How CharmCuterie Went from a Fundraiser to a Full-Blown Grazing Board Business

When Kandace Lecocq was adopting her now-five-year-old daughter, Miriam, from Thailand, she thought about ways to help offset the cost of international adoption. She and her husband had already gone through the process once before when they adopted their now-eight-year-old son, Saja, from South Korea.

“Since our daughter’s adoption stretched out for years, we did little fundraisers,” says Lecocq. “I thought, ‘What can I do that people would enjoy that would also help fund her adoption?’”

Her lightbulb moment came while attending an event featuring charcuterie boards with salami roses and fruit sliced in unique ways.

“It was the pandemic, and everyone was taking on a new hobby,” she says. “Mine was charcuterie.”

By March 2021, her hobby became a business she named CharmCuterie. “And by Christmas I was so busy I had to turn people away,” she says.

Lecocq’s fascination with charcuterie is nothing new. “For years, if my husband and I were trying a new restaurant and they had a board, we’d order one,” she says. “Each pairing tastes totally different and I love the creativity of it.”

Lecocq, who serves as a pastor at Trinity-Life church in Lutherville, is also a fan of creating grazing tables in which the charcuterie covers the entire surface of a table.

“Grazing tables can connect a room full of strangers” she says. “I love the way it makes them interact.”

Though there’s usually some combination of prosciutto, coppa, pepperoni, and myriad cheeses, along with fruit, vegetables, spreads, and sweets, Lecocq customizes every creation. Of course, her biggest fans are her children.

“I have the only five- and eight-year-olds who ask for charcuterie boards for their school lunch,” she says. “They’re a little bougie.”