Herb and Kathy Eckhouse founded La Quercia and work in all aspects of the business: selecting and buying pork, salting, trimming, and handling hams and leading the small group of dedicated staff who participate in our production. We work the full shift for first and second salting; we developed our own spice blends for our pancetta, lonza, bacon, guanciale, coppa, lardo, and prosciutto piccante; and whenever we can, we leave our desks to get our hands into the meat of the matter.
Kathy worked as a ranch hand and then as a researcher in Agricultural Economics at the University of California at Berkeley before she made home-making and mothering her primary occupation. A long time foodie (Berkeley born and raised) who lived in Europe for several years as a child and adolescent, Kathy is the person all of her friends describe as the best cook they know. She adds intuition and a fine food sense developed through years of making bread and pasta, inventing recipes, and reading cookbooks.
For Herb, this is his fifth career. He spent over thirty years in agriculture, from raising seed potatoes to working cattle to developing and marketing commodity crop and vegetable seeds. Before he and Kathy designed and built their prosciuttificio, he spent 5 years researching, experimenting, learning and making prosciutto at home.
Daughter Laurel is pursuing a PhD in Political Science at UC Berkeley after her years with Teach for America and as an Outward Bound trip leader. Daughter Sara works at the White House in legislative affairs, having graduated from Harvard magna cum laude in biological anthropology. Son Aaron is a junior at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. He's majoring in political science with a minor in biology and a serious focus on good food. All three children have pitched in over the years: supporting La Quercia at The Fancy Food Show, handing out prosciutto samples in 45° weather, mopping floors, and, of course, offering plentiful opinions!
OUR CO-WORKERS
We have a great team of dedicated people–Mike, Gladis, Johnny, Maria, Nick, Rosa, Juan, Joselito, Kendra, Hector, Armando, Enrique, Carlos, Jorge, Jose, Fidan, Marcial, Francisco, and Sandra--who learned the intricate work of making delicious prosciutto with us. No detail is too small to be examined and all practices are subject to review and re-evaluation. We all participate in making things better. We always appreciate feedback--we learn from what you like or don't like, so please let us know.
Mike started at La Quercia after more than 20 years working with fresh meat--cutting, trimming, QA, and management. He began on the construction crew that built our prosciuttificio and worked with our Italian supplier to install the equipment for our specialized rooms. He's been here since before the first raw meat came in the door and keeps the place humming. Mike says, "Making Prosciutto Americano is an art form which I find very satisfying. At day's-end I feel that I helped to create a quality, world class product." We couldn't do it without him.
Armando runs our slicing line and Johnny keeps the final trim and packaging operations in good shape, always watching out for quality. Juan, Enrique, Hector and Jorge have amazing knife skills. Gladis, Maria, and Sandra have been with us since our first months and know every phase of our work. Carlos heads up the clean-up crew, an essential element. Joselito is our go-to maintenance guy — he can fix just about anything. Nick runs shipping and receiving. I can't believe we ever did it without him. And Kendra is our office manager: funny, super competent, and utterly charming on the telephone; much nicer than we are. What did we/you do before she came?
