Meet the Delectable Diva, Athena Uslander

Athena Uslander, owner of Silverland Desserts in Forest Park, started building a chocolate dynasty in the early 80's on a shoestring. Since then her delectable desserts have become a staple in the wholesale and mail order markets. The business she began on a single brownie recipe now boasts numerous varieties and flavors of gourmet brownies, cookies and dessert bars, further complimented by low fat, fat free and sugar free versions.

Having won numerous industry awards throughout her career, Uslander says the day her low fat brownies were named "best brownies" by Weight Watchers Magazine in 2002, the phone lines, "Lit up. We'd been written up before," she remembers, "but the following of Weight Watchers was amazing!" Last year, Silverland was also acclaimed as "one of the top 10 mail order desserts" by the Fine Living Channel and the Food Network.

We first met Athena at the Food Marketing Institute Show last May. What initially peaked our interest in Silverland was their preservative free health bar line, but what ultimately hooked us was Uslander's genuine charm and passion for her craft. She is a petite pistol in the giant world of food manufacturing who started out as an engineer designing bridges but ended up creating "a serious chocolate sensation" as a single mother of three against all odds.

CWM: When did you come to the United States?

AU: I came over at 17, almost 18. At that time, Tehran was the Paris of the Middle East, very metropolitan.

CWM: What made your family come over?

AU: They didn't, I was the only one. CWM: At such a young age, by yourself? What made you do that?

AU: I watched Armstrong walk on the moon. I remember watching our English television station and I didn't understand a word, but was listening to the television announcer speaking and I thought to myself, 'God, if I could one day speak like that, one day understand that.' At the time I didn't think I'd be able to. But little by little I put it in my mom's ear. She tried her best to keep me there, but I told her, 'All I want to do is go to the United States'. And so she helped me get here on the promise that I would support myself once I was settled. I didn't know anybody when I got here except for one person who lived in Chicago. I barely spoke any English, it was hard at first. I remember going to Marshall Field's the first day I was here and asking a lady where the 'toilet' was. At first she couldn't understand me and then after repeating it about six times she said, "The Powder Room is…". My friend got me an application for SIU. So that's where I started out. I was in Chicago for two days and then I went to Carbondale.

CWM: What year was that?

AU: 1973.

CWM: And then you ended up at Southern, of all places.

AU: I thought it was the best place in the world. I wasn't looking at Carbondale like a party school, with all the stigmas you have. My roommate was from Boston and I was just eating it up. I remember going to McDonalds one time…someone bet me that I couldn't go in and order a Big Mac and fries with them understanding me on the first try. I practiced and I practiced to do it right, the bet was for $10, and I did it - I was so proud of myself.

CWM: How difficult was it to come over to a foreign country and immediately go to school there?

AU: I was ESL, English as a Second Language, and I did that for one semester. But the thing about engineering is, it's a scientific language, so you don't have to read a lot of philosophy. We had to deal with formulas and I was way over qualified for like the first three semesters, because I had so much calculus, chemistry and math already. So I tested out of a lot of it. I got my undergrad and master's from SIU. Then I returned to Chicago and married a guy who went to Penn that I had met while he was visiting friends at Southern. He was an architect. My first job was with a company who did consulting with the State of Illinois for bridge construction and that's what I did, designed bridges. It was 1979 and the company was all men, except for the receptionist. And I was who I am now, so I walked in and said [sprightly], "Hi---iiiii!" They all looked at me like I was crazy, like I was from Venus or something. People wouldn't talk, they had breaks, and that's when they would talk. You had to be there and be real quiet at your drafting boards. So I was this little person sitting at this big drafting board and if I'd turn around and say something they'd roll their eyes. Little by little, I knew this was not where I wanted to be. And with respect to the creative side, it only goes for so long; I mean how many state bridges do you see that are much different than the rest? How many bridges are there that are actually unique and very beautiful design wise?

CWM: How then did you make the leap then from bridges to baking?

