Concord
TODAY
From Her Farm to Your Table:
The Story of a Concord Entrepreneur
M BY JENNIFER SCHÜNEMANN
Meet Kristin Canty - entrepreneur, owner of three restaurants and a farm, innovator, busy mother of four, and ardent advocate for reconnecting people to the earth and animals that are the building blocks of our food. In a quest to help her son who was plagued by severe allergies since birth, Kristin learned about the principles of ancestral health - based on pasturing farm animals, raising crops without pesticides, and placing an emphasis on the consumption of raw and fermented foods. As she saw the positive impact on her son’s health and vitality, Kristin became a passionate advocate for small-scale
farms and individuals looking to tap into this new way of thinking about food and health. The result is a farm which embraces these principles and provides delicious and healthy ingredients to Kristin’s two restaurants in West Concord – Woods Hill Table (fine dining) and Adelita (Mexican cuisine with a focus on farm to table practices). Everything served in Kristin’s restaurants combines the principles of sustainable farming, humane and harmonious raising of livestock, a zerowaste policy that starts on the farm and ends with the compost bin, and a deep care and support of the people who work together to make all of that happen.
The Farm at Woods Hill
When exploring her idea for a restaurant based entirely on ancestral health, Kristin was told that local vendors could not consistently supply her restaurants with the product she required. Undeterred, she simply purchased her own farm in 2013 to support the opening of her first restaurant in 2015. The Farm at Woods Hill in Bath, New Hampshire, is committed to pasturing and humanely 12
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| Summer 2019
raising livestock as well using only sustainable farming practices. This approach promotes human health, respects animal welfare, reduces environmental damage, is humane for the farmer, and bolsters the local economy. Under the watchful eye of head farmer Amber Reed, the animals are rotated through fresh pastures often. This keeps the animals healthy, while providing them nutrition in their natural environments. Cows eat pesticide-free grass in the meadows. Chickens run free to chase bugs, and pigs are given room to root up logs. The animals that need grain are given sustainable, unsprayed feed. This natural movement around the land not only gives the animals exercise, it cares for and sustains the land – decreasing the farm’s need for water and providing natural fertilization for crops. Amber eagerly embraces Kristin’s philosophy in her daily work. “I believe we can have our cake and eat it too,” she insists. “When beef, chicken or pork is delicious, it’s because the animals are really healthy. Raising healthy animals is also what’s best for the land. Those pieces all fit together.”
