Skip to main content

Jody's Story




Northern Harvest: Twenty Women in Food and Farming
Https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/northern-harvest

JODY DOTSON HAYDEN

Jody was born in southern Arkansas with the southern tradition of home cooking, and when the family moved to Iowa her mother continued the tradition including gardening.
“I only knew a few other people who were really committed to gardening like my mom was. We always had fresh vegetables. . . . I remember for show and tell when I was a young girl my mom sent me to school with a kiwi. All the other children would take toys, and I arrived with a kiwi.”

What shaped Jody’s future life was a graduate school year of fieldwork in Chiapas, Mexico, living with indigenous Mayan farmers. “I got to see it firsthand, what was happening in places like Chiapas.” The farmers were being exploited, the money going to intermediaries, and very little to the actual growers. With her then husband, Chris Streeter, Jody founded Higher Ground, one of the first ten fair trade companies buying coffee beans from farmers’ co-ops directly. This history meant that when Jody and her present husband, D.C. Hayden, took over Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate from Mimi Wheeler in 2012, she was already familiar with Central America and with the sorry history of exploitation.  She and her family often travel to Ecuador to meet with the cacoa growers, sometimes taking others with them to share the experience and see for themselves.
“There is this wonderful dynamic that happens when you meet the cacao farmers for the first time, and you see how labor-intensive it is, what work goes into it.”

In addition to sourcing the best chocolate from Ecuador and paying fair trade prices, Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate sources from local growers for its milk and fruits and teas and syrups.
“If we can get it local, we do. Of course, we pay more for that.  We could make more money if we sourced everything more cheaply. And that’s what a lot of chocolate companies do. . . But we do great chocolate first and foremost and then we add really great ingredients to that. And for us, it is really about supporting our local economy whenever we can.”

To read more of Jody’s story and the story of 19 other amazing women in the food business, Northern Harvest is now available. You can order online from any bookstore or from the Press. May 5 is the official publication date, but a friend who pre-ordered received hers today!

And as Mother’s Day approaches, check out www.grocersdaughter.com for amazing chocolates  for that occasion. The store has a “no cash/no contact” pick-up plan for those of you lucky to be nearby so you can shop safely, or you can place orders for shipping wherever you are. Phone# to order: 231-326-3030.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dos manos in Matamoros

Dos manos      Before the trip to Brownsville, Texas, to help prepare and serve food to asylum seekers held in the tent city across the river in Matamoros, Mexico, Marti told us to bring fanny packs or other bags that would leave our hands free. Whether chopping vegetables or serving from the trays of hot food to the 1,000+ men, women, and children of every age, we would need both our hands , dos manos , at all times. How did we come to be there and why were we doing this? Hunger and homelessness exist inside our nation’s borders, both in cities and rural areas. Tightrope, the new book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, describes families shattered by what the authors call “death by despair.” Donating to good causes and volunteering at soup kitchens are not uncommon, and churches and other organizations strive to meet the need on a daily basis. Still, the need that drew a dozen women in their 60s, 70s and 80s to this community just across the Texas...
Post a Comment
Read more

Barb's Story

NORTHERN HARVEST: TWENTY MICHIGAN WOMEN IN FOOD AND FARMING https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/northern-harvest BARB THOLIN Born in Illinois, Barb didn’t move to Traverse City until 2007. Farming was in her DNA. Her mom grew up on Barb’s grandparents’ farm. Barb studied agronomy, worked on an organic vegetable farm, and cared for draft horses, always a passion. After almost two decades of managing a food co-op and trying to educate people about food, health, diet, sustainability, she decided to devote herself fulltime to educating the public through promoting local farmers, vintners, brewers, bakers, restaurateurs and more.   Happily for this region, she chose to do this in Traverse City, starting up the Edible Grand Traverse magazine,   already surpassing 60 issues.    To read more of Barb’s story and to learn about the 19 other amazing women in the food business in Northern Harvest , just contact your favorite independen...
Post a Comment
Read more

CHAPTER TWO OF THE ADVENTURES OF BRIOCHE

  THE ADVENTURES OF BRIOCHE: CHAPTER TWO   In this sad and difficult year of deaths and distancing, rescue shelters across the country have emptied and breeders had more demand than they could supply for canine or feline companions to help deal with the unprecedented isolation and losses. Brioche was born in July and yes, I decided last spring to seek out a puppy to accompany me in this year of the quarantine and then, most likely, for the rest of my life. A mere 3 pounds when she joined me in September not quite yet 8 weeks old, Brioche now weighs in at a whopping 8 lbs. and has reached the advanced age of 7 months.  Although I was raised in a family with many dogs and always had a dog (and sometimes a litter of puppies) while I was raising my own children, once my nest was empty and work was fulltime and often required lots of travel, I gave up on living with a dog and for many years starting in the late 80s had cats instead. But now after a hiatus of almost 40 ye...
3 comments
Read more