AU: One of the things that happened during this time was that my company sent me to Springfield on a project with this other woman they had just hired so we could room together. She was Indian and I realized she came from the same philosophy - that you're born with engineer's genes that you must be very steadfast etc. I wasn't like that. I just didn't think it would be for me more than a few years, because once you got it, it's the same thing all over again. I would come home on the weekends and cry. I wanted to be free, not because I was lazy or that I didn't want to work - it was never that. I also had to take my PE license, (Professional Engineer), because without that you are like a CPA without a certificate. So I took that exam and passed it. Once I did that I felt I could always go back to it if I wanted to. That's when I started looking… There was this woman who would come to our parties and always bring these brownies and people would just them - they'd go nuts over them. And I was always a chocoholic. She had asked me several times if I'd ever be interested in going into business with her, her name is Lisa Silverman. One day when I was desperate, (I had quit engineering and was pregnant with my first child), I called her and asked if she was still interested in going into business together. And she said she was. At that time Lisa had just gotten busted for baking at home. She was making her brownies in her apartment in the DePaul area and one of the jealous neighbors who had seen her walking up the stairs with bags and bags of chocolate, sugar and flour, called the health department.

CWM: The timing was perfect!

AU: Yes! So I looked around for a place and found a very small space near Harlem and Grand. And we started there with a convection oven, a cutting table, a home freezer, a cash register and $7,500. I remember these little old Italian ladies would walk by and come in and say, "What are you girls doing?" We'd tell them, 'We make brownies, would you like some brownies?' They'd say, "WHAT!?" At the time it was 1983; there really weren't any brownies around, except for Rachel's Brownies. It was the only brownie around that was sold commercially and even cookies, weren't a trend then. They weren't something you bought in a store; you made those things at home, especially in Elmwood Park, Illinois. Later that same year, I gave birth to my first child in August and then Lisa's husband got transferred to San Francisco. I ended up buying her out.

CWM: And she just let go of her recipe?

AU: Yes, but you have to realize that it was just one brownie at that time. It was our basic double chocolate brownie.

CWM: Where did she get the recipe?

AU: From her great, great grandmother. It was very fudgy. But through the years, that recipe has changed, because when you bake in a commercial oven, you have to do things differently. So our partnership lasted just a year. We got our business name, from her last name, Silverman and mine, Uslander. We had some other ideas, but they were already registered, so we came up with Silverland and registered it. It was originally Silverland Brownies. We also registered our tag line, "A serious chocolate sensation". About a year and a half later I moved to the old Zenith building - we had a lot more space and also a lot more problems. There were all kinds of building violations and they had cats to take care of the rodents. I had my first baby, was pregnant again and had the business. I was working more than 12-15 hour days. Sometimes I had my daughter there with me and sometimes I would hire someone to be with her at home.

CWM: How did the business evolve?

AU: The first ten years of a business, if you last that long, are just a nightmare. If you think that when you work as a hired hand in a company that you work a lot harder than if you have your own business, that you can work at your own pace, you're kidding yourself. Because in your own business, you're everybody - you're the secretary, the janitor, the salesman, because you don't have the resources to hire those people. We didn't go to our first trade show until 1988 - it was the Fancy Food Show.

CWM: How many flavors did you have by then?

AU: By then we had maybe 12 flavors of brownies, all chocolate and about 6 different flavors of cookies. And I also realized that most of our customers were asking for cookies.

CWM: How did you go about making Silverland a recognizable name?

AU: Early on I think I decided that retail wasn't where I wanted to go. I'm not sure that was the right decision, but that's where I went. The name was not what I was after to have in the media or stores, what I wanted, was manufacturing. I loved our product and I wanted to have it in every store. I wanted it in grocery stores, in hotels, restaurants and food service. So because of that, most of our marketing was done toward food service. But at the same time we always had a little outlet store; people came from the neighborhood and all over Chicago. Now we have this really strong, almost cult like following.

