Hi, I’m Dawn—the heart (and hungry wanderer) behind Gather & Grow.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been captivated by the way food holds stories. Every meal, every ingredient, every tradition carries the weight of generations before us. I love standing in a place and wondering who walked there hundreds of years ago, what they ate, and how their lives shaped the culture we know today. Food is history you can hold in your hands—and enjoy at your table.

My own story is woven through meals shared and friendships formed around food. I once struck up an unlikely friendship with my neighborhood gas station owner from Iran. On holidays, we would exchange plates of food and share the traditions our families cherished—proof that connection is always possible when food is the language.

Travel has deepened that curiosity. In Spain, I learned how the Muslim presence left behind more than architecture—it left flavors, like tangerines, that still ripple through the culture. In Haiti, I sat at tables with locals who taught me that meals are about far more than sustenance—they are resilience, generosity, and survival shared in community.

Closer to home, my husband and I spent four years as lavender farmers in northern Michigan at McCormick Farmz. What started as rows of fragrant purple fields became a thriving line of culinary lavender products and a lesson in the patience, passion, and reward of working with the land.

Gather & Grow is the natural next step of my journey: a place to bring together food, heritage, and storytelling. Here, I share workshops, tours, and experiences that invite others to taste history, celebrate community, and carry these stories forward.

So come hungry—for food, for connection, for the stories that remind us who we are and how we got here. Together, let’s gather and grow.