The Hudson Green Collection, debuting April 21, 2023, is the result of our collaboration with Chef Brooke Williamson, a friend and the winner of Top Chef Season 14. What began as a micro drop of Dutch Ovens in Hudson Green—a custom color chosen by Chef Williamson and named for her son—has now blossomed into a full on assortment of kitchen and dining essentials. And it doesn’t just look good—it does good, too.
A true multihyphenate, the chef-owner of LA’s Playa Provisions and Food Network regular is also a member of the leadership council for No Kid Hungry, a national campaign led by Share Our Strength working to end childhood hunger. Through fundraising dinners, community meals, and private classes, she tirelessly finds ways to use her work to further theirs.
When she suggested that we use the Hudson Green Collection to support No Kid Hungry, it was a no-brainer for us—as a cookware company, the significance of feeding others is not lost on us. For that reason, we’re pleased to share that, in partnership with Chef Brooke Williamson, 15% of the sales price from each Hudson Green purchase will be donated to No Kid Hungry, up to $5,000.
Designing The Hudson Green Collection
Quality means everything to Chef Williamson. She’s willing to wait for it, too. You can see that in her long-simmered recipes for risotto bolognese and on the menu at Playa Provisions, where ingredients are harvested, prepared, and served at their freshest. We first noticed it while designing the Dutch Oven—our team spent five years perfecting it, with chefs patiently beta testing it and providing feedback. “One of the things I love most about Made In is that they don’t sacrifice on quality,” Chef Williamson explains.
When it was finally ready for market, Chef Williamson came back with a simple request: a Dutch Oven of her own, in a deep green shade reminiscent of a potager (Chef Williamson is also an avid gardener). The Hudson Green Collection—a selection of artisan-made cookware, knives, and other essentials designed with Chef Williamson—was our answer. “I could just put my stamp on cookware, but here we’ve gone down to the details,” explains Chef Williamson. “Now I have my own color, named after my son.” Fans and followers on Instagram will know that for Brooke, family—and especially her son, Hudson—is everything.
We began with a Hudson Green Dutch Oven, and Chef Williamson immediately put it to work in the home kitchen. “It’s an incredibly versatile, multi-purpose piece of equipment,” says Chef Williamson. “All of my son’s favorite things come out of that Dutch Oven.” While as a chef she notes and appreciates the artisanship and thought behind each tool, as a mom, it’s even more exciting to use them to make meals and memories with her family. With the expansion of Hudson Green to include Mise en Place, Prep Sets, and even more heirloom Enameled Cast Iron, you can do the same.
Nostalgia aside, these are the tools Chef Williamson returns to again and again, both at home and at work. But Chef Williamson knows that true quality comes down to the subtleties of how things are made and why. With that in mind, she suggested one final change to make this (nearly) perfect Collection one of our most important and impactful: Use the sales to fight childhood hunger.
The Reality of Childhood Hunger
Food—the biological need for it and the pleasure derived from it—is one of the few things that all people share. Still, a 2021 survey by the USDA indicated that 13.5 million households remain food insecure. For these families, the term “food insecure” means they “will have difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members because of a lack of resources.” This issue, exacerbated by the pandemic, affects millions of children each year, who must then also navigate the potential consequences: poor academic performance, developmental delays, and chronic health conditions, among others.
Hunger is a difficult problem to “solve,” so No Kid Hungry acts by countering its devastating impacts wherever possible. That means providing direct access to healthy food for children in need, and empowering families with life skills, resources, and support to make nutritious choices. At the policy level, No Kid Hungry routinely advocates for policies that support families struggling with food insecurity, such as expanding access to school meals and SNAP benefits. It’s a strategically multi-pronged approach to solving an endemic problem.
A Collective Effort to End Childhood Hunger
Like No Kid Hungry, feeding others has always been at the heart of what Made In does—we suspect the same goes for Chef Williamson, as well. To us, it only made sense to double down on that intention with the Hudson Green Collection, using beautiful, heirloom tools to invite our community members, home cooks, chefs, and friends to pitch in and find new, creative ways to feed more and more people.
Since its inception in 2010, No Kid Hungry estimates that the organization has provided over one billion meals to children in need. Our goal is more modest: a $5,000 donation that can, based on No Kid Hungry’s estimates, provide up to 50,000 meals to children experiencing chronic hunger.
By supporting the Hudson Green Collection, you’re not only expanding the possibilities and extending the lifetime of your Cookware—you’re doing your part to eradicate food insecurity. Our one ask: Once you have it in hand, pay it forward by feeding someone—maybe with Chef Williamson’s Dutch baby recipe?
