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BY LORRIE BAUMANN After 12 years of doing business in the small Mississippi town of West Point, Valeda Carmichael picked up stakes and moved her Culin-Arts store 83 miles northwest to Oxford, Mississippi and its thriving local economy in October. Just barely settled into her new store, a 2,300 square-foot converted house in a mixed-use commercial neighborhood a bit more than a block off Oxford's Historic Downtown Square, Carmichael is still missing the catering kitchen she had at her former Culin-Arts: Not Was, It Is location, but she's hopeful that her kitchenware retailing business has better days ahead in the home of Ole Miss and the Southern Foodways Alliance. "In West Point, I had a kitchen attached to the store, and leaving that behind was heart-wrenching, but I had to go where the business is," Carmichael says. "Up here, I don't have room to bring the kitchen at the moment, but I hope to reopen it in the future." Culin-Arts' new home has parking on BY LORRIE BAUMANN When Sign of the Bear Kitchenware opened in Sonoma, California in 1972, the town had horse rings on the Plaza. Times have changed. Between 1970 and 2010, the number of women in the American workforce grew from 38 percent of the total workforce to 47.2 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The Slow Food Movement began in Italy in 1989 and spread to more than 150 countries, with more than 170 chapters and 2,000 food communities in the U.S. alone. Inspired by a dream of a job that was social and happy in its Life's Delicious at Sign of the Bear essence, Stephen and Laura Havlek bought Sign of the Bear in 1991. In 1996, Alice Waters established the Edible Schoolyard Project at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, about 45 miles from Sign of the Bear in Sonoma. The Internet, which communicated only 1 percent of the information flowing over two-way telecommunications networks in 1993, was carrying the majority of that information by 2000. KITCHENWARE NEWS H o u s e w a r e s R e v i e w V O L U M E 1 9 , N U M B E R 1 0 www.kitchenwarenews.com VOLUME 20, NUMBER 12 DECEMBER 2014 n $7.00 n 2015 Buyers Guide ........................7 n Industry News .............................44 n 2015 Editorial Calendar..............46 n Trade Show Calendar.................47 n Advertiser Index ..........................47 BY LORRIE BAUMANN Tom Dickson is the man who put the "tec" in home blending. The Founder of Blendtec dates his fascination with blenders back to September 4, 1968, when he and his new wife received a Rival blender as a wedding present. "Since then, I've been very intrigued with making a blender that doesn't fail," he says now. Well, he says it that way now, when he's suited up for an interview with the press, but it's dollars to doughnuts that what he really means is that he's still interested in the question that has made this manufacturing engineer who's still in touch with his No, He's Never Blended a Crowbar inner 10-year-old into the YouTube star of "Will It Blend?" The "Will It Blend?" YouTube programs Continued on PAGE 42 Continued on PAGE 43 Continued on PAGE 5 Back again, in the size you love, the 2015 Kitchenware News & Housewares Review Annual Buyers Guide Issue. Starting on page 10, find all the newest and most exciting products in categories ranging from bakeware to wine and bar accessories for you to enjoy now and refer to all year long.