I met a new food dreamer, fresh from Washington D.C., who came here three years ago to live in the country with her husband and newborn child. Her name is Kean McIlvaine.
She is a very gifted baker of bread and baked goods, and her wish, like Casey and several other young food entrepreneurs, is to have a bakery or business in the area.
She reminds me of Casey – bright, she makes beautiful cakes and breads and baked goods and is dedicated to staying close to her new baby. She is joining the ongoing food revolution in our country and in our country, sparked by intelligent and creative immigrants from the big cities and the area itself.
She is the Owner/Baker of Covered Bridge Bread Co. Kean calls Covered Bridge a micro-bakery. It’s located in Shushan, just up the road from our farmhouse. Kean’s bakery specializes in small-batch, freshly baked sourdough and a lot more – buttermilk biscuits and salted chocolate chip cookies. You can read about the bakery here.
I know most of my readers don’t live close by, but the phenomenon, happening all over the Northeast, is significant for what it says about food and the future of healthy, affordable food sources. We all are what we eat, and this revolution benefits all of us.
These young farmers, dreamers, and visionaries are daring. They make delicious food – delicious, fresh, inexpensive, and creative. They also offer all kinds of healthy new food for the country, including crepes, donuts, bagels, and freshly baked sourdough.
This is a valuable thing for the blog to me doing. Our lives should be full of sound and uplifting news like this, not just the bile from Kean’s former city. We loved the Shift Food Cart while it was hair; the family had just moved to Maine. We miss them. But more and more people are following in their tracks.
I can testify to the bread’s deliciousness, and so can Maria. I met her Sunday at Bernard Farms (I wrote about Keri, another dreamer, last week), and she had completely sold out when Maria and I arrived. This happens every week, so I can easily see her ending up with her bakery. I suspect she would be pleasantly surprised.
Younger people are revolutionizing the food industry all over the country and, most certainly, around here, a food wasteland until recently.
They are meeting, talking to one another, networking, and supporting each other – bakers, coffee makers, organic farmers, many centered around our burgeoning Farmer’s Market, which meets in the center of town every Sunday for almost all of the year. The farmer’s market will move to an indoor building for the cold weather. I hope they stay open all year.
What they are doing is about food, but more than that, it’s about community, something rural communities desperately need again. Good food is no longer the exclusive turf of New York City or San Francisco (or Washington D.C., for that matter.)
I believe these young people are much more than bakers and coffee makers; they are changing how we understand, enjoy, and need good food. Like good jobs, good food was always an urban pleasure, but good jobs went overseas in the 1980s. It’s exciting to see the wind beginning to blow the other way.
They are not just small business owners; they are forming a robust community of other dreamers who want to help each other succeed. It’s uplifting and inspiring to see. Like us, she likes being herself and misses some of the amenities of a big city – like sound, inexpensive, and healthy food. She might just be able to help change that.
I’ve been eating Kean’s food all summer, but I met her today. I told her I’m into following dreamers on my blog and offered my services. It’s exciting to see these hard-working dreamers, their lives shaped and altered by the pandemic, fanning to work together to give people in rural areas (and cities) great offers created differently, wisely, and economically.
They are all about hope and hard work.
Dreamers like Casey and Kean know to avoid the traps set by the elders – prominent, expensive buildings with big, costly staffs and lots of rent and government regulations. Like Casey, Ken has a young baby to care for, and she doesn’t intend to let her daughter grow up without her. Like Casey’s, her child will be a part of the dream and grow up close to their mothers and a part of their lives.
If Kean agrees, I’ll add her to my list of dreamers I want to follow to make their dreams come true. Her e-mail, for those who might like it, is [email protected] — http://www.coveredbridgebread.com.