Give often, eat well, drink wine
I arrived at an oddly familiar house. Overgrown native plants and a Planned Parenthood yard sign assured me I was at the right place.
As instructed, I made my way through the greenhouse to the backyard, where I was greeted by Utah Public Radio playing on the speaker and a well-lived-in garden.
Geno Schupp caught my attention; his tie-dye shirt and distinct gray beard have not changed in the 15 years I have known of him.
Janis Boettinger joined us, and we gathered three chairs.
Few things are more peaceful than a warm September evening in Logan, Utah and a good conversation.
Janis and Geno have called Logan home for 30 years. More than 20 years of that time has been spent being involved in and supporting the community through numerous nonprofit organizations. Although their dedication to the community has not dwindled, they lack the time to support all the commitments they want to.
Geno and Janis have made good food and good wine the motif of their charitable work.
“We could just write a check, which we do,” Geno said.
But one thing they like to do — and have increasingly done over time — is incentivize other people to give as well.
“We decided that food is one of the best ways to do that,” he said. “Along the way, wine came into it as well. It became a more and more important part of that culture of a good meal with family. Family around a table with good food and wine and good conversation. We can — it turns out — sell that to other people.”
“It wasn’t like we were raised this way.”
Janis grew up in northern New Jersey. Her mother, a “tomboy,” never cooked, making Janis’ father the curator of her childhood culinary experience. She started to cook full time in her university dorm room when the meal plan was unsatisfactory. In graduate school, she spent her time with friends who also liked to cook good food and buy fresh produce from farmers markets.
“You have to be able to cook to eat the way you want to,” Janis said.
She received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, and her doctorate in soil science from the University of California Davis. Immediately after finishing her Ph.D. in 1992, she accepted a job at Utah State University. Janis studies and teaches soil science, has been the vice provost in the provost’s office since 2011 and is the interim director of the Office of Global Engagement.
“I have never felt more at home any place than here in Cache Valley and Utah,” Janis said. “Partly because I am so drawn to interesting landscapes. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful place. Seeing the mountains every day means so much to me.”
Geno was raised in Florida — and in his mother’s kitchen. Starting with fruit pies, cooking has always been a significant part of his life.
“I always like to eat,” Geno said.
He grew up raising livestock, growing gardens and taking part in agricultural clubs.
“I have always appreciated the importance of good, fresh, local ingredients. It has been a natural part of my life,” Geno said.
He wasn’t immediately drawn to academia, but he always knew he wanted to learn how the natural world worked. Geno eventually attended college and started his career as a tropical ecologist. After he did postdoctoral research in Spain, he became fascinated with its semi-arid shrublands and woodlands.
The semi-arid climate of Utah was attractive to Geno. He was hired in the department of range science at USU and found work he felt would make a bigger impact.
“I could still ask the questions I was always interested in, but apply them to species of concern or systems of concern,” Geno said. “For 30 years, it has worked out beautifully. I am 70, and I’m not retiring. Maybe someday, but they are paying me to do what I love to do.”
While Janis and Geno could trace the importance of good food to their childhoods, their strong desire for investing in and helping their community was something they came to independently.
“It wasn’t like we were raised this way,” Geno said. “It is something we chose because we care about people in our community, and we have the ability to help.”
They met 28 years ago through mutual friends, and as Geno said, “The rest is history.”
The Intermountain Wine Advisor
Geno and Janis’ first community endeavor was the creation of their free, irregular electronic newsletter, The Intermountain Wine Advisor. Currently in its 18th year of publication, the newsletter has more than 400 subscribers.
Inspired by their graduate students’ inquiries about affordable wine, Geno and Janis originally curated the newsletter to highlight deals on wine in Utah. It has expanded to a theme of “life in the Beehive State,” including food news — only local businesses, that is — restaurant and food truck reviews and of course, all things wine.
In the introduction to the first volume of the Advisor, the couple wrote that “the theme of our ranting and raving” would be diversity.
“We really get tired of people saying they only drink merlot. Or cabernet sauvignon. Or chardonnay. Or they don’t like pink wines. Or floral wines. Or fruity wines. Or whatever,” the intro read.
