Adored wife, mother, grandmother, sister, and friend, Ann Brody Cove, died on July 6, 2023, after over a decade of living with MDS, a form of blood cancer. Ann was the widow of Laurence A. Cove, MD, with whom she enjoyed over 30 years of marriage. She is survived by her children Allison Brody (Peter Jones) of Williamsburg, VA, Amanda Mitchell, David Brody (Perry); and grandchildren Jack (Andrea), Tucker and Lily Mitchell; Samuel and Truman Brody-Boyd; and David Owen and Perry Ann Brody.
Ann was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1942 to Alfred and Hortense Zeltner Paster. She had a life-long passion for cooking and food that was nurtured by both her mother and grandmother. She grew up in a family that often planned a week’s worth of dinners while eating one.
Ann settled in Westport, Connecticut in 1968. While caring for her young family, she began food styling and photography, catering, and teaching cooking starting what would become a career in the food industry. In 1977, she moved her family to Washington, DC where she then worked as a catering manager and director in hotels.
In 1982, Ann began a career in specialty food for which she will be remembered and celebrated. Washington, DC-based Giant Food hired Ann as the Food Coordinator to help create their first upscale supermarket known as Giant Gourmet, Someplace Special. Many family recipes became part of the menu of prepared food on the shelves of this and other Giant stores.
In the late 1980s, she launched her own firm, Ann Brody Enterprises, consulting with supermarkets across America that were developing their own prepared food lines, specialty food start-ups, and new identities.
In the spring of 1990, Ann became senior vice president at the Washington, DC-based Sutton Place Gourmet and stayed there for five years. When Whole Foods (then Bread and Circus) entered the DC market in 1995, she worked with them on forging their identity in the DC market. Ann taught “The Business of Specialty Food Retailing” at the Fancy Food Show for over a decade and was inducted in the Specialty Food Hall of Fame in 2015. Ann continued to consult until she retired in 2018.
Ann’s career also included eclectic, creative, entrepreneurial roles such as owner and operator of Zeltner’s Delicatessen, spokesperson for Grand Mariner liquor, and founding executive director of the Jean-Louis Palladin Foundation whose mission eventually migrated to the James Beard Foundation. Ann co-founded and then co-managed Bethesda Central Farm Markets for many years. As the internet began, Ann worked with online food startups.
She was predeceased in death by her brother, Howard Paster, and son-in-law, Mark Mitchell as well as her beloved dogs Benjy and Daisy.
The funeral service was private. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Ann Brody Cove Fund at DC’s Humane Rescue Alliance; Martha’s Table; or any cause demonstrating compassion, reproductive freedom, and equal rights under the law.
