The Game of Life, According to Ellen Marie Bennett
by Lisa Alexander, Photos by Amy Dickerson
When I meet Ellen Marie Bennett at the Hedley & Bennett factory, it’s one of those hot days where everything feels as if it’s literally melting off the walls. And then there’s Ellen sweeping in, dark hair swept up, wearing white shirt and leggings, and calling out “Hi” to everyone.
Hedley & Bennett, the much-beloved chef apron company, is in a new phase, visible as she leads me past the test kitchen, the long wall with the aprons—“This is every collaboration we’ve ever done”—past what were once the treehouse offices, the zipline they used to whiz through the factory on, the hammocks now tucked up close to the ceiling, and into a deliciously air-conditioned room with lots of colored thread spools. The snacks are there. The water is there (her team is very on it and very good).
At first meeting, Bennett, 37, is as charismatic, kind, and beautiful as she is determined. She has small, expressive, doer’s hands; big brown eyes; and finely drawn features. She’s exceptionally pretty, and also generous and joyful, especially when she’s focusing on you and answering your questions in a torrent of words.
“I feel like every time I’ve had one of my sons, I just look at everything very differently,” Bennett says. “There’s remnants of who I was originally, but I’m in this next phase, and it’s like I’m coming out of the next cocoon, and I’m shedding certain perspectives and thoughts I used to have.”
It shows, of course. There’s a newness here, maybe slightly more relaxed, or at least ready to be relaxed.
“When I was in my 20s, before I had kids, I wanted to dance at everybody’s wedding, be at every dinner, every photo shoot, every meeting, every call. I wanted my fingers in every single piece of every single pie,” she says. “And now I’ve realized, with these boys (Nico, 2, and Bodhi, 3 months), that I shouldn’t actually do everything, and I can’t do everything. In the little time that I do have, am I going to spend it with my boys, or am I going to spend it in that meeting that the team can really do [on their own]? So now I’m more out of the day-to-day and focusing on my boys and the future.”
Not that it’s easy. I can see in Bennett’s face the daily push and pull, part of being a Woman on Fire in today's world. Having a new baby requires a seismic, if joyful, adjustment from the whole ecosystem, both at home and at work. In this cool and practical room, we’re surrounded by what she’s built, Hedley & Bennett being the hub from which so much else is now radiating: Kitchen Glow Up (her Tastemade TV show), H & B’s collaborations with such brands as the NFL, Star Wars, and Elmo, to the kitchen products on their horizon. It’s also a business closely connected to her creativity, and that of her husband, Casey Caplowe, Chief Creative Officer at H & B.
“Casey’s a really good blend of art and science,” Bennett says. “And I’m very much art. So, he helps me go from a big, giant, massive concept in the air, to whittling it down to this finite thing that we can actually wrap our heads around. He’s a really calm energy; it’s like calm and storm.”
At that moment Caplowe comes in, calmly taking a few photographs of a Dutch oven prototype, and then quietly leaves.
“And he’s an incredible listener,” she says. “I’m very verbal, and he can take [that] and process it so that everyone else can understand what I’m trying to say. We’re also both very visual, so we have all these mutual playing fields where we align. It’s a beautiful gift. He helps me land my planes, and I help him get his planes off the ground.”
There’s grit as well as glamor here too; you can see it in how much Bennett’s been able to accomplish at such a young age (she started Hedley & Bennett when she was 24). Where did that come from?
“My (Mexican) mom,” she says, without missing a beat. “She gave me this relentlessness that’s just unstoppable. Some of these women are here and some of them are in Mexico, but they all have the through-line of resilience. And shit goes south all the time. Things don’t go well in life, and they get up the next day, and keep going. And they taught me that ... it’s grace, yeah, the grace of quiet relentlessness.”
And her dad?
“British, and a mechanical engineer, very structured and by the book. He’s the guy who will read the entire instruction manual front to back. So, when you smash up those two ...” She beams. “It’s me in a nutshell.”