CWM: Really?

AU: Yes, people call us from far away places and tell us, "I grew up with your brownies", or "My mother sent them to me and I'm not going to give them up…". That's why we started our mail order business. We tried to get "brownies.com", but it was taken, and this was already by 1996. So we decided to just go with our name. "Cookies", is still not taken, but because of the cookies on your computer, it isn't a good name. If you did a search on brownies, I think we come up like 300th or something, so you'd have to know us to find us online.

CWM: What customer profiles account for your sales today?

AU: Manufacturing is probably about 85% of total sales. Through the years we've sold to companies like, Mrs. Field's Cookies - people think that if they buy a brownie at Mrs. Fields, she must have made it - and to numerous grocery chains, food vendors and to all of Nordstroms' espresso bars and cafes.

CWM: Manufacturing under your customers' brand names?

AU: Yes, but at Nordstroms, although they don't have our name on the product if people ask if it is Silverland, they will tell them it's us. Our regular brownies are very distinctive looking. Like the caramel, the way the caramel doesn't sink to the bottom. I worked on that for like four years, to come up with a formula that kept the caramel on top. When you look at most caramel brownies, the caramel is either sandwiched in the middle or floating somewhere you can't see it; unless you put it on afterwards.

CWM: What do you mean when you say, "formula"?

AU: The recipe. It took me so long to find a way to do this so that I wouldn't have to use chemicals or additives but still have that look. And let's face it, most of us eat with our eyes, if something doesn't look good we're not that tempted to eat it. That's why you see famous chefs bring you a plate that's got two little eyes [of food] looking back at you with decorations around the plate, and some green for color - its all about the attractiveness.

CWM: What is the most difficult thing Silverland has had to contend with regards to mass production, health laws and/or government regulations? What has been your biggest obstacle?

AU: 'Obstacles' are challenges. I think the biggest challenge in any kind of business, especially when you have a product, as opposed to a service, is how consistent your product is. Good, bad or mediocre, if the customer can have the same thing over and over; then they can count on it. They know, even if it is too chocolaty, they can have the same thing again and it won't be too cakey the next time. And that's the biggest challenge. For example, there's Sara Lee, where everything is done by robot, and human beings are only at the end of the line where they're just inspecting, and there are the brownies you make at home…and we fall somewhere in between; it is the challenge of consistency. With robots, they make sure its uniform, no matter what you do. And when you're at home, its small enough so you can work with your fingers to make sure it is the same, or do so visually. But when you're in between like us, where everything is hand made - as long as I am the owner, I don't want machines involved - then it becomes a big challenge to make sure you put the same product out, day in and day out. Not one undercooked, or overcooked.

CWM: Do you have to throw a lot of product away?

AU: Absolutely. The other day we had an order for Rice Crispy squares that were frosted. It's not what we usually make, but this was for a big customer and we wanted to make it for them. We had never done it before and the chocolate bloomed.

CWM: 'Bloomed'?

AU: That means the chocolate looked white.

CWM: What does that mean then?

AU: If chocolate is baked at the wrong temperature or cooled too fast it can look totally white. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, but it goes back to what I was telling you before - we eat with our eyes, and so it doesn't look appetizing anymore. It's the same product; it tastes the same, the same exact thing. But because it bloomed, you have to throw the whole thing out. And that also goes back to your question about regulations - when something like this happens and you're not sure about it - you have to get rid of it. Or with something that stayed in the freezer past the due date and you have to decide if you're going to sacrifice freshness or get rid of it or donate it to someone who knows it's past the due date but there's not necessarily something wrong with it.

CWM: Legally, you can't sell it then?

AU: Right.

CWM: And what do you mean exactly when you say your products are, 'hand made'?

AU: It means that there is someone measuring the sugar, the flour; actually ladling and scooping the ingredients out and into the mixer. For some bigger customers, like grocery chains, the dough is hand made but the actual scooping is done by machine, because you're talking about thousands and thousands of cookies and you'd get carpal tunnel if you tried to scoop them by hand.

