Lake County is home to a growing number of gourmet food companies, and while each of them has a slightly different history, most began with a recipe, the kind of recipe that friends and family found absolutely addictive.
For Highland Park resident Carol Goldman, owner of Carol’s Cookies, it was a recipe for oversized chocolate chip-walnut cookies.
At her friends’ urging, she asked Walter Ori, the deli manager at Sunset Foods in Highland Park, if he’d be interested in stocking them. Seated in an office scented with the aroma of freshly baked cookies, Goldman recalled, “He told me to bring in a few dozen cookies the next day, but instead I brought in 50 pounds. They sold out by noon, and Walter told me to go home and start baking.”
Ten years and millions of cookies later, production averages 25,000 cookies a week, give or take a batch or two. Even though the company now has five employees, a nine-cookie repertoire, and distribution throughout the Chicago area, as well as in parts of Michigan and in Neiman Marcus stores nationwide, Goldman insists on mixing all of the dough herself and maintains that no one else knows the recipes. She has, however, included them in her will. (The cookies sell for $5.98 a pound.)
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Lake Forest resident Trisha Anderson started making soups while living in Minnesota. So when she developed a dried, 11-bean soup mix for a cooking class she was teaching, she decided to call it Minnesota Heartland Soup. Her class liked the product, as did customers attending a Junior League holiday market organized by a close friend. Additional gift bazaars followed, and Anderson gradually expanded her product line.
By the time she was ready to introduce her third option, the name Frontier Soups seemed like a natural. Not only did it capitalize on the growing interest in regional cooking, it also evoked an image well suited to her generally hearty product line. Frontier Soups, based in Lake Bluff, were introduced nationwide in 1991. Making the soup requires the addition of ingredients not contained in the mix, a format Anderson believes contributes to their appeal. She observed, “For people who are short on time and, in many cases, short on cooking skills, this type of mix offers an alternative to a steady diet of canned, frozen, dehydrated or carry-out products. They truly make `homemade’ easy.” (The soups sell for $4.99 to $5.99 per package.)
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Moving from the Los Angeles area to Lake County left Maria Reid of Lincolnshire, president of Reid Foods Inc., gastronomically deprived. “I simply couldn’t find a salsa I liked,” she said. “There was no way around it; I had to start making my own.”
She eventually developed a chunky, fresh-tasting, minimally processed salsa made with out-of-the-ordinary ingredients such as shredded carrots and green bell peppers. Friends loved it, and Reid started researching the salsa business, eventually concluding that it was a product whose time had definitely come.
Her current repertoire, all marketed under the Maria’s Style label, consists of three tomato-based salsas (mild, medium and hot) and one done with tomatillos. The products are made to Reid’s specifications by Dorina Foods of Union, Ill., and are distributed throughout the Chicago area and in parts of Wisconsin. Plans call for expanding into jams, relishes and Sicilian-style sauces based on Reid’s treasured family recipes. (The salsa sells for $3.59 per 16-ounce jar.)
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Lynn Newman of Buffalo Grove started making English toffee 10 years ago, gradually perfecting her recipe until family and friends agreed it was the best they’d ever eaten. When she decided to leave her job as an investment broker and reassess her life, the idea of going into business for herself proved irresistible.
Sunset Foods in Northbrook agreed to sample the product, and shortly thereafter, it appeared on Sunset’s shelves. Newman’s Sweet Temptations toffee is made with butter, sugar and sliced almonds. A coating of chocolate sprinkled with chopped walnuts is used only on one side to avoid masking the flavor of the butter.
Still in its infancy, the business remains a one-woman operation, and Newman continues to hold down two other part-time jobs. (Sweet Temptations sells for $6.59 per 8 ounces.)
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Ask Judy Weiss how she learned to bake, and the Highland Park resident starts to tell you about her aunt, Lottie Bronson. “My mother and her sisters all had their specialties, and Aunt Lottie was the baker. She went to great lengths to teach me everything she knew and gave me all of her favorite recipes, including the one for chocolate green nut cake.”
Good as it is, it wasn’t Aunt Lottie’s chocolate cake that launched Weiss’ career; it was her brownies. Sunset Foods agreed to sample them 11 years ago when Weiss complained that the ones they were carrying were far too dry. She currently markets brownies, lemon squares and a variety of other petit-four-sized sweets under the Judy’s label at Sunset Foods, Anton’s Fruit Ranch and by special order.
Weiss, who continues to sell real estate, admitted that balancing a family and two careers can be difficult. “But I really love to bake,” she said, “and somehow it all works out.” (The brownies sell for $6.29 a pound.)
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Lincolnshire resident Andra Karnofsky, a psychologist employed at Lambs Farm in Libertyville, went into the food business a little more than a year ago. Her Heavenly Hallah breads, like so many locally produced products, are sold at Sunset Foods and Don’s Finest Foods. And like so many other gourmet foods, the breads, as well as the recently introduced Heavenly Rings, are an updated, upscale variation on a familiar concept.
Breaking with tradition, Karnofsky’s hallahs use both whole wheat and white flour, with the emphasis on the former. She also offers a no-yolk version for customers watching their cholesterol, although the fruit-filled rings are all made with the standard dough. Despite the changes, the breads still have the soft texture and slightly sweet taste typical of the genre. Both the breads and the rings are made in the Lambs Farm bakery, with much of the bagging and labeling done by residents.
Finding a way to blend her two careers has been especially satisfying for Karnofsky, and despite increases in her production, distribution and product line, she has no intention of altering the arrangement. (Loaves sell for $3.59 each; coffee cakes sell for $3.99 each.)