Janis and Geno wrote that they “are sickened by the homogenization of wines around the world.”
“There are so many kinds of wonderful wines out there,” they wrote.
They cater to what they want to promote, such as fundraising events, nonprofit organizations and places they want people to support.
Logan has seen a lot of growth in local cuisine, with significant support from the community Janis and Geno have helped formulate.
“Coming here, there was really no place to go except for the Grapevine, 30 years ago,” Geno said.
The Grapevine was a local restaurant, started by Bill Oblock, who later opened Crumb Brothers Bakery. According to Geno, it was not somewhere most people could afford to go to a few times a week. And so, lacking alternatives, he said, a culture developed of people getting together with a nice meal and drinks at someone’s house.
“That feeling of friends and family around a table with good food and wine is absolutely not specific to here,” Shupp said. “It became a more important part of our culture with our friends because we couldn’t say — now you can — ‘Let’s meet down at the bar and have a few beers and burgers and catch up.’”
“Spain is in my soul.”
Geno’s postdoctoral research in Spain began in 1988. Since that time, the couple have spent two sabbaticals in Spain. Not only was Geno’s love for semi-arid climates realized, but the food, wine and culture captivated both him and Janis.
“Spain is in my soul,” Geno said.
They embarked on a Spanish cooking journey when trying to recreate meals they enjoyed in Spain. They would eat and cook and refine until they perfected a recipe. Spanish cookbooks became a staple.
“Being in Logan, we realized very quickly, if we wanted a good meal, we would have to make it ourselves,” Geno said. “That is when we really started diving into becoming more experienced cooks and exploring a broader range of options and types of cuisines. That passion and ability fed into when we wanted to contribute — what can we contribute?”
Wine tasting and Spanish tapas came to mind first.
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood stickers and LGBTQ+ ally signs decorated the nameplate on Nancy Sassano’s office door in the education building on USU’s Logan campus. Without a face to the name, I did not realize I would so instantly recognize the woman who welcomed me in. Decade-old memories resurfaced of selling home grown chicken eggs at the Cache Valley Gardeners’ Market — she had been a regular customer.
Sassano, a proposal development specialist at USU and Planned Parenthood board member, has known Janis and Geno since she moved to Logan 25 years ago.
The Logan Planned Parenthood clinic has a solid base of support in Cache Valley, Sassano said, and the annual Chocolate Festival fundraiser is that support personified.
“We love the community, and we want to give back,” Janis said. “Even when I didn’t have a lot of money, I did what I could. Early on, we were making desserts to donate to the chocolate festival.”
Janis and Geno’s involvement has evolved to donating signature meals for the auction. Their donation of a meal is the donation of a night out. Donors who meet or exceed the minimum amount receive an invitation to a night at Janis and Geno’s house, complete with wine tasting and eating homemade Spanish tapas.
The Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade affects organizations like Planned Parenthood. Sassano, Geno and Janis said their support for Planned Parenthood may have to increase due to the change.
“We have been periodically picketed and called baby killers at the chocolate festival, going back at least 20 years,” Geno said.
But Geno said the attacks “only make us more committed to fight.”
“It is going to take money for court challenges. It is going to take money for educational campaigns. And it is going to take money for political campaigns,” Geno said. “And we are going to raise that money. At least ramp up our efforts to do our part. But it will take all of us.”
“Giving back is good. If you like a place, we think it is important to be invested in it.”
Although wine tasting and Spanish tapas stayed signature to Planned Parenthood, they began to donate different international meals and wine for other nonprofits.
CAPSA, Cache Refugee and Immigrant Connection, Stokes Nature Center, the Cache Humane Society, Valley Dance Ensemble, the Cache Bar and the Fry Street Quartet have been recipients of meal donations from Janis and Geno.
“Giving back is good,” Janis said. “If you like a place, we think it is important to be invested in it.”
Janis has been on the board of Valley Dance Ensemble since 2003.
“Kids were told they didn’t have the right body type for ballet,” Janis said.
