Meet Hadassah Patterson | Chef, Community Coordinator, Visual Talent and Filmmaker

We had the good fortune of connecting with Hadassah Patterson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Hadassah, we’d love to start by asking you about lessons learned. Is there a lesson you can share with us?

That is a tough one! There are so many lessons – all the time!

But we can’t do this by ourselves. More than anything I’ve learned that support is important. I’m very independent. I love getting things done and I generally know how it’s best done, but it takes a team, and some things take several teams!

Also, the advice Sheryl Sandberg gave based on her book, Lean In, talked about a business woman’s support system. And I couldn’t agree more that whoever has your back, really needs to have it. Not just posturing or wanting to be seen, but actually showing up and being there for you in some way. He needs to be about my success and happiness too. It’s not rocket science if people value one another properly. He’ll want me to be successful and we’ll work it out for one another.

Couples don’t have to work together, but your support system needs to be a real, living breathing thing. And family matters a great deal. It took a lot of soul-searching before I recognized when I needed to ask for help and that it wasn’t shameful. Chalk that up to generational and cultural narratives. At any rate, I’m over it. We are worthy of just as much love as we’re willing to give.

And while I still highly value my agency and leadership ability – which I really discovered later – the only way one can function at peak health and efficiency is by understanding our strengths and weaknesses at a point and working with people who complement that in some way. And having people who are trustworthy in those roles cannot be understated. If they say they will do X, they should follow through without complaint, in a spirit of teamwork.

Either we value one another or we don’t. And to me, humans resources are the ones you can’t replace. I don’t buy into the expendable people mindset. Each person in a role of our life is unique and has something unique to contribute.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

I’m most proud of my community. It has taken a long while and a very complex life to reach the point where so many in my circles are good people, doing good things – especially as people of color.

And having a sense of belonging in those spaces is something one should value. Finding one’s extended family – the family we choose and didn’t know we had has been a real blessing for me as we navigate this universe right now. My Black/African American family and my American Indigenous family have really shown up for me at times, and accepted me whole.

That in itself is revolutionary – to be accepted as one’s whole self – and not a fragment or shard of oneself. I’m super excited about Origins: the Culinary Heritage of the Southeast Woodlands and all that is yet to be. We have so much planned! Ooooh! I can’t wait to see it all come together! It’s going to be lit!

My father always told me what he admired most about me is that once I set my mind to something I see it through. I have a relentless drive to follow up – every single day. I wake up to do my best and better than yesterday.

My story has plenty of twists and turns yet. But what I love most is the privilege of being a part of others lives, and the trust they place in us to tell the stories or simply walk with us on the journey for a ways. We all have an impact on one another. I aspire to have a positive impact whenever I can, to whatever extent I can.

Storytelling is a responsibility, a gift and a legacy. We can only do this with the support of our community.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.

I keep the remaining favorite spots to myself for the sake of my safety and privacy.

Also, as a journalist, with my hospitality background, from this area, that much of my work is worthy of compensating well. So, I don’t devalue my work that way. A journalist or influencer is compensated very well for their longform work and time, for just one article review or social media post. I’d showout fo my best friends though. 

The cities have changed so much in the last few years, also. We still have lots to offer, but many of the places I would recommend are no longer there, unfortunately. Hopefully those left will continue to thrive as things change.

More to the point, I’d implore civic leaders to do much more to support small mom-and-pop and minority businesses in the region. We are still reeling and recovering from the pandemic, in an industry that already needed reform but didn’t get as much lasting help as other industries. There are so many grants and initiatives out there for municipal benefit – which can be passed on to small business stability – and without hangups!

And allllll of my cool and fun and funky places require happy, productive staff to run and maintain. That means employing people who aren’t millionaires yet.

Can we see more safe affordable housing and preserving NOAH, or naturally occuring affordable housing – especially for single-family home owership?

Home ownership does much more to support minority food sovereignty, well-being and self-sufficiency than temporary-at-best rental housing and skyscrapers – which are affordable where now?  That’s what creates long-term community stakeholders. So many national thoughtleaders I’ve interviewed in community development echoed this wisdom.

Can we do more to sustain community stakeholders and impose limitations on pandering to foreign entities who are just flipping through to make a quick dollar? Anyone who had real background here knows enough about our history to know all of this.

I would say that communities here require living wage jobs, high-functioning transportation systems, affordable education, maintaining the boundaries of greenspaces  — without development encroachment or destroying indigenous plants which comprise, protect and support our food eco-system. Plant more indigenous trees. Safeguard our water and natural resources from exploitation. Support the middle class backbone that cities are built on. We’re making some progress in some areas, but whew. There’s much to be done still!