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To supplement her husband’s income, Elsa Amidei of Highwood used to take in laundry and do domestic work. She was on her hands and knees, washing a client’s floor, when she decided there had to be another way to make a living. She remembered, “I was always thinking about cooking, always coming up with new recipes. And since I was from northern Italy, most of what I cooked was very different from the kind of Italian food people were used to eating.”
With her family’s backing, Amidei, her sister Gabriella Knox and her daughter Pat Galli opened a gourmet shop called Pastificio! in Highwood in 1976. Knox left the business after the first year, but Amidei’s son Mark, now a practicing dentist, and son-in-law Mauro Galli picked up the slack. Those first few years were a real education for everyone concerned.
“We had to do so much explaining, because our food was so different,” Amidei said. “Not many people had eaten a lasagna made with cream sauce or pasta topped with pesto. Even pasta was something of a mystery.”
Almost from the beginning, Pastificio! sold “fresh dry” pasta to local restaurants and specialty shops. A second retail outlet opened in Buffalo Grove in 1990, and plans call for both the expansion of the wholesale side of the business and the addition of more stores. (Pasta sells for $3.50 to $3.98 a pound.)
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Betsy Bowen has been vacationing in Stowe, Vt., for 10 years, long enough to develop a real affinity for the state’s products and especially for its maple syrup. During this same time period, she headed an executive gift service and developed an expertise in the mail-order business. Putting the two interests together, she founded Maple Bounty Products a year ago in February. The company markets pure maple syrup and pancake mix made with stone-ground whole wheat flour, cinnamon, ground nuts and currants under the Maple Classic label.
Although the products are actually produced in Vermont, Bowen does most of the marketing from her home in Lake Forest. “We specialize in shipping the fancy grade Vermont syrup made from the first sap that runs from the tree, a product rarely offered outside of the state,” Bowen explained. “Known as Fancy Grade Light Amber, the product is typically offered in gift packs that also feature the dark amber syrup produced during later runs.
“This is a family business, and my husband Bill’s son Jay supervises the Vermont end of the operation, which includes production, packaging and shipping. The response has been excellent, and we’ll be adding a maple sugar-sweetened buttermilk pancake mix to the line next fall.” (A two-bottle gift pack of syrup containing 16-ounce bottles of each type sells for $20; $30 with the pancake mix.)
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When it comes to popcorn, Phyllis Cretors, president of The Popcorn Factory, is veritable royalty. Not only did her husband’s great-grandfather patent the technique for popping popcorn in oil but his family business, the Chicago-based C. Cretors & Co., manufactures and markets much of the commercial popcorn-making equipment used throughout the world. In addition, her father owned and operated a popcorn-related business that she eventually helped run. So it seemed only logical for Cretors to focus on popcorn when she decided to enter the mail-order business in 1978.
Mailed to 25,000 potential customers nationwide, Cretors’ first, single-sheet flyer listed only one product: a 6 1/2-gallon decorated tin filled with a three-way mix of butter-, cheddar- and caramel-coated popcorn that was destined to become both the company’s most popular item and the only food product actually produced in its Lake Bluff plant.
In contrast, the 10 million full-color catalogs issued last year were crammed with a tantalizing array of carefully selected snack foods packaged in gift baskets and tins designed by nationally known artists such as Sandra Boynton and Tomie de Paola.
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Margaret Gunn and Fred Came didn’t begin with a recipe; they began with a company. Both bought an existing business and then proceeded to improve and expand its product line and distribution network. Except for a brief stint as a caterer, Margaret Gunn’s professional life was focused on the banking industry. In 1991, however, she turned entrepreneur and purchased Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Wilderness, a boutique food company whose repertoire was limited to frozen soups (which have since been dropped), barbecue sauce and a few specialty items.
She said, “Don’s Finest Foods already carried the line, so I was familiar with it. Buying it meant making regular trips from Lake Forest to Milwaukee, but I thought it was important, given its name, to keep the company in Wisconsin.”
Convinced that growing health concerns, along with limited preparation time, will result in plainer cooking and the increased use of condiments, Gunn has successfully expanded this segment of her product line. She also has begun marketing in areas other than the Midwest, and selected products are featured in Bloomingdale’s gift baskets and stocked by Dean & Delucca in New York and Williams-Sonoma nationwide.
Wisconsin Wilderness’ cranberry chutney is also served in the Walnut Room at Marshall Field’s on State Street. This same cranberry chutney is a favorite of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. And when Gunn exhibited her line at a recent charitable function in Washington, D.C., the chief administrative officer of Blair House, the guest house for official dignitaries visiting Washington, came by the booth, tasted the chutney-along with several other products-and they’re now under review for inclusion in official menus. (Product prices range from $2.59 to $3.99.)
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Like Gunn, Fred Came of Green Oaks decided to leave corporate life and buy a small company of his own. As vice president of sales and marketing for a division of Leaf Inc. in Bannockburn, he had had considerable experience in the candy business. But in March 1987, he stumbled across tiny, Los Angeles-based Golden Walnut, tasted its unique walnut-shaped cookies and realized he’d found his niche. Within a week, he and brother Harry, who was then living in Hilton Head, S.C., had purchased the company, with the idea of moving it to Lake County.
Golden Walnut typically expands its product line by purchasing small, high-quality, financially troubled companies. Its latest acquisition, Monica Gourmet Foods Inc. of Kalamazoo, Mich., was added in October, and as is usually the case, its recipes were left virtually intact, while its packaging and marketing strategies were completely revamped. (Walnut-filled cookies sell for $3 per 6.1-ounce box.)
Golden Walnut Specialty Foods is hardly a major player in the food business, but size isn’t one of Fred Came’s concerns. Voicing sentiments that could easily serve as the motto for most, if not all, of the gourmet food companies of Lake County, he concluded, “Being real big is not one of our objectives, but being real good is.”
