Partners
At Accomac, fresh means a lot of things.
It’s the potted garden just outside our kitchen door, where herbs and other ingredients flourish within arm’s reach. It’s the produce stand a mile and a half down the road, a place where Chef André can stop on his way to the Inn and personally select the seasonal offerings best suited for that day’s menu. It's the Accomac Garden located at our family farm that began on Earth Day of 2010 and yielded hundreds of pounds of tomatoes and produce during its first season. And, fresh is also the brightening of our Queen Anne Dining Room – where new china, oil lamps, colorful napkins, and recessed lighting help to contemporize and enhance your dining experience.
Fresh is also our own charcuterie, where, using our own blend of hickory and fruitwoods, we smoke our own salmon and bacon, providing that singular Accomac experience; and it’s Chef André’s "boudin blanc", with its hints of fruit and pheasant yielding exquisite pleasures.
But fresh is a state of mind, too – as in our membership in, and commitment, to the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA). This member-based organization’s Buy Fresh Buy Local® chapters play a key role in sustaining farms and farmers. It’s not enough to know something is delicious, we want to know where it came from and how it was produced. And by buying local wherever possible, we sustain the regional economy, while also providing greater nutrition, preserving family farms, generating job opportunities, and beautifying the rural and urban landscape.
Here’s a look at some of our partners:
Lehman’s Roadside Market
Lehman's Roadside Market started out decades ago as Lehman's roadside table.
Brian Lehman, then a freshman in high school, set up the table in his aunt’s front yard – about 75 yards from the stand’s current location – as his Future Farmers of America project.
Years later, the stand is a beehive of activity, with customers picking up everything from corn, cucumbers, peppers and onions, to asparagus, fruit, berries, and watermelons. Meanwhile, Brian is now responsible for all farming activities conducted on the family’s more than 600 acres, a role most recently held by his father, Ellsworth.
Farming has been a way of life for the Lehman family for four generations; and their Roadside Market has been serving Accomac Inn for a long, long time. When skies would turn threatening, Kathy Lehman says she used to call the chef to see if he needed any edible flowers, so she “could try to get them before they get beat up by the rain.”
These days, Chef André stops on his way to Accomac, where he finds fresh ingredients – and fresh inspiration – for that day’s offerings. “A lot of times, he gets them warm,” Kathy says. “They’re as fresh as I can get it.”
Brogue Hydroponics
Brogue Hydroponics prides itself “on bringing only the freshest and best” to its customers, and their hydroponic method of farming is experiencing the same robust growth as the family’s produce.
Not only does the Kilgore family supply Accomac Inn and other chef-driven establishments, it now does business at the Eastern Market in York and the Farm Show Market in Harrisburg, as well as other markets in Bel Air, Philadelphia, and Phoenixville.
The Kilgores grow everything from micro greens, such as amaranth, mizuna, red mustard and purple kohlrabi, to fresh herbs, such as arugula, basil, chives, dill, rosemary, cilantro and thyme. They also grow edible flowers and several kinds of lettuce, as well as strawberries, raspberries and tomatoes. And they do it all in their six hydroponic greenhouses.
According to Jesse Kilgore, a son who manages the day-to-day operations of the business, the family is continually looking for ways to make the operation more environmentally friendly – from seeking ways to reduce energy, to exploring recycling alternatives.
And as to how the Kilgores determine which flowers are indeed “edible,” Jesse laughs, saying “The final test here is, we grow the flowers, and my Dad eats them.”
