Some of the best conversations happen in a kitchen.
Not in a boardroom. Not behind a podium. In a kitchen, where something real is being made, where hands are busy, and where the act of creating together strips away the formality that makes honest conversation harder than it needs to be.
That is exactly the setting K. Patrice Williams chose for this episode of Turning Point. She welcomed Tara Beasley Stanberry, entrepreneur, baker, community advocate, co-owner of Noonie’s Place, and founder of Just Pies by Tara, into the kitchen for a hands-on apple pie demonstration that turned into one of the most grounded conversations the show has ever produced.
Because it was never really about the pie.
Listen to the full episode here and keep reading for the ideas worth carrying long after the episode ends.
Entrepreneurship Starts Before the Business Plan
Most conversations about small business ownership jump straight to the technical stuff. Funding. Licensing. Marketing. Business plans.
All of it matters. But none of it comes before the thing that actually makes someone start.
Passion. Purpose. And the kind of perseverance that keeps you going on the days when nobody is buying, nobody is listening, and the gap between where you are and where you want to be feels impossible to close.
Tara Beasley Stanberry built Just Pies by Tara from exactly that place. Not from a perfectly timed business opportunity. From a genuine love for baking, a desire to share something meaningful with her community, and the willingness to take that first step before she had any guarantee it would work.
That combination is the foundation every real small business is built on. The technical elements come after. The belief that what you are making matters has to come first.
K. Patrice Williams knows this firsthand. As a business owner herself, she has lived the uncertainty of building something from scratch. And as a council member, she has spent four years fighting to make that journey easier for Fairfield entrepreneurs. As explored in the piece on Small Business Support in Fairfield CA, her advocacy for reduced red tape, streamlined permitting, and better access to resources reflects a council member who understands what it actually costs to build something and what it means to have your city behind you when you do.
Tara’s story is exactly the kind of story that investment is meant to support.
What Small Businesses Do for a Community
Small businesses do not just create jobs. They create identity. gathering places and the kind of community texture that makes a neighborhood feel like somewhere people actually want to be. When Tara walks into a community with a pie, she is not just selling a product. She is creating a moment of connection. She is saying this place matters enough to bring my best work to it.
That is why small businesses thriving in Fairfield matters beyond revenue and job numbers. A neighborhood with vibrant local businesses, owned by people who live there and care about it, is a neighborhood that feels alive.
Tara Beasley Stanberry makes her community better just by being in it. And the episode makes clear that her success did not happen in spite of her community focus. It happened because of it.
This is the same philosophy behind K. Patrice Williams’ founding of Solano Impact Care, a community support organization helping people across Solano County overcome challenges through personalized care and meaningful connection. Community investment is not a campaign talking point for her. It is something she has built with her own hands, long before she had a council seat.
Every Dream Deserves a Seat at the Table
The episode’s most resonant line is also its simplest.
Every dream deserves a seat at the table.
Not just the dreams that come with funding already attached. Not just the ideas that already have an audience. Every dream. Including the ones that start in a home kitchen with a family recipe and a belief that something made with love deserves to find its way to someone who needs it.
Women entrepreneurs, particularly women of color, face a landscape that has historically made that seat hard to claim. Access to capital is harder. Networks are smaller. The assumption that certain kinds of businesses are somehow less serious or less scalable has cost this economy enormously in unrealized potential.
Tara pushes back on all of that. Just Pies by Tara exists not because the conditions were perfect but because Tara decided her dream was worth pursuing anyway. That decision, to show up for your own vision before the world confirms it is a good idea, is the most important one any entrepreneur ever makes.
K. Patrice Williams made that same kind of decision when she founded Hazel’s Tranquility Place, a transitional home named after her mother, providing safe housing and a real pathway forward for formerly incarcerated women and their children in Solano County. She did not wait for someone else to solve the problem she saw. She built the solution herself. That is what entrepreneurship rooted in purpose actually looks like in practice.
The Conversation That Happens Around Food
There is a reason K. Patrice Williams chose to film this episode in a kitchen with an apple pie being made from scratch.
Food does something to a conversation that nothing else can. It slows things down. It creates a natural rhythm that makes space for thoughts that might not surface in a more structured setting. Some of the most honest things people say about their lives and their dreams come out when they are making something or watching something be made.
The kitchen is one of the oldest community spaces there is. It is where families tell their stories. Where cultures pass themselves forward. Where the knowledge of how to make something from nothing gets transferred from one generation to the next.
Tara Beasley Stanberry understands that instinctively. And K. Patrice Williams understood it well enough to build an entire episode around it. That is what Turning Point does at its best. It creates the conditions for the conversation that needs to happen, not just the conversation that is easy to have.
Listen to More Than Apple Pie on Turning Point here and follow for more episodes bringing together entrepreneurship, community, and real conversations with people doing meaningful work.
What This Means for Fairfield
Tara Beasley Stanberry and K. Patrice Williams are different kinds of builders. One builds pies. One builds policy. But they are working toward the same thing.
A Fairfield where people who have something meaningful to offer have a genuine shot at building it. Where community investment is not just a phrase in a mission statement but something that shows up in how the city spends its money, writes its ordinances, and treats the people trying to create something from nothing.
K. Patrice Williams has spent four years making that case from the council table. Through her advocacy for small business owners, her co-founding of Solano Impact Care, her founding of Hazel’s Tranquility Place, and her platform on Turning Point, she has consistently shown what it looks like to lead not just with a title but with genuine investment in the people around you.
That work continues in a second term. And it continues in conversations like this one, where a baker, a council member, and an apple pie find their way into a kitchen and remind everyone watching that the most meaningful things are still made from scratch.
Visit justpiesbytara.com to support Tara’s work and kpatrice.com for more Turning Point episodes.
Listen to the full episode here.
This November, vote K. Patrice Williams for Fairfield City Council, District 1.
Learn more at kpatriceforfairfield.com
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Who is Tara Beasley Stanberry?
Tara Beasley Stanberry is the co-owner of Noonie’s Place and the founder of Just Pies by Tara, a community-rooted baking business built on passion, purpose, and a genuine love for bringing people together through food. Find her at justpiesbytara.com.
2. What is this episode of Turning Point about?
K. Patrice Williams joins Tara in the kitchen for a hands-on apple pie demonstration, with the conversation covering small business ownership, community impact, women’s leadership, and why every dream deserves a seat at the table.
3. Where can I listen to this episode?
Listen to the full episode here and find more episodes.
4. What community organizations has K. Patrice Williams founded?
She co-founded Solano Impact Care at solanoimpactcare.org and founded Hazel’s Tranquility Place at hazelstranquility.org, a transitional home for formerly incarcerated women and children in Solano County.
5. How does this episode connect to her re-election campaign?
Supporting small businesses and community builders is central to her platform and her personal record. This episode reflects who she is on and off the campaign trail, someone who invests in her community not just through policy but through the organizations she has built herself.