CWM: Let's talk about how you develop a product. How long does it take to come up with a recipe?

AU: As I told you, the caramel brownie took four years - it would end up sticking to the bottom, I wasn't getting it - and engineering has helped me a lot because of the science. I have developed all of our products myself - and you're looking at a hundred now, because over the years we've had some and then dropped the ones that didn't sell. We used to have a ginger and wasabi brownie…

CWM: Eww...sorry, it sounds disgusting.

AU: Well, [laughing] we don't have it anymore! CWM: Must have been a phase, right?

AU: It was a 'phase'. A few years ago, ginger, wasabi and all those kinds of little snacks were big, so we thought, 'hey, why not?' It didn't sell. We used to have a peanut butter and jelly bar too.

CWM: That sounds good.

AU: People loved the idea, but actually getting it out of here and into the store didn't go. Getting back to how long it takes…it is taking a shorter and shorter amount of time to develop new recipes because of experience. Companies come to us daily to develop new products for them. That's how we came out with our own health bars. We were making eight different nutritional bars for one of our customers and decided to do it ourselves. Ours is a raw bar - it's made with dates, good for vegans, and it doesn't have any additives.

CWM: How long did it take you to develop your new sugar free lemon bar?

AU: The lemon bar took me one try - two hours.

CWM: That's amazing!

AU: It is amazing, that's why I was so excited about them. Some things will still take a lot longer than that, especially if it's a brand new product, something I've never done before, but it's never going to take me four years again. Not even a month again. That's why now, I actually charge for my time, if someone comes to me to develop something new.

CWM: Will you be adding other new lines like cakes or pies?

AU: No. It will never be cheesecake, or pies or wedding cakes or anything like that, but it will be new products. Things I believe in, that I am passionate about, that won't harm the environment or the person.

CWM: How long do you see yourself doing this business?

AU: Through the years we've had a lot of potential buyers, but I can't sell out my employees. My biggest claim in my life is the fact that I have given livelihood to a bunch of people, that's very important. They have been able to start a family, buy homes, have a good life etc., and I want to make sure that continues. We don't want to become a little dot in someone else's company. Because what happens, like with Rachel's brownies…this big company in New Jersey bought them out and then 3 years later decided it wasn't a good acquisition and sold them off.

CWM: If you did decided to sell your business, how would you go about it?

AU: What I would do is that if someone would take the company over, I would make sure that my employees would receive their retirement that it would remain in tact for them and their families. That's very important to me.

CWM: What about your own children? Do they have any interest in the business?

AU: No, none at all. My oldest works for Macy's, she's a buyer. But maybe there will be a time when they'd be interested, but I'm not someone who would hand this over. I worked really hard to build this business and I'm not going to just hand it over to someone, even if it is my own kid. I think they have to earn it. They have to show they can do well by the people who work here, that they're qualified to run the business. When they were little, they use to love to come with me to work. They'd say, "Mommy, you smell like chocolate" - that was when I was making, baking and selling everyday.

CWM: You are a very slim lady, and that's interesting being in the kind of business you're in.

AU: That is the question I get asked most often - if I collected a dime for every time I am asked that question… Honestly, I eat more than anyone, but I work out a LOT. I work out an average of four hours a day. Like yesterday, I worked out for an hour and a half in the morning and I played tennis for three hours at night. I lift weights every other day. I'm a chocoholic and an exerholic. I am also a great cook, and if I ever went into competition, I'd be a better cook than a baker. I love cooking, I love food - big foodie. I'm the one that tastes everything. If you ask my employees, they wouldn't think twice about who eats the most around here. I am eating constantly. Before you came [this morning] I had three sandwiches.

CWM: What kind of sandwiches were they?

AU: I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, feta cheese with herbs and tomatoes - I grew up eating that for breakfast in Iran, and another sandwich.

