From Chaseholm to Cheese Farm
by Mary Leonard

In 2011, it is exciting to discover a new and successful business in the Hudson Valley. The Amazing Real Live Food Co. is helping sustain an 80-year-old dairy farm on 350 acres in Pine Plains as well as provide customers with delicious cheeses and ice cream. This five-year old business is owned and operated by Rory Chase and Peter Destler, two longtime friends who left the Hudson Valley for college and then worked in California. When Rory Chase decided to help out with his family’s farm, Chaseholm, he studied cheese-making out West and then headed back to the farm to use the milk from a 50-head herd of hormone-free registered Holsteins. The farm is protected under the Columbia County Conservancy, but Rory wanted to go beyond the traditional dairy farm.

Chase’s friend, Peter Destler, has a degree from the CIA and so was already in the food business when Rory contacted him. Rory’s idea was to make fine cheeses but to add probiotics to their products. Although there are other cheese- and ice cream-making businesses in the Hudson Valley, Real Live Food Co. is unique in adding live bacteria (in amounts equivalent to a daily supplement) into their queso blanco and farmer’s cheese as well as their ice creams. According to their brochure, “the bacteria is known in the scientific literature to recolonize the gut, aid in digestion, boost the immune system, lower the incidence of allergens, block the growth of harmful bacteria and even for their inhibitory effects on colon, liver and mammary carcinogenesis.”

If the supplements idea doesn’t sell you, the tastes of Chaseholm’s cheeses should. Although I had sworn off all dairy about a month ago, I ate a chunk of the Stella Vallis tomme with pear slices and some farmers’ cheese on a baguette and for a few minutes I was back in France!

Peter gave me a tour of the processing plant, which has individual rooms for all aspects of cheese-making, including fermentation and aging. I savored most of all the look and smell of the aging tommes and camemberts because of their rinds and intensity. This winter at Chaseholm was spent making the cheese and now the products will be sold in 25 farmers’ markets in four states this summer (including the Rhinebeck, Millbrook, and Millerton markets, among others). In addition, the owners will be doing demonstrations in local stores—“some shaking hands and kissing babies,” as Peter says. (Among stores that carry their cheeses are Adams Fairacre Farms, Rhinebeck Health, Peck’s Market, and McEnroe’s).

Besides cheese and ice cream, Rory and Peter are producing a cultured Kombucha, a fermented tea with reputed medicinal properties (not to be confused with the Japanese kelp tea of the same name); and they plan on brewing some handcrafted beers. Wine, beer and cheese are supposed to be featured soon in a small wine bar in downtown Pine Plains. Rory and Peter also have plans to construct caves under an unused silo at Chaseholm and eventually give tours that promote sustainable agriculture and support other community enterprises such as local winemakers.

As soon as I can, I will buy the ash-dusted blooming-rind Moonlight Chaource—the description itself is a poem! And I probably don’t need to say anything more about ice cream that’s good for you. So look for Peter and Rory at the local markets or check out their website: AmazingRealLive.com.