Because many of the places that make Triangle cities so special are disappearing, and the cool and fun and funky people are disappearing with them. That would be my recommendation — free of charge. Thank you for asking.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?

They brought me to this point, and for that I am thankful.
I had a very informative upbringing. My parents were teaching parents, and as I have matured I’ve seen how increasingly rare that is becoming. Folks now just give up when it gets hard, and they certainly didn’t. It wasn’t a Utopia, but we had solid education before we went to school and we were homeschooled at a point. They did the best they could, and we were advanced kids at home. It was not easy with us smart alecks! We had some laughs though!

After that I had some good mentors along the way.
Chef Kevin Nichols was one – he’s family. Scott Curtner – our general manager at NCSU was a good guy. My bank supervisor Kelvin Bonnette was another. He does all manner of visual work now, and more than that. He’s never asked for a shoutout or acted like that at all, but always happy to give a reference. Another bank supervisor – Richard Burleson, now has his own company as well – just great guys. You’ll notice most of them were guys – family men who are good fellas. That was not by contrivance. They have quietly been good people. Period.

Also, the chefs and instructors at Wake Tech – that was a formative experience in my adult career for sure. The Dean and President were top notch.

The good folks at Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services – Jack and Freda have been amazing to me as a small business owner. Author Nancie McDermott has taken several of us lucky food folk under her wing as food family.

I don’t have any baloney about my work. But I have seen that if a female is going to be successful, there must be a framework to be mentored and managed in a professional way. And while one hopes some mentors will be female for a well-rounded experience, those mentors at upper echelons are more often men, statistically. Which means we need that process to go well, often.

We have so much on our plate and expectation list already. We simply don’t have the bandwidth to deal with pea-brained assumptions people try to make because of gender or looks or whatever.

I also know factually there have been folks who left a few places I worked due to their values, and I want to say thank you to them as well. Because the stand we take matters in certain moments, even if it isn’t easy right then. I certainly don’t keep ties with those kinds of places either, and they are not welcome in my life. Boundaries are there for a reason and will be respected.

I’m a Gemini, but very balanced and traditional about my own values. I don’t care what other folks do if it’s legal. But *in work* I have different vocations, and so have no time for drama. I have time for a good laugh, or a good story. I have time for cooperation and good work chemistry. It’s truly wonderful when you can have a great camaraderie and flow with your people, like these folks here.

If we want to succeed, we must be coachable. There’s our mindset in work and then there’s the mindset that deals with us in work. The culture of our leadership is vital. So it’s just as important to put ourselves in rooms where they *will* coach women without stigmatizing us for being one! I’ve got big ideas and even bigger fish to fry. That’s my take on food work experiences.

In my writing, I was most impacted by Kathy Hanrahan at WRAL as a female leader. She was fantastic and still is. Not because of our shared femininity, but she’s great at what she does. She listened actively and also gave me credit and trust as a differently-abled reporter, and really coaxed the best work out of me possible. That really meant the world to me. She believed in me.

Most of my editors have been great, but more of those relationships were one-offs as a freelancer.

I’d like to give some credit to all of the allies along the way who I may not remember this instant – all of whom put time in and shared knowledge or listened to mine respectfully. Not just that, but valued me and my contributions as a human being, and did their best to set me on right paths. We take on different mentors as life changes, and I’m in a big shift now.

Angie Staheli was the first person to encourage me to start acting regularly in earnest. She is the sweetest soul. My acting instructor has been Estes Tarver and the fun group at Moonlight Arts and Entertainment – great guy and teacher. You can tell he wants to see everyone succeed and feel valued and safe in that space. My agent is Ann Greene at Talent One. It’s been a real growth experience and am enjoying honing my craft.

Now a wide variety of people have been instrumental as consultants in my work – and for access to my “Rolodex” people should contact me and hire me. But I consistently refer my own consultant clients to certain people because those people are fantastic to work with and worth paying. And they are of all genders and backgrounds. They know who they are, and they know I’ll refer to them. I enjoy seeing people succeed.
Thank you all for being amazing individuals. I believe in you all too!

Website: https://wellleafchef.square.site

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wellleafgoods

Linkedin: https://muckrack.com/hadassah-patterson-1

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/welleafgoods

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcH1uAVxyU9_eUXjm1rabrQ

Other: https://southerndocumentaryfund.org/origins-the-culinary-heritage-of-southeast-woodlands/

Image Credits
Cowgirl hat dress photo – Victoria Nuplez