Ashley and Gordon are the kind of people I love to photograph and write about. They lift the heart, and I love it when they succeed where so many have failed. Hard work and creativity work. It helps to be brave.

These two have just opened their new coffee shop and bakery in nearby Greenwich, N.Y., and when we came to wish them well today and check the place out, we had to get in line. Every table in the bakery was full.

We’ve driven by a dozen times at night for weeks and seen the lights on as the two single re-imagined a cafe and restored the room themselves, plumbing, walls, and all.

This was our first time inside. The cafe is called “Coffee and...” It’s the right name. There’s lots of tempting stuff in there. It has the wonderful smell that bakeries used to have.

There is an uplifting story behind this latest advance of the young food revolutionaries who are re-shaping eating in our area and county. Ashley and Gordon are Covid refugees. The pandemic brought them home.

Ashley was born on a farm in Cambridge, and Gordon is also from here.

Thanks to the enterprising and courageous young, we are having a genuine food revolution here; sometimes, I feel like we’re in Brooklyn. Imagine. The Pandemic has turned life upside down in our country, and one of the things it has upended is the departure of creative and courageous young people away from small rural towns like ours.

The new entrepreneurs are thinking outside the box. They learn from the mistakes of their elders and have new ideas for success.

Ashley and Gordon moved away, as many ambitious gifted young people have to do to find good work, and ended up in Northern Vermont.

When the pandemic struck, they returned home and decided to stay and follow their dreams here, as several young food creatives have done (of different ages). It is great to see the energy and drive of the young; you can see it in their faces in the portrait above. Some work out of food wagons and carts, some buy farms and grow vegetables, and some have found a way to use empty spaces in a new and inexpensive way.

Ashley is very talented, and she and Gordon decided to prepare food in a new way – low rent, no help, long hours, diverse menus,  and much courage and drive.

They get up well before dawn to do the baking, sandwich, croissant, and coffee preparations. In addition to baked goods, cookies, and scones, they serve locally-roasted coffee and fair trade teas. I made a brief plea for Ashley to think of the diabetics and people who can’t eat a lot of sugar. She said she will.

We bought two croissants and two scones, and I cheated on my diet. The scones were beautiful.

I had the pleasure of witnessing the birth of this dream from the beginning. We don’t know Ashley and Gordon well, but Maria and I have enjoyed watching their goal of chasing. I have a big soft spot for people who follow their dreams. I see them as holy in some way. And I know them as the happiest and most fulfilled of people.

We met Ashley five or six years ago when she was a waitperson at the Round House Cafe (she stood out for her hard work and presence); we met Gordon through some of the great jobs he did on our farmhouse, and we saw Ashley and Gordon again when Ashley started baking and selling her work at the Cambridge Farmer’s market and at a bakery in Hoosick Falls down the road.

People lined up for her baked goods; there was a lot of buzzing about her cookies and scones.

The two worked hard, hauling tents and tables to the market and trying different foods – bagels, croissants, cookies. Ashley told me several times that she and Gordon had a dream – their bakery. It seemed impossible; brick-and-mortar buildings were emptying everywhere, and inflation and gas prices were soaring.

Ashley studied the successes and failures of other people who prepared or sold food and paid attention to the struggles of restaurants and bakers and ways to be more efficient.

When a coffee shop in Greenwich closed, they decided to leap. They did all the restoration work themselves and transformed the space beautifully.  The place was jammed today.

There is something stirring about a young couple taking this leap at a time when so many people are struggling and failing, and others are afraid to take chances. People here liked Ashley’s cookies and scones, and now they’ll also have bagel and egg sandwiches on Sundays.

We now have lovely goat cheese, yogurt, and soap from Cindy, and her goat farm, fresh crepes from Bob and Bonnie, Laotian food in Schuyerville, a french restaurant and brewery and music house in Hoosick Falls, excellent wood-fired pizza, salads from Corey and Sarah in the Shift wagon, and now, bagels, scones, pies, and croissants from Ashley and Gordon.

Are we really in Washington County, New York? Pinch me.

I have to be fair and say the pandemic brought us some culture and plentiful things to eat as well as chaos and disruption.

The food revolution continues in our small and agricultural rural community. God Bless The Young And The Brave.

And Godspeed you two, Ashley and Gordon. From what I saw today,  you’re off to a great start.