Adelade’s Baked Goods in Northport: The Little Stand that Could
By Madeleine Hill Vedel
Sun contributor
Take a period of unprecedented disturbance, add a cup of communal spirit, a dash of post-retirement creativity, a couple handfuls of craftsmanship and sprinkle on a liberal desire to share and give back: the delicious result would most certainly resemble The Big House Farm Stand, featuring Adelade’s Baked Goods and locally grown produce in Northport.
Pat and Lori Wilson, the self-described Brady Bunch-style, recomposed family of once single parents (each with a son and daughter), met in 1995 through their daughters’ friendship: “Jessie! Danielle! They shouted as they ran towards each other at the Northport Beach Park after school one day,” said Lori. Lori was teaching in the Northport Public Schools at the time, and Pat, brother to Kathy (Wilson) Garthe of Garthe Farm, was making a living with his art and music.
Lori, a life-long teacher and educator, has taught in many of the schools in Leelanau County and throughout the state of Michigan, with memorable years at the Holy Rosary School in Cedar and Northport Public School. However, as much as she loved teaching, she also had a hankering to share her passion for “Grandma Cooking.” Inspired by the cafes they visited during their honeymoon in France, Lori and Pat opened the original Adelade’s coffee house in 2003 in Suttons Bay. To go with the quality coffee they served, Lori dug up family recipes and honed new ones. She compared a dozen recipes or more for a particular sweet, picking and choosing favorite elements, and arrived at what many considered the ‘best brownie’ and the ‘best scone.’ After a successful run of three years, they sold the original Adelade’s shortly before moving to New York and a new chapter of their lives. Both the former and the current incarnation of Adelade’s are born from their creative partnership. As Lori tells it, “Pat designs things and landscapes so that they are accessible, thoughtful: the signage, all the graphics. All that you see that is beautiful is what he’s done. What you taste is what I’ve done. Without his artistic hand, I would just be baking cookies for the grandkids.”
Retired and relocated back to Leelanau Peninsula and the village of Northport since the summer of 2019, Pat and Lori were searching for ways to invest in their community. The pandemic pushed their winter fireside chats towards the tangible. Pat got busy designing and building, and Lori got busy adapting her coffee house recipes to her home kitchen (they are operating under the cottage industry law).
As Pat puts it: “The farm-stand thing was about the pandemic. Since we’ve gotten back, we were hoping to get involved directly with the Northport Community – find things to do to be a good part of the community. Then the pandemic came. People were nervous about going to grocery stores. We thought it might be good to have something on the street where people could come.”
The roadside stand is located at 215 South Shabwasung Street, right as you enter Northport coming north from Omena on M-22, between the two blinking yellow lights. It is small: 12 x 5 feet with a classic white market tent on the front end facing the street. Entirely open, there is no “inside”; designed for easy physical distancing. Open barely two weeks when I spoke with them, the stand has been an instant sensation. Many fondly remember the Wilsons’ homemade sweets during their time in Suttons Bay and have written grateful notes about their cocoa nib brownies, their apricot pecan frosted scones, and the abundance of new cookie flavors (each named after a grandchild: JJ’s Monster Cookie, Aliyah’s Oatmeal Cookie, Lleyhton’s Australian Anzac Biscuit, to name but three of many).
As Pat tells it, they don’t have fixed opening and closing hours, but aim to put out the baked goods by 8 a.m., now sitting side by side with local Garthe sweet cherries, soon to be joined by Alper’s berries, and potentially overflowing produce from neighboring farmers. The farm stand is open till all is sold (generally by mid-afternoon). Items are individually wrapped and priced. The sign on the stand says: “Cash. Pay as much as you can or are able.” It is important to Pat and Lori that if you want a scone or berries and don’t have the cash on hand, you pay as you can, or even help yourself. The farm stand is for the community and an effort to bring local produce and goods to local residents.
Recipes will rotate in and out. For the moment they lean towards the sweet rather than the savory. But Lori is experimenting and who knows what will appear over the next few weeks. Inspired by the cherry harvest, she has been making seven-inch rounds of her cherry coffee cake as well as cherry almond scones and cherry almond granola. A longtime favorite cinnamon cake is also available, as well as her vanilla pound cake and cherry coffee cake. A new endeavor is Lori’s offering of her “Grandma bread”, aka a simple white loaf sold along with a bag of beans or lentils and a recipe for a slow-cooked and nourishing stew. During the Depression her grandmother often bartered her bread for other essentials. Offering up this simple bread with a recipe and a bag of beans stirs up memories of a loved one and the values she transmitted to the current day.
“I think everybody should try to make a pot of stew or black beans. We’d like to offer that kind of thing. It’s not a big part of our business. But let it inspire you to make it at home.” Further elaborating, Lori said, “My grandmother Adelaide — her picture is on the farm stand, from 1918 — she raised her kids during the depression. She traded baked goods for eggs and such. People worked really hard to put food on the table. And that’s kind of what we’re promoting. For everybody to be able to do this.”
Lori and Pat are back in Northport after their 12-year stint in New York, to the delight of their family, and many more. Invested in their community, eager to share and create, the Wilsons have crafted a hub of delicious food and connection. So next time you drive up to Northport, take a drive by and see what is out on their shelves. And if your vegetable garden or fruit trees are overflowing, send them an email or send them a message through their Facebook page, there might just be a spot at their stand for your produce, (even if all you have is zucchini).