Board member interview: A. K. Vincent

—by Anne Holzman

When North Country Co-op closed its doors about two years ago, A. K. Vincent was a member of the board of directors. Now she finds herself again serving on a co-op board, this time at Hampden Park Co-op.

North Country had served Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood since 1971 and had nurtured many other Twin Cities co-ops. “It was a large piece of history,” Vincent wrote recently in an e-mail. “Many of the other cooperatives sprang up out of North Country."

“Many hearts were broken when [North Country] closed,” she wrote. “I will never forget NCC; however it mends my heart to be here at HPC.”

Vincent also works at the Hub Bike Co-op in Minneapolis, where she is a co-owner. “We’re not a consumer co-op, we’re a worker co-op,” she said of the Hub. She has also worked at Hard Times Café, and worked at North Country in addition to serving on the board. She described herself as a “co-op geek.”

She hopes that as a board member she’ll be able to help HPC look to other co-ops for ideas and inspiration.

“I feel like the board’s main job is, one, to represent the membership …, and, two, to give the co-op some governance … assist with some things that are beyond operations … bigpicture stuff,” Vincent said.

She’ll serve on the Board Development Committee and the Membership Committee. She was elected at the November 2009 annual meeting; her term runs for two years.

Vincent said she does not remember going to co-ops when she was growing up in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, but her mother, a nutritionist and teacher, set her on the path.

“When I moved from Ohio to here,” she said, “co-ops and collectives were one of the main reasons."

“Food co-ops make a lot of sense to me,” she added. “There’s a kind of doit- yourself mentality.”

Vincent and her partner live in the Carleton Lofts, on University Avenue near Raymond, where she apparently has a reputation for getting things done. Halfway through an interview, she excused herself to answer the door, then asked if she could call back after she’d helped a neighbor solve a problem.

Vincent’s professional training is in sculpture, which she studied at the Art Academy in Cincinnati. “Metalwork is expensive and heavy,” she said, and the Carleton lofts aren’t set up with the proper ventilation to continue that practice. “Currently I am re-igniting my love for photography,” she added.

And she is taking a clay class. “It’s a good way to play,” she said, describing it as a challenge to her “anal” personality. “It’s a medium that doesn’t always behave in the way that you’d want it to.”

In her free time, Vincent enjoys both urban and mountain biking, as well as running and reading.

She said her favorite cuisine is Japanese. “I love to cook with miso, shiitake, kombu, mochi. And I prefer to cook with a cup of hot sencha in hand.”

Raw food is a particular interest for her, she said. She has a sister living in southern California, which gives her an opportunity to compare notes. “You’re out there and there are palm trees and there’s sunshine and it makes sense to eat that way because it’s local.”

Minnesota winters notwithstanding, eating raw, or “un-cooking,” remains attractive, she said. She especially likes a chili recipe based on almonds chopped in the food processor, blended with marinated mushrooms and chopped carrots and whatever other ingredients seem interesting.

“We always add extra stuff to it,” she said—especially hot peppers. “We make a big pot of it and stick it in the fridge.” Served over warm brown rice, she said, it’s good even in cold weather.

Vincent said her favorite Hampden Park Co-op product is “Kathy’s soup! The soup that HPC serves in the deli is stellar! I also love the tempeh sandwiches.” She said she buys a lot of apples, too. “The apples usually don’t make it home (we’ve eaten them),” she added.

[Anne Holzman is a freelance writer and home cook who is realizing she could get a little more adventurous with the chili.]