How a First Gen Immigrant Broke the Mold with Veronique Kherian, Photographer, Cheese Evangelist, and Classical Singer

0:00 It was, of course, a low time in the legal profession and so, not a lot of law firms were hiring. And I ended up working behind a cheese counter in a very, very small shop and restaurant, and that's where a whole new world of artisan cheese opened up for me, it was incredible. What fuels, a multi passionate life, I'm Jessica one. And in this podcast, I interview people who straddled two, completely different worlds, I call them a Sands, and And we are collectively designing, the Ampersand manifest. I am so excited to be talking with veronique carrion. She is a San francisco-based photographer, she's evangelist and classical singer.

0:49 She studied economics and French at Wellesley and taught English in Normandy. France, after returning to the US to earn her JD, she grew her law practice Focusing on intellectual property, when a life-altering stint as a cheesemonger, brought her into the Forefront of artisan cheese with her blog. Miss cheesemonger, currently she manages the social media for a local San Francisco, cheese, shop and runs her highly sought-after portrait photography business. She sings with local opera companies and choruses and has developed an ongoing project, combining her love of song and artist.

1:29 As and cheese called Miss cheesemonger sings Vero. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me here. Jessica, I'm so excited to see you and to be here, I'm also excited so you and I know each other through the Bay Area, singing community. And you also took my headshots last year, which I absolutely adore growing up as a kid on the East Coast, what did you imagine your adult life to be like, and did it in? Singing photography and cheese growing up in New Jersey and Virginia raised by an immigrant family from Vietnam.

2:09 I 100% thought I was going to be a lawyer when I grew up and that's why I studied economics in college and that's why I tried to have a very serious childhood. I did a lot of reading when I was a kid, I would read something like a book a week. When I was 10 years old, I did always have music in my My life, I took piano lessons from first through 12th grade and I did actually always have dance growing up. My sister took ballet tap lessons, but then when we grew into adolescence we both took on Irish step dancing and that was something we. Got really intense about my sister and I are very competitive people and sometimes we danced against each other and a lot of times we danced with each other, but we We loved music. And so I knew somehow music was going to figure in my life as an adult, but I didn't know what form it was going to take. I always thought I was going to work in a big city like New York and climbed the elevator every day into a skyscraper when be a big names corporate lawyer.

3:19 I did not anticipate anything like my life is today at all, and you have done. The lawyer thing to I did I Think this was a combination of my parents dreams and hopes and expectations for me and something that I was exposed to growing up. I thought that that's what grown-ups did. They wore a suit and they went to an office every day. I thought that's what my life was going to be. Like it was actually when I first arrived at law school at my very first class which was property law. When I realized that this is probably not how I wanted to live my life.

4:00 Life law school was a really challenging time in a lot of ways. Intellectually, of course, it was new level of stimulation for me and and competition. And deep level of studying that I was not really accustomed to, I would wake up at six in the morning and study from Seven until 11:00 at night. And I knew that that was not probably the best way to spend my time. I studied quite a lot. But after the first year, I decided that I needed to devote some of those Those hours in my day to something, I truly loved, I had always loved singing on some level but never really studied it deeply. And I figured that this was the time to do it.

4:41 I could carve out maybe an hour and a half of my day to go take voice lessons and to join a chorus. So that's what I did. I took my first classical singing lessons then and joined, I think it was called the DC Women's Chorus, and that was a wonderful, wonderful escape from from the rigors of Law School. These murders.

5:37 That hyper-competitive environment of law school, kind of forced me to reassess. What was really important to me and music really won out and the calculus and then after law school studied, for the bar exam took that in San Diego. And while waiting for results, spent many, many hours, looking for a job. It was, of course, a loti I'm in the legal profession and so not a lot of law firms were hiring. And I ended up working behind a cheese counter in a very, very small shop and restaurant and that's where a whole new world of artisan cheese opened up for me, it was incredible. The people the craftsmanship Behind these wheels of cheese and the community that cheese was able to, to build around itself was wonderful, beautiful. And I still, I'm so enamored with it today. So, back in 2009, you started your blog Miss cheesemonger, and this was fairly early days for a strong online presence. How has the blog grown and evolved these past, 14 years, when I started, I found maybe three other cheese blogs online. I'm in touch with two of the blog writers, it's not you. It's Bri Kirsten Jackson and Madonna fromage. Taniya Darlington.