CWM: Do you eat a lot of healthy foods?

AU: I do, but I also like a steak. I didn't grow up with bacon, but I love the smell of it. I went to a party where they served, bacon, chocolate and champagne and I loved it. I could never be anorexic or bulimic. And if I gave up exercise I'd have a huge problem.

CWM: Have you always been that way?

AU: No, not until recently. I use to not be very "gourmet".

CWM: Did you always work out?

AU: No. I didn't started running until I was 26 or so. Then I started slowly getting addicted to running.

CWM: Are you still running?

AU: Yes, I get the "runner's high". I love to familiarize myself with places I go to on vacation by running; you get to see so much more than just by driving through.

CWM: What do you think you'd like to do when you retire from baking?

AU: I would do a lot of volunteer work. I really want to give back. I feel like giving back with money is not enough - I think that is sort of like saying, 'okay, I've done that, let's move on'. I want to give back in time and energy working for someone who can use my services. I would also like to get involved in the area of health and nutrition for children, like changing the foods we have in schools. You may think it's ironic with me being in the kind of business I'm in, but I don't feel like this [desserts] is bad food. I think there is a place for everything - this is dessert - it has to have chocolate. I can't live without chocolate. I just saw this woman who is over a hundred years old interviewed the other day, and they asked her, "What do you do?" She said, "There's two things I eat, chocolate and peanut butter everyday. Maybe that's not why I have lived as long as I do, but I like doing that." That to me is not bad nutrition. Bad nutrition to me is when you give kids potato chips and some kind of processed meat for lunch. That to me is a crime, because this kid is going to grow up loving this. You carry things from your childhood with you. I have some bad things that I ate as a kid and I still love them, because those things stay with you the rest of your life. I'd like to be a part of training kids to exercise in life - not as something that you have to do, but something that is a part of life.

CWM: There are still a lot of kids who aren't growing up seeing their parents consistently make exercise a part of their lives. Was that different for you since your mom was a doctor?

AU: My mother NEVER worked out. I give her advice all the time now about it and ask her, 'Are you doing at least something…a couple of sit-ups?' I'm the one who encourages her to be active. Just being a doctor, doesn't mean you do squat about that. I always saw her made up, always going to get her hair done - never ever working out or even walking. She'd put her little white gloves on and drive. They didn't care about being in shape, working their muscles, etc. My mother still doesn't believe that you can correct things with exercise. She takes medicine because she's a doctor.

CWM: When you reflect upon your life, do you have any regrets on the choices you made?

AU: I think everybody can look back at the choices they made, but what good does that do?

CWM: What advice do you have for people who want to have their own businesses?

AU: I would tell them to do it the way they plan to do it, meaning they should start out with a business plan, which isn't the way I did it. Here's "x" amount of dollars, where do I want this business to be in one year? What are my goals? At what point am I going to say, 'no, the direction is wrong', in other words, when am I going to cut my losses? That's a better way to go about it. I just winged it - going about things as they came up. If you do it the right way, at least you have some benchmarks that you can look for. But really a business is more than that. I think you have to have passion when you start it; something that you have passion for. I could never sell liquor because I don't approve of it, but I love chocolate, so I can sell from my heart. I have a lot of women who call me about going into business. When I can, I have lunch with them. There was one lady who wanted to make puppets, when I talked to her she was really passionate about how she wanted to do it. And as odd as that sounds, if you have passion it's going to work. If you don't have something backing it up [passion] you are going to fail. If you think you're going to just spend five hours in the office, it's not going to work. It takes a lot of heart and a lot of hard work. And that's something you have to be ready for at any time when you have your own business - a lot of hard work. I don't care how ready you are, or how lucky you are.

If you'd like to try some of Silverland's goodies, including their new sugar free lemon bar, stop by the CWM booth on Sunday, November 19 th at the Chicago Women's Show at the Rosemont Convention Center. Athena will be on hand greeting visitors and passing out samples from 12-2. - CWM

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