(above left) Next to the front door sits a bell that Carrie purchased long before she had a family. It now serves as the dinner bell, calling her children inside after a long day of playing with the neighbors. (above right) The living room is eclectic and cozy, providing a place for everyone to relax. The drawings on the far wall were a gift to Carrie from her childhood friend, Shannon Smith, daughter of Betty Anglin Smith. (right) The Moreys’ Old Village home was built by Kirk Wood of KC Wood Custom Homes.
On several occasions, I have had the opportunity to indulge in one (or, let’s be honest, a whole pan) of your decadent biscuits. How did the treasured family recipe become Callie’s Charleston Biscuits? Most girls grow up wanting to be like their mom, right? I’m sure that’s probably the true beginning of Callie’s Biscuits. My mom is an incredible cook. She had always made these countryham biscuits for her catered parties. I would often work for her as a server through high school and college, and I saw the incredible reaction of people when they tasted those biscuits. Then, I moved on to living in New York and began working in sales. I would pack up my mom’s biscuits in my suitcase during each trip home and keep them in my
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freezer. In New York, you’re trying to do whatever you can to get people’s attention, so I would write hand-written notes, heat the biscuits, and courier them over to my clients in the mornings. I realized that the country-ham biscuits weren’t just a Southern thing. I made a lot of sales that way. [laughs] My mom and I had, over the years, talked about opening up a specialty food business, but for a long time, we just couldn’t really figure it out. When I was on maternity leave with my first child, I thought that I wanted to be a stay-athome mom. And I say it took me until Caroline, my oldest, was six months old to realize I did not want to be a full-time mom. So we came up with a plan in Callie’s Charleston Biscuits that enabled me to be at home for my girls, but still work and build a career.
So many women, it seems, struggle with the work-family balance and often feel that they must choose one or the other. How do you manage to strike that balance? When I started the business, my goal was simple: I wanted to own a food business because I’m very passionate about food, but I also wanted to be a mom. I could have taken a lot of different paths to make my career progress a lot more quickly. The first three years had to move at a snail’s pace because my children were in school just a few hours each day. You can’t get a lot done when you’re only working three hours a day. [laughs] There are a million ways to do things, but for me, it was great for the business to evolve as my children grew up.