6:59 We've kept in touch Blogging has definitely evolved since then. It used to be more of a journaling format. And that's kind of how I use the blog early on to document. What I was learning behind the cheese counter writing about new cheeses, as I studied them and to kind of organize my thoughts, it was not really meant for a large audience who is meant for myself. As I studied later though, I think we reached a sort of golden age of blogging, where there were were sponsorships and special blogger events. There still are these things but I think they have toned down quite a bit since then. And there was a period, when I really turned up the blogging I was coming out with a new post every week. That was replete with a big photography spread and multiple cheeses and multiple condiments.

7:53 That wasn't crazily. Time intensive work but on top of that I was attending events left and right. Only for bloggers and content creators at restaurants and hotel openings, and Wineries. And it was, it felt like it felt like Disneyland unreal and wonderful and very strange because as soon as food arrived, you would get like 50 people trying to photograph it all at the same time. So we wouldn't be able to eat anything until like 45 minutes later. It was wild. My husband hated going to those things because As he said, we can't eat anything. We just have to take photos.

8:34 So did the cheese proceed the photography or did they kind of come together and it seems like also singing kind of came up in that time as well? What was the order of operations? Well I started my cheese blog with a point and shoot camera. That's all I had. And let's see that was 2009 or so 2010 a few years later. Around 2013. When the blog was picking up steam and I wanted to gain more of a following. I ordered my first DSLR camera and started taking that around with me everywhere every single day. Without fail, I would take at least two dozen photos and try to edit them around that time. 2013 2014 is also when I started performing and shows like operas and operettas and so we have a lot of downtime backstage and when we're Ting for our cues and whatnot. So I figured I'd fill that time with photography practice. So I was already in the habit of taking my camera around with me everywhere.

9:39 I started taking it back stage to try to document this new and fascinating world of stage life makeup the costumes backstage, bander all that, it was beautifully colorful and alive and I wanted to see what I could capture of that and then people just started asking me to take their portraits here and there I started taking very low-key headshots with people outside and found that the world of Photography. Well, I'd been practicing it on my own took on a whole new level of work and meaning when I involve a subject that I could photograph and so I started looking into off-camera Flash and from there looked into strobe lighting and a studio and everything just kind of snowballed.

10:30 From there all because I was trying to practice photography for the sake of my cheese blog but it also allowed for me to connect with people in ways. I never thought possible. This must have been quite a leap, having gotten your JD and pass the bar and you're growing this law practice. And now these worlds of cheese and photography and Opera keep presenting themselves, how did you Commit to the leaf. I took a couple of years, to really say to myself that I am not going to practice law anymore and I'm going to devote myself to being an artist. Essentially, I had to go through this sort of mental hurdle. I think I had grown up thinking that art or music it were for your free time, whereas something serious was meant for work hours of the day.

11:28 So I really just had to let that go. At go. And and realize that I could earn or sort of living through writing photography creation as opposed to office work and creating Word document. After Word document, it did take some time, I talked a lot about it with my spouse, my siblings, they're a sort of validation or approval meant a lot to me, and they told me to go for it. So especially my husband he Was very supportive of me, devoting myself to art as long as he could see, I was happy and continuing to take it seriously as a business.

12:11 It wasn't just something I was doing for fun. I had to treat my art like a business basically. And once I was able to do that, I could let go of the other business of law. Yeah, it seems that the core for all of these Pursuits, you're very much an entrepreneur and And there's so much creativity in each of these businesses and also how they connect and interact with each other. Let's take a short break to reflect on this question. How do your creative Pursuits? Connect and interact with each other outside of Hosting this podcast?

13:01 I partner with leaders in the workplace as they rise up. Perhaps you've gotten a promotion landed, a new role or taken on a lot more responsibility. And you need a trusted sounding board to support you as you support your team. I coach individuals and Leadership teams to rise to the challenge with my a and blend of analytical and creative. If any of this intrigues, you reach out to me at Jessica one.com. Now, back to the show, see you describe yourself as a huge Francophile and you are this way. Even from an early age. How did your passion an affinity for French culture grow over the years?

