ANN MCMURTRIE FULTON

My job began as a small labor of love--cooking and experimenting with new recipes in my own kitchen.  The Fountain Avenue Kitchen website seemed like a sensible way to organize my recipes and share them with family and friends.  (The name honors my grandmother who lived on Fountain Avenue and was my inspiration in the kitchen and beyond.)  As my recipes reached more people, I began writing a food column for our local newspaper and two regional magazines.  My blog also led to jobs developing recipes for various companies.  I always enjoyed writing, so a job pairing that interest with my love of creating new recipes was a wonderful, albeit unexpected, development for this former ALCer who graduated from college as an economics major.

 

I often joke that I like to cook because I like to eat.  Yet as my family grew and I had more mouths to feed, I was increasingly focused on the wellbeing of my children as well as that of my husband and me.  I cared what I was feeding them, so I worked harder to make the recipes I knew and loved healthier without sacrificing taste.  A gluten-free family member gave me reason to venture into gluten-free baking.  I never really thought I would make a job of it.  However, I put my career in real estate on hold when my second child was a toddler, and I eventually reached a point where I was sort of looking for something, without entirely knowing what that something would be.  To some extent, this second career of sorts was a combination of a passion that fueled hard work that was, in turn, shored up with a little luck.  

 

Would you believe that I still dream about ALC?  When my boys were little, I regaled them with so many of my favorite camp stories and memories that they were ready to go to camp by the time they were out of diapers.  (My older son has been at Chewonki for six years now, my younger for three, and they love it.)  So a short list of favorite memories includes playing Streets and Alleys before breakfast on the 4th of July; campfires; hiking the Bigelow Mountains and canoeing the Junior Lakes; being a Junior and Senior CT; short-sheeting beds and knock outs; being on the drill team; making friends from across the country and the globe.  

 

I associate the word flexibility with ALC, and that is a skill that comes in handy every single day.  With flexibility comes an inherent sense of patience and understanding that I draw on in some way every day.  (And when I am forgetting that notion, I can hear Jean McMullan's suggestion to just "flex.")  Additionally, camp provided a terrific foundation for learning to get along with a variety of personalities and live in close quarters with them.  Going off to college and living with a new, unknown roommate was no big deal after living in a tent with a bunch of different girls every summer.  And finally, when caught in the rain with no umbrella, I remember Jean's other famous words:  "Your skin is your best raincoat."