Amazing Real Live Food Co. was one of our very first Hammertown Choices and Sol Flower Farm is our most recent, yet these two local businesses have many things in common.
- Both are involved in bringing us delicious, local, sustainably-produced food.
- Both businesses are headed up by enterprising young men
- Both have created successful businesses which supply food to the finest restaurants (and farmer’s markets) in our area and beyond
- Both are bringing new blood to agriculture here in the Hudson Valley
Rory Chase and Peter Dessler of Amazing Real Live Food are both local guys who went out West and learned many things. Peter worked in the high-end restaurant business in the Santa Barbara area and met the girl of his dreams (Hammertown Associate, Brittany Young), and Rory immersed himself in learning about natural and organic foods, nutrition and marketing. All these new skills would later inform their interest in creating the fantastic artisanal cheeses back home in Pine Plains that we’ve grown to love. In fact, we carry Amazing Real Live cheeses right here at The Barn.
Interestingly, Rory is kind of following in his father (dairy farmer), Barry Chase’s, footsteps. In fact, their new cheese-making operation is now located on the Chase family farm. Who said agriculture is dead!?
Sol Flower Farms’ Andy Szymanowicz didn’t start out here in Pine Plains but we’re thrilled he ended up here. He too was influenced by a family member; his grandfather got him interested in gardening when he was just 5 years old and he’s been in love with it ever since…and he is continuing to inspire others to fall in love with it too. Here’s just part of a post on Sol Flower’s blog:
Andy drove us down Wiltsie Bridge Road on the back of his truck, letting the wind act as a caffeine boost. We arrived in the fields and unpacked the truck of our harvesting tools. There is usually one person we designate in charge of numbers prior to harvesting. They let us know how many of each vegetable and variety we need to harvest and tell us when we have cut or picked enough. This morning that person was Andy; he seemed the most awake. He yelled out the numbers and we all started picking, first starting with kale and working our way to rainbow chard. We picked leaf after luscious leaf until we each had gorgeous edible bouquets of veggies in our hands.It seems a Sol Flower tradition to sing absurd songs loudly and out of tune while washing and packing our freshly harvested yield. Smiles across every face, our morning of harvesting is coming to an end… until tomorrow.
Almost doesn’t sound like “work” when you’re “in love”.
I hope you’ll support both of these wonderful new ventures here in Hammertown Country. We couldn’t be prouder of them!
