Vernalruminations

NORTHERN HARVEST: TWENTY MICHIGAN WOMEN IN FOOD AND FARMING Wayne Press Catalog: Northern Harvest AMANDA DANIELSON Born in Detroit, Amanda with her husband opened their first restaurant in Traverse City, Trattoria Stella, in 2004, proclaiming this community the ideal place, as it was and has been, and will continue to be in defiance of the pandemic and recession of 2020.   Like many other restaurants, Stella’s provided take-out meals for their clients during the shutdown, and is now reopening within the social distancing guidelines. Sadly, Amanda and her partners have had to close the second restaurant described in her story, The Franklin, a venue that I and others have loved since its opening. 2020 has been destructive in ways this country has not seen since the flu of 1918 or the great depression of 1929. Food, its preparation and its delivery, were part of Amanda’s experience from childhood.   With Lebanese and Polish grandparents she was exposed to...

NORTHERN HARVEST: TWENTY MICHIGAN WOMEN IN FOOD AND FARMING https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/northern-harvest MIMI WHEELER       Born on the small island of Morso in Denmark to parents who ran a small grocery store to serve their community, Mimi told me,   “I loved the community of people. . . . I knew that when I started my business I wanted to create a community coming to my little store so people would meet each other and have face-to-face contact. . . "      In this moment of social distancing, we all yearn for that sense of community and that contact, and it’s slowly returning as the virus abates.      From childhood Mimi valued home-cooked food. “I think I’ve always been a little bit of a foodie.”  She moved to Michigan with her American husband in 1980 and for many years followed her passion for community with a career in social work. “Throughout these years I had this dream of starting my own busin...