Janis said the group embraces different body types and creative movement.
‘There is always a home at Valley Dance Ensemble for children and adults,” she said.
CAPSA has also been a significant recipient of Geno and Janis’s support. They have donated wine tasting events and dinners.
James Boyd, the chief development officer at CAPSA, said he has not seen anybody else model fundraising like Geno and Janis. Their method of sharing something one enjoys and incentivizing participants to donate simultaneously is effective community engagement, Boyd said, and he would like to see more people taking that initiative.
“It is really important to nonprofits to have individuals who truly are friends of the organization,” Boyd said. “I have always felt like that since the first time I met them at a wine pairing to the time they said, ‘We have furniture, can this help a client?’”
Over the past eight years, CAPSA has increased their budget by almost four times and more than doubled their homes. Boyd said this is very good, but it requires continuous community support.
In 2020, Janis organized a way to collect donations for workers of JBS Foods — many of which were undocumented and could not receive government assistance — to support them in staying home when sick. JBS did not pay their employees if they were caught coronavirus and could not work. Charitable organizations within the community came together to collect money, food and material donations for those in need. The money was used to pay off bills for those who could not make payments. Over 50 families were supported through this effort.
The Fry Street Quartet, a resident string quartet at USU’s Caine College of the Arts, is a more recent recipient of Janis and Geno’s fundraising. After hearing them play at a Stokes Nature Center event, Janis and Geno began organizing events to fundraise for the quartet’s summer music festival — which sponsors school-aged children through scholarships to perform.
Rebecca McFaul, a violinist in the quartet and professor of professional practice at USU, said Janis and Geno’s forms of support create community.
“Joy in the food, joy in music, joy in the connection,” McFaul said. “It is just this kind of great relishing — when you stop to think about it — what actually makes life worth living.”
“Right now, we have more money than we have time.”
Janis and Geno’s expanding list of things to support has its limitations, they said.
“Right now, we have more money than we have time,” Geno said.
Being asked to be on boards, to tour facilities and to volunteer is not something they can commit to.
“We are barely getting by day to day with what we are already doing,” Geno said. “We haven’t thought much about expansion to a new level.”
Janis said, in retirement, she would like to serve on the board of a bigger organization, like CAPSA.
“The only hesitation we have is in deciding how much we can do and stay sane,” Geno said. “How much we can commit to. It is easy to offer dinner that gets auctioned off and makes a lot of money. But you have to deliver on it. There is a limit as to what we can really handle.”
McFaul, Boyd and Sassano all said what they hope for the most is more of the community to be inspired by Geno and Janis and take on a similar initiative. Janis said her and Geno’s goal is the same.
“I hope that someday the things that we do will inspire people like you and your friends to say, ‘Yeah, this is a really cool place. Maybe someday when I have more money than time, I will be in a position to give back,’” Janis said.
For the time being, Janis and Geno will continue supporting the community in any way they can — over a good meal and well-chosen glass of wine.
The Garden
Crickets and neighborhood sprinklers consumed the evening sounds as I wrapped up my last conversation with Geno and Janis — sitting again in their garden.
“It is part of us and our being.” Geno said. “Sharing these meals is sharing stuff from our garden, sharing our produce with others. I think that also makes it a more meaningful experience. They are eating our food that we raised.”
To no surprise, they have donated over 100 heads of lettuce to USU’s Student Nutrition Access Center and other produce to the local food pantry.
“Geno should admit that he finds it very therapeutic,” Janis said.
“Absolutely,” he answered. “Nurturing things along, seeing them grow and start producing. It is a good way to either come to life in the morning — wake up with the garden. Or meditate and close out the day in the evening in the garden.”
It had struck me how comfortable and familiar being in their garden made me feel. Perhaps it was the plants I could recognize from my parent’s garden, or the glowing string of lights lining the perimeter. Maybe it was UPR playing on the radio when I arrived the first night.
Most likely, it was their recognition of our community and culture.
Regardless, I knew their garden — like my parent’s — was an overgrown metaphor for what they value most.