned goods and the occasional  coffee or ice cream.

The Mazama store is just such a place, a small corner of modern nostalgia. We have a lot of ‘old fashioned’ ideals you’d imagine in a country store. We bake all our own goods; rustic breads, muffins, cinnamon rolls, and make all our own sandwiches. We refuse using machines to make more dough so we could sell more pastries: machines don’t eat pastries so people here shouldn’t eat pastries from machines. We sell local honey from beekeepers we know by name, sell milk from our neighbour’s goats, and people bring in fruit from their gardens that we add to our pastries.  A lot of the talk thrown around is about ‘country’ things; how to keep flies off  horses, what fruits and veggies the gardens are producing and have you done any canning yet? And why there are so many mosquitos this year! They are everywhere! Never seen them so bad. Darn deer. Always the deer…

But as times change, people change, and inevitably the places they inhabit change with them. We sell the honey and the fruit, but the goat keeper makes amazing Chevre cheese and we sell Smartwool and Prana clothing. We make rustic loaves, but we also make almond croissants or apricot ginger tarts for tomorrow (pretty sure the settlers never heard of croissants). We discuss who is offering the 5K running workshop? What is up with all the motorcyclists! This weekend is a) a rock climbing event b) a trail running event c) a musical event so we need more…everything. We listen to an iPod blaring Beyonce and Cat Stevens as we knead dough and drink espresso.

Thats how it is at our ‘country store’. It has changed hands and faces over time, but kids here run in fields, people talk about their gardens, people farm, and EVERYONE rides bikes. There is a magic about this store, about Mazama, about this valley and we are really lucky to live here. We do our best to be the place to be and to be way more than the space between a and b. I am amazed at this place everyday, at the owners, the employees, and just how much we DO. But we still dont have wifi. And I have as yet to see someone fall in love in front of the burrito cooler. Ah well, nothing is perfect.

Hannah, featuring Hannah's thumb

Me sitting at the computer thinking about fancy sandwiches and blog posts

We’re already a couple weeks into 2012 and here at the Mazama Store folks are making the most of this new year, taking advantage of prime time for resolutions to buff up our skills and be all-around-awesome.  So, what exactly are your favorite mazama store staff resolving to do?  Ms. Jenna McLennan is hereby resolving to “STAY HYDRATED!” That’s right, Jenna will be taking more frequent trips over to the end of the counter by the sink and those little blue cups.  Better hydration will keep Jenna in tip-top shape for slanging espresso beverages left and right, as well as getting those soup orders out as promptly as can be.  Hannah resolves to be “more safety minded”, as a recent incident at home involving a kitchen knife caused a rather undesirable loss of some thumb.  From here on out Hannah will be all safety, all the time at the store!  My personal resolution is to get more creative with my baguette sandwich making skills, as a sandwich can never be too fancy.
What’s your New Year’s resolution?  We’d love to hear!  Though the fireworks may be over and it’s back to the daily grind, these early weeks of 2012 are a great opportunity to keep ourselves open to opportunity, enjoy life even a little bit more, and keep having fun.  Cheers to a great year at the store!

See you at the counter,

Kristen