13:46 Well, my parents are from Vietnam and so they grew up in a French education system, they were taught in French and they had that connection to the culture and when a lot of my family members left Vietnam, a handful of them settled in France. It's as well and we were always able to keep in contact. I know before I was born, my parents were casting around looking for name possibilities. They did tap that French contingent of our family and asked for their ideas. And that's how I ended up with this French name of veronique. I think I was sort of Born to Love France, but As I Grew Older, I started learning the language. Continue through High School.

14:33 I still remain very close friends with my high school. French teacher, Madame pizanno. She's a wonderful friend. A second mother, I majored in French in college, I studied abroad. My husband is French will be married for 14 years, this week, actually. So it has figured a lot into my work especially with cheese. It's great to be able to connect with French cheese makers and French cheese folks. In their language, I've gotten to meet some Cheese makers in Normandy, for instance, where my husband is from. We visited Camembert. It's actually a town and Camembert. The cheese is made just outside of that town.

15:14 It's great to be able to connect to them with their language. So it sounds delicious. Let's talk about Miss cheesemonger, sings. So your recital series that pairs classical vocal music with artisan cheese. What have you learned from curating? And performing in Shows I've learned about the importance of teamwork and developing the right team. I have a wonderful cheese partner, his name is Ray bear. He's the owner of cheese Plus in San Francisco and he was on board with this cheese recital. Idea, ever since I presented it to him from the very, very beginning.

15:54 I can't imagine working with anyone else to bring these Cheese's to the city or wherever I'm performing. He works with me too. To curate the selection of cheeses to match the music that I'm singing his dream was to be a rock guitarist and so he can relate to the connection between food and music and creativity and doing something new. I definitely did not think anybody was going to come to a cheese recital because it was, it was a strange idea to me, but I remember walking into my first venue, which was in the basement of a church. Friend of mine was managing the site and she said that there were 50 seats.

16:40 And I remember thinking, I hope I can feel 50 seats and we ended up having some overflow. I think there were maybe 60 people and we had to squeeze some tables into the back. I appreciate her very much for telling me that I could easily fill those seats and I was likely to sell out, she was right. And then after that we tried a slightly larger venue which I think had About 75 seats filled up and then we overflowed again. We had almost 90 people at that concert so it's just been amazing to learn about about my audience and work with them, every time I like interacting with them during the concert so I can see the kinds of questions. They're, they're curious about what they want to know about cheese and what they want to know about music cheese and music.

17:27 They might seem like esoteric Concepts but if you present it in a way that's engaging for people Whole new world of each realm opens up and it's exciting. It's exciting for them as it's exciting for me. I learn about cheese and music every time. What do you think is the intersection between classical singing photography and cheese? Like if we were kind of looking at a Venn diagram? What's at the center? I think all of these subjects are are ones that any one person can spend. A lifetime learning about their sort of endless subject. Someone can devote their entire life to cheese and not know everything about it.

18:12 Same thing with music, same thing with Photography, they are all such nuanced, technical skills that allow us to create something beautiful and also connection with an audience. That's I think the thing that draws them all together, I have met such incredible people in all of those realms. Eames tease people are incredibly quirky and welcoming and Brilliant and Technical if I didn't say that already, and that's the same with music and that's the same with photography. A current project of yours is an audio-visual recording of a song cycle.

18:53 Five of the seven Elizabethan lyrics by Roger, quilter, you're creating little vignettes like music videos for each song, what inspired you to experiment with creating visual narratives around music? Well, that comes back to having a great team. Several years ago, I met this wonderful video. Guy Alex, Cruz Vergara. I tapped him too. To video one of my cheese recitals just a very straightforward recording but afterwards we started talking and I realized that he's actually a deeply creative guy. He's a lot of fun to be with, he's quirky and he's increasingly technical, I've watched him develop his skills over the years and he's wonderful videographer and cinematographer right now.

