When you think of Toby's Family Foods, it's important that you keep one thing in mind; it all started with one creative woman. Toby is the kind of gal you'd like to have tea with. She'd answer your questions with a thoughtful smile and ask some of her own. Toby has three children, all of whom were the inspiration for her tofu paté recipes almost 30 years ago. The Oregon Country Fair, that venerable institution of "did you see that?!" was the focus group for many of Toby's original recipes. Because still more people needed to know about Toby's extremely good food, she staked out a spot at the Saturday Market in Eugene. Toby was so successful at the Saturday Market that she and six of her friends opened Blair Island Restaurant in 1980. While the restaurant world gave Toby a great forum for testing her mostly dairy-free and vegan recipes, she didn't hit her stride until she began producing tofu paté in her licensed home kitchen and selling it to local health food stores. Demand grew like grass roots. It will do that when a delicious product is paired with earth-friendly practices, a fair price and easy use. Restaurants who were using her all-natural paté's asked for salad dressings. She made them. A tofu-based sour cream and tofu seasoning were also added to the mix. In 1994, Toby's son Jonah joined the family business in an executive role and expanded Toby's Family Foods to distribution in Portland and Seattle, among other very cool business-like things. Today Toby's Family Foods is in a space that's larger than most gymnasiums. Sometimes we do cartwheels here. Sometimes we skip. Sometimes we sit quietly and think about how profoundly lucky we are to be able to bring healthy, delicious food to people everywhere. After all that, we get back to work.