Sara Grady and Emily Oberto have followed different paths to Glynwood, yet their shared passion for food is the impetus for the networks they develop and manage as part of our Hudson Valley Food program.
“Food was always a big part of my life but I had very little knowledge of production in more rural areas,” Sara explained. "I was learning more about this at a time, almost ten years ago, when the impact of agriculture and our personal and social choices around food was becoming a larger cultural conversation."
There were no academic programs in sustainable food systems available at that time. The sort of career education Sara fashioned for herself led her to the Hudson Valley and its more rural communities just north of her native New York City.
When Sara joined Glynwood as a volunteer in 2009, a food program did not yet exist. In an effort to further define the role of Director of Special Projects she was given a year later, she drew from her creative and entrepreneurial past to help shape new initiatives. Sara is now Vice President of Programs at Glynwood.
“Understanding ways in which rural communities function and the role of food in that was a discovery for me,” she said. “That a place or a region could be shaped by food was a compelling idea. The way that people simply interact and enjoy being connected to one another through food also captured my imagination.”
At the end of February, craft cidermakers from all over the region will convene for the first time as the New York Cider Association. Recently established as the first-ever state-level trade association to support this fledgling industry, it is the next chapter in a story that began with an “apple exchange” that Sara organized in 2010 between producers of hard apple cider in France and the Hudson Valley. She credits this project as the initial spark for what has become the Hudson Valley Food program.
Emily Oberto, who is Glynwood’s new Program Coordinator, is doing much of the organizing of growers and chefs for our Hank’s X-tra Special Baking Bean grow-out -- not an easy task when you are working with people in some of the busiest professions imaginable. It is a testament to both women that Glynwood has such a high level of commitment from our professional networks and the growers with whom we collaborate.
Emily was a cheese monger for two years before joining our staff, during which time she completed an MA degree from NYU in Food Studies while raising two small children. She was previously an admissions counselor for Hotchkiss School, in Lakeville, CT, which likely prepared her for “herding cats” more than she realizes.
“At the school, I organized my own extra-curricular co-ed cooking club for about 20 kids. I bought all of the ingredients and materials and we’d meet in the empty kitchen of the old headmaster’s house, where we’d share the responsibilities of creating a meal,” said Emily.
Connecting the dots between her past and present, she added, “Where I grew up, Monsanto was on the way to school and we passed it every day until I graduated from high school. Only now do I have any perspective on its daily presence in my life as sort of an image of food and agriculture that has taken on more significance internationally.”
“A lot of effort and thought is going into local food in the Hudson Valley. It’s not just grown here but was specifically adapted here,” Emily concludes. “Foods like Hank’s have stories, they have histories and people attached to them. It’s an endearing tale but, more than that, it shows possibility.”