Vernalruminations

NORTHERN HARVEST: TWENTY MICHIGAN WOMEN IN FOOD AND FARMING https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books.detail/northern-harvest JENNIFER BLAKESLEE Former ballet dancer, equestrian, world traveler, proud mother, and chef extraordinaire, Jen Blakeslee is the only one of these twenty women to have been born in Traverse City, where, together with Eric Patterson, she heads up Cook's House, a stellar restaurant, opened twelve years ago, and acclaimed for its commitment to local food, to food that is seasonal and from small farms. Jen's love of international cuisines translates these local ingredients into many complex and varied dishes.  For Jen, as for so many women in the food business, “The biggest influence came from my grandmother, who was an amazing woman . . . She grew everything all the time . . . We would spend one whole day driving to the country to get eggs from the Amish farmer.” Cook’s House has been preparing takeout meals during this period of quaranti

Northern Harvest: Twenty Michigan Women in Food and Farming https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/northern-harvest EMILY UMBARGER           When people say something happened “by accident” I don’t agree. Meeting Emily in 2017 when I stopped to ask questions about that new greenhouse on the Interlochen campus near the IPR station where I had been volunteering, was not an accident. Meeting Emily was a marvel and a joy. I learned about her—how with her grandmother she first learned to forage--and also how the two of them experienced 18 th century life, customs, crafts, and costumes, when they volunteered several summers at Fort Michilimackinac on Mackinac Island. The driving force behind the greening of the Interlochen Arts Academy--for which Interlochen received a National Award in 2019--Emily teaches sustainability to students and to children in the surrounding community. She now holds the title of Sustainability Manager, the first time Interlochen has had

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 independent bookseller. After the tough wint

NORTHERN HARVEST: TWENTY MICHIGAN WOMEN IN FOOD AND FARMING https://wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/northern-harvest NANCY KRCEK ALLEN     Chef-educator Nancy Krcek Allen’s mother was Ukrainian, her father Czech. This fueled her passion for international cuisines. She has traveled the world to study them. Studying in Culinary Institutes on both coasts, running a restaurant, a catering business and a cooking school, Nancy has exceled in many domains in the food business.   Nancy is the proud author of Discovering Global Cuisines: Traditional Flavors and Techniques , a magisterial culinary textbook, deeply researched and beautifully illustrated.   And available from Amazon. The virus currently prevents us from enjoying international travel, but thanks to Nancy you can explore international cuisine. To learn more of Nancy’s story and the stories of 19 other amazing women in the food business, Northern Harvest is now available from Amazon and your favorite loc

NORTHERN HARVEST: TWENTY MICHIGAN WOMEN IN FOOD AND FARMING https://www.waynesupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/northern-harvest ANNE HOYT A nne’s story begins in a little town in northern France, Roubaix, where I once visited friends, admired their newborn son, and enjoyed a tarte à l’oignon .  By age 18 Anne had left home and was working on a communal farm with its vegetable garden, chickens, bread making, everything sustainable.   Later  she worked picking fruits and then started a poultry farm, and then moved to Switzerland where she shepherded young cows.  Anne started making cheese—the famous Raclette—when she met and married her Michigan-born husband, John Hoyt, already a cheesemaker in the Swiss Alps. “It was the most beautiful place at 2,000 meters in the Alps, no electricity, no running water, milking cows by hand, and I just fell in love with the job and the place and with the guy.” It took five years after moving to Leelanau County before they could start

JEN WELTY'S STORY Northern Harvest: Twenty Michigan Women in Food and Farming https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/northern-harvest Many mornings at the Traverse City Farmers’ Market I’ve been on the line at the stand for 9 Bean Rows waiting for a plain croissant for me and chocolate ones for my French grandsons.    When I interviewed Jen Welty in her restaurant a few years ago, her first food memory was of the baker in Richard Scarry’s book for children, a pig, as it happens, a pig who was a baker with a rolling pin.   Jen told me, “I loved that pig. I also loved another part of the book that was Halloween. For Halloween, the pig, the baker, got dressed up, but they all got candy.” It was many years later that Jen and husband Nic started their own bakery and CSA, 9 Bean Rows, but in the interim she held many jobs as a baker, working those 3 a.m. hours, toting fifty pound sacks of flour, mastering amazing wood-fired ovens. It was in 2008