November Project People: Danielle DeSiato Kuhn (BOS)

This is the 9th installment of the regular feature on NP_BOS blog called November Project People (NPP). NP members interview other NP members, and we all get to know each other a bit better. #community

Interview of long-time NP_BOS member Danielle DeSiato Kuhn, by Jordanna L’Esperance.

The first time I really noticed Danielle DeSiato Kuhn at NP was the day that her husband, Brian, proposed to her at a workout.  I’ve watched her from afar- it’s not creepy, I swear!- as I saw wedding photos on Facebook and waved to her as she worked out while pregnant with her first son.  We had some conversations in passing and over Messenger, so I knew she had something to do with cooking and writing, but I didn’t know much more about her except that she seemed nice and smart and was an NP OG. 

I jumped at the chance to get to know her more and we took advantage of a Saturday morning at my house just before she had her second son.  Daniel (her first son) and my kiddos played while we sat at my table and talked.  Our conversation covered just about everything and I found that we had some similar stories in our backgrounds, which was unexpected and yet so uniting.  It was a delightful hour.  While I have an amazing audio recording (complete with sounds of children playing in the background), I’m going to write up the essential points here. The “too long; didn’t read”:  Get to know Danielle if you don’t already!  She is smart, funny, insightful, interesting, and fun to talk to- I’m so glad I did!

Why do you come to November Project?  Why do you really come to November project?  Why do you REALLY really come to November Project?

Danielle: “I think, now, I come to November Project mostly because it’s a habit.  I just don’t understand life without it.  I kind of can’t imagine not going, which has been one of the most difficult things about the last couple of years of being a mom.  Just how much that’s changed the schedule and not being able to go Monday, Wednesday, Friday like I did for years.  It was just a habit in life.  I just fell in love with it and did it three days a week, as long as I possibly could.  It’s just ingrained, in my life.

“Why I went to November Project in the first place, back in July 2012, was because a friend of mine said, ‘there’s this group of people running Summit Ave hill and it sounds really crazy and  we should go see what they’re doing.’  So, I said, ‘Okay, well yeah, that sounds super crazy, that is an insane hill but you have to run by my house to get there so I’ll go with you and see what happens.’  We met this crazy group of people and Brogan and Bojan, and we thought this is really, really hard and really fun.  We felt so badass, doing this thing that no one else was doing.  That was super addicting.  To be a part of building that community- that was before Mondays existed.  Being part of the first grassroots gear and the first Better Than Bedtime and all of those things that were emerging.  It was just so addicting, and it was life.  

“Life, fun, wasn’t happening until I found NP, and it was all the fun things I’d been wanting to do.  I was in my early 30’s at the time but I missed doing all that fun, young stuff in the city that I had not done when I was too serious about my work in my 20’s.  So, I was just having the best time ever.  I just did not want to miss out.  That was the early days when everything was just so new and exciting and fun and cool and then, then it was all your friends and you were going to a party in the morning with your friends before work.  It was a community that I didn’t even know could possibly exist.”

Can you please tell me a little bit of your story from being born to when you started NP? What has shaped you? 

Danielle told me about growing up in Syracuse, NY.  Her grandparents had an “Italian family neighborhood” restaurant and she spent most of her childhood life helping out there with them.  This fostered her love of food and cooking and inspired her second career as a chef.  Danielle’s first career was in marketing and advertising, which wasn’t a good fit for her, but it did allow her to move to Boston, which is where she had always wanted to live.  She explained that her aunt had lived on the North Shore and Danielle would stay with her for a week each summer.  She added, “I just loved Boston.  I loved the coast.”  Boston was “the only place I wanted to come after college.”  Danielle worked in advertising and marketing for several years, sometimes traveling quite a bit.  She described herself as “miserable” and added that she was married, divorced and remarried in this period of her life.  After many years of working hard and traveling for work, Danielle took stock and reassessed her life.  She began taking yoga classes and a bootcamp class that met in the early morning, and through it met a best friend.  Danielle began feeling more present, more engaged and aware of her life- the positive and what was not working.  She decided to take the leap and go to culinary school.  This is when everything seemed to fall into place.  Danielle finished culinary school and began working her dream job at America’s Test Kitchen.  She developed recipes, worked on the photo team, and contributed to the cookbooks.  “Food is the right place for me, no matter how it ended up.”  At this point, Danielle felt like work was lining up but outside of work, things weren’t quite as aligned. This was when she found NP.  “Finding NP was this hallelujah moment of bridging all the things I’d been looking for.  It led me to a fuller life.  I realized that I WAS an outdoor person, that I love physical activity, that I love to push myself and to run and to be adventurous.  I had been thinking about moving to California the year before I found NP, but starting NP made it so that I loved being here year-round.”

How is your life most different since starting NP?

Danielle laughed at this one and said, “The only thing that’s the same about my life is that I live in Brookline!  Everything else is different.  I got divorced, I married Brian, I had Daniel and I’m about to have little boy number 2.  NP was the catalyst to so much of that change.”  She explained that NP exposed her to what the city and the community had to offer, as well as connected her to so many new people. 

When do people see you most at NP (which workouts, which city, etc.)?

“Fridays!  It’s so easy to walk out the door.”  Danielle added that they have a second car so that she will be able to get to the stadium more often.  “I missed it for so long when I couldn’t go.”  That said, she noted, “Friday is the easiest and most likely.  I still try to make it to Wednesdays.”

What always makes you laugh — or what makes you laugh the hardest?

Danielle said that while Brian can’t ALWAYS make her laugh, she does “really appreciate that he and I have a really similar sense of humor and his jokes, his quips, now his dad-jokes, can make me laugh.” 

What’s something you’re really proud of?

“I am really proud of my son.  That is an easy one.”  

Danielle and I also talked about so many other things- pregnancy, having a second child, having children a bit later in life than some people do, fitting in work and time for self-care.  We talked about parenting and how hard but wonderful and rewarding it is.  We talked about NP and the impact it’s had on both of us individually as well as on our families.  In short, it was a marvelous conversation.  A few days later, Danielle had her second son, Noah, making them a family of four.  A few weeks after that, she made her triumphant return to the stadium. 

BIG CONGRATS to Danielle for really showing up this morning–to PR day by committing to finish a full tour, for the first time since having both kids. That’s a huge PR, for 2020, and for life. You’re a badass. And thank you to both Danielle and Jordanna for your interview– for anyone else interested in interviewing someone you see at NP and don’t know as well as you’d like, reach out to me (Emily Saul) to become a November Project People interviewer.

Share via socials: