I am passionate about creating, and love all things chocolate. When I saw an opportunity to share that passion with others, I took it. After much experimenting and working to perfect my technique, I developed my first official product and Ella’s Chocolates was born.

A personal favorite of mine, the chocolate covered cherry, was where I started. Taking a big fat cherry, wrapping in a secret confection and dipping it in a bath of dark or milk chocolate. Ahh….

After sharing with family and friends, the requests starting flowing in. Unable to stop there, I went on to create a soft homemade caramel encased in a thick semi-sweet chocolate, and a creamy peanut butter ball dipped in chocolate with a surprise in the middle.

Shortly after beginning my business venture I went to Vermont to visit with family. I knew I had hit on something big when a couple of women took bites of my chocolates, they bent slightly at the knees, one said, “mmmm” I’ve arrived at “The Land of Delicious.”

Tucked away in the sleepy Moosehead Lake region of Maine, Northwoods Gourmet Girl has been producing all-natural, elegant pantry staples since 2005; one jar at a time.

Perhaps inspired by the myriad of artificially-flavored, chemically-altered condiments that line the shelves of supermarkets around the nation, chef Abby Freethy set out in 2005 to create a company that specialized in healthy alternatives to common pantry staples. Northwoods Gourmet Girl started with country ketchup produced in Freethy’s own home kitchen, and has expanded to a product line of over 18 items, including relishes, jams, preserves and desert sauces.

“I grew up in a home where the kitchen was constantly filled with the smell of my Ukranian grandmother’s scratch cooking, sheltered from the processed foods that still remain omnipresent in today’s society,” says Freethy. “Northwoods Gourmet Girl is my attempt to bring quality of life back into the kitchen for families throughout New England.”

Northwoods Gourmet Girl has grown from its humble beginnings to a sustainable business with a heavy focus on community enrichment for both children and adults.

“I started this company when I was pregnant with my son, and soon realized that the basis behind all of it lays in my desire to raise awareness amongst both parents and children about the importance adopting a healthy lifestyle,” says Freethy. “At Northwoods Gourmet Girl, we believe that health starts in the kitchen and with proper nutrition, which is none of our products contain preservatives or other artificial ingredients.”

Northwoods Gourmet Girl is a purveyor of gourmet, all-natural, and healthy pantry staples, including a product line of over 18 items, including ketchups, mustard, relishes, jams, preserves and desert sauces. Northwoods Gourmet Girl draws on Abby’s culinary training as a chef, with a goal of using high quality ingredients sans preservatives. In addition to the pantry staples, Northwoods Gourmet Girl launched a branded lifestyle home goods early in 2018, including furniture (kitchen islands, farm tables, chairs, and benches), dinner ware, glasses, pottery, and tea towels. All home goods are designed working with local artisans and crafted with high quality materials by Maine artisans and carpenters. The slow roll out of of the hard goods will be solidified by a brick and mortar store in Abby’s home town of Greenville Maine on beautiful Moosehead Lake.

KATE SHAFFER

With more than 20 years experience in the food industry at all levels, Kate Shaffer brings a high degree of know-how and stick-to-it-iveness to the production workings of the company.

Armed with a library copy of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Kate took over the management of her family’s kitchen at the age of 10. Her first after-school job was serving frozen yogurt at a little shop in her hometown. She continued to cook for her family until she left her home state of California at the age of 16. Her unconventional culinary education continued as an exchange student in Turkey, where she developed a passion for exotic spices and flavors and ethnic traditions. In her late teens, she moved back to California, and worked at a busy breakfast and lunch restaurant where she stayed for 10 years, learning every job there was to learn, from the back of the house, to the front. While attending classes in Culinary Arts and Hospitality part-time and working to finish her degree in English Literature from UC Santa Cruz, Kate moonlighted in other restaurants, cooking, baking and learning new ways of working and managing. You could often find her asking for traditional recipes and techniques from her Mexican, Brazilian and Salvadorian co-workers.

In her late twenties and newly married, Kate moved to Maine, where she became the chef and produce buyer at the Keeper’s House Inn on Isle au Haut, a job at which she stayed for five years. During her time there, Kate sourced her ingredients from a dynamic network of local farmers, fishermen and artisan food producers. She gained a reputation as a skilled cook noted for her seasonally inspired menus, her expertly prepared food and her beautiful presentation. During the time that Kate cooked at the Keeper’s House, the inn and its food was featured in Gourmet Magazine, Fodor’s Escape to Northern New England, National Geographic Traveler, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe.

While still working at the Keeper’s House, Kate began a small catering business and ran it successfully for another season after she left the inn. As with her menus at the inn, she focused her efforts on the preparation of unusual, sometimes exotic, dishes, using organic and locally grown and harvested produce, meats, seafood and dairy products.

Kate brings the same passion for fine ingredients, respect for the land and people, love of beauty and spirit of adventure to her chocolates. She has approached the sharp learning curve of professional chocolatiership with the spirit of an adventurer and the careful eye of an artist—and, by much trial and error. Kate augments her experimentation with courses on chocolate making (she holds certificates for both Professional and Maitre Chocolatier from Ecole Chocolat, Vancouver B.C.) and hundreds of hours of research into the subject