You might already know her rocket-fueled story from her book Dream First, Details Later: How to Quit Overthinking and Make it Happen. Her parents divorced when she was 9; at 18, she went to Mexico City, signing up for CESSA University's culinary school and reconnecting with her Mexican heritage. When she came back to LA, she talked herself into Michelin-starred kitchens, volunteered to make aprons for the team, and the rest is history. Bennett says she didn’t get her learning from formal institutions; as her book encourages people to do, almost all of it she picked it up on the fly.
“There was a time in my life when I thought I could just figure it all out on my own,” she says. “And now I’m definitely in my adulting stage, and I know that doesn’t work. Instead, I just go out and ask a billion questions, call everybody I know before I start cobbling together a vision out of thin air because that is my favorite part of creation.”
Which brings me to community, which also figures in her book as she talks about regular meetings with fellow female entrepreneurs.
“I love going through life and collecting good eggs,” she says. “I’m very particular but, if I think you’re awesome, I’m literally, ‘What’s your number? Put it in my phone. I need your email. We’re going to take a picture together. I’m follow you on Instagram.’ And then I think, ‘How can I support this person and contribute to their life?’ And that’s how we get forever linked because now there’s this flow of energy between us.”
Again, it feels like a new formula because it’s rare in our transactional world, though it’s really only connecting the dots with passion and soul.
Our photo shoot day is infernally hot as well. Bennett and Caplowe’s home in Pasadena is a low ranch house on a cul de sac, with an expansive backyard right up against the wild hillside. They have every possible oven and grill in the back, including Bennett's most recent collab, a gorgeous Gozney x Hedley & Bennett pizza oven and a shiny new Big Green Egg. There’s also a beautiful leafy tree, a play structure, mysterious clay figures, and Oliver, the pig, asleep in the heat. Inside, there’s lots of primary colors and her son Nico running around while Bodhi gets passed from hand to hand.
“I hope my kids can learn how to listen to people, get their ideas, but then act and learn from their own experience,” Bennett says. “I want them to know that there’s a really big world out there, and that no matter where they go and what they accomplish, [if] they show up at a house with no floor, just be humble to be there and grateful for a beautiful bowl of beans.”
With her just-finished maternity leave, Bennett has finally had time (a little at least) to think about the future too.
“[Personally], when I first started Hedley & Bennett, I dreamed of the day when I’d have a CEO and partners and all of these things. Now I have them, including a TV show I dreamed about for 10 years, and maybe it’s not always perfect in the way you imagined it, but you’ve got to zoom out and remember, ‘Hey, this is actually the dream that you wanted.’”
With Hedley & Bennett, they’re at the next base in their journey, she tells me. They’re not an apron company anymore; they’re a kitchenware culinary brand. They’re going deeper and wider into the kitchen space, and tremendously expanding their community through collaboration.
“Our chefs will always be at the forefront of our creation,” Bennett says. “Helping us design products and helping with product development. They’re taking it into their kitchens. They’re giving us feedback. They’re telling us how things should look and what works and what doesn’t. We’re still using that as the recipe for success, so that our products will be legit and proper and beautiful.”
Hedley & Bennett is now transitioning from soft goods to hard goods, though that takes more effort because it involves industrial design and 3D-printing materials. Quality will still be the most important thing, she says, because she wants H & B to be a heritage brand.
At home, while the babies sleep (or sort of sleep), Bennett gets to work, confidently firing up the grill, turning chicken breasts to brown and peppers to char. In between, she poses for photos and breastfeeds her boy. It’s a familiar blur of multi-tasking.
“Getting there is such a big part of the game of life, not the victory,” she tells me. “You have to get through things in levels. And if everything’s ‘Fuck, it’s so hard,’ it’s a lot harder to climb that mountain. But if you say, ‘This is the level I’m on, and I’m going to figure how to get up on that fucking rock,’ it’s easier. Your own morale goes up too because you are not giving up. What I wanted to be and do five years ago, I’m doing and being right now. So, I’m just trying to embrace it and not rush through it and think about what’s next.”
I’ll remember the look on her face, one I recognize.
“That right there,” she says, with a wondering smile. “That’s a big shift in my universe.”
