When Jess van Vlamertynghe isn’t tweaking menus or designing catering brochures, she’s running the Speckled Rooster Farm in Westport, CT. Jess first honed her green-thumb as a student at UCONN where, along with boyfriend and farming partner Matt, she started a sustainable living community for students. They came together around the idea that growing organic food through environmentally sustainable methods is a good, honest, and necessary endeavor that is worth fighting for. Jess and Matt sold their harvests to the University’s kitchen and helped to establish the Living Community on campus. After she graduated in 2011, Jess found herself back in her hometown of Westport where she “the adventurer” and Matt “the dreamer” started Speckled Rooster. On their four plus acres they produce a variety of vegetables (leafy greens and small roots) and raise laying hens and ducks for eggs, and rabbits, pigs, and chickens for meat. Speckled Rooster is the number one purveyor of local pigs for Barcelona restaurants, and provides local Barcelona restaurants with summertime radishes, hearty greens, arugula, and eggplants. Thanks to an introduction from Farah, Barteca’s Forager and Purchasing Director, Jess now works in marketing’s art department. She loves that through graphic design she’s able to blend artistic creativity with organizing information. The complexity of designing for a restaurant allows her to move from something technical, like editing training manuals, to more something creative, like sketching a French press coffee illustration for a tasting event. Barcelona is fortunate to enjoy her Speckled Rooster wares and her design talent.
Guinea hogs, a smaller black breed of hogs that will soon be on the menu at barcelona restaurants.
Speckled Rooster also raises pigs that are a mixture of Hampshire, Duroc, and Landrace hogs.
A hen and her adopted duckling
A hearty greens mix, including kale, tatsoi, and red mustard.