19:40 I just knew I wanted to create something Visual and to create it with him. So that was that was a big impetus. And I chose these Elizabethan lyrics because a I'd actually never tried a project in English. I always end up singing in Italian or French for whatever reason, but this was a new challenge. Also I wanted to try my hand at some visual narratives each song has has its own story and they are all actually tied together by one common visual device. But I wanted to see See how I could explore the depths of emotion visually as opposed to just musically.

20:26 What do you hope the audience will gain from this project kind of similar to the cheese recital? I'm hoping that people find a new way to connect to this music. These poems their Elizabethan, right? So there are several hundred years old people, don't really talk, like the way we talk in these poems anymore. We still however, Talk about the same subjects. So what I did is I put a sort of modern visual narrative to go with these Elizabethan poems. And I'm hoping that we can bridge the gap between then, and now and show people that the lyrics are old, that they still relate to a lot of the things we go through these days.

21:13 Hmm. Sounds like finding common Humanity that Lasts throughout time. What advice do you have for people who are pursuing or thinking of pursuing an ampersand life? Honestly, I can't imagine living any other way. There's no way that we can live in only one dimension. We are just being human live in multiple Dimensions. We are sisters and wives and mothers and cousins and friends. We always have Another way to connect with somebody, another means of connecting with other people in terms of tying professional lives together. These days, it's pretty rare for one person to stay in one job, their whole life or to stay in one company, their whole life changes constantly a part of our vocabulary, and I think it should be a more, welcome one.

22:12 It leads to a more enriching life, more enriching experience, more ways to connect and it helps us discover new facets of our life. As we get older through these interviews were collecting Pearls of Wisdom to collectively create principles for leading a multi passionate life. What do you think should be in the Ampersand Manifesto? Do what you love? Don't do what other people think or expect of you. I think the only person that you Are beholden to is yourself. I think that's that's the heart of what I do. Everything I have tried and may have failed and succeeded at is all because I have stayed true to my internal compass and I fervently hope that anyone trying to live their Ampersand life or their best life.

23:10 Does the same, any tips on how to find that Compass or how to Really hone in on what you even want. Cultivating space in your life is really important and space to allow your brain to breathe is really important as well. So you can recognize what is important to you and what isn't? But without the distraction or didn't of other other voices. So it's almost like cultivating boredom in some some cases Allow yourself to be bored. And through that, I think your brain is going to naturally gravitate towards what it wants to that should give you an indication of what you should be doing Vero. It's been such a pleasure talking to you today folks. You can check out varro's work at Vero carrion.com and she's also on Instagram at Vero, carrion, and also at Miss cheese.

24:17 Longer, and we'll link to these in the show notes. If you liked this show hit, like, subscribe and share with your friends and fellow ampersands, I had an opportunity to reflect on my interview with the Barrow, there were so many incredible insights and I'm going to try to whittle them down to three to share with you one. If I had had a few more hours with marrow, I would have loved to learn more about her upbringing as a child of immigrants. Her relationship with her sister and competitive, Irish step dancing. Being a first generation, Chinese Canadian American myself. I understood what Vero meant immediately when she mentioned immigrant family, expectations doctor, lawyer fessor. These were careers, worthy of the sacrifices, your family made for a better life.

25:12 I thought it was remarkable that Vero broke the mold but also so that she chose to see things through. First, she knew in her heart that law probably wasn't for her all the way back in that first class in law school. But she stuck it out and took and passed the bar exam and she practiced law while discovering her dreams. I really respect this. It's also a great reminder that ideas can take years to fully form while you're on a totally different track. To, I loved how ver owes creative process comes together through, documenting learning and practicing. And this came up several times, she's blogging started as a way to document, what she was learning and eventually became a business.

26:01 Tog Rafi was a practice first, four cheese, then for documenting backstage life. At the Opera, there is portrait photography business started, organically from this practice and then blossomed into something much bigger. Three. I've been really thinking about this idea of quietude and boredom as a key to finding what you love, we live in such a noisy world of inputs. Whether we're seeking them or not. What happens when we strip away that noise what's left and what do we gravitate towards in a way? This reminds me a lot of coaching.

26:43 This is what we do in coaching is strip away, that noise. Eyes and to see what's going on in there when you have that Quiet Mind. I actually didn't love cheese. When I was living in France at first, but it's grown on me.