Fresco Flowers meets Friday Pizza — a two-for-one in East Thetford

The Italian word "fresco" means "fresh." It is aptly put to use on the newly painted sign outside a small building that has sprung up beside Route 5 in East Thetford. Fresco Flowers is the joint venture of Glen Ferriot, accomplished chef and caterer, and partner Christy Parker, an experienced gardener and grower of cut flowers. 

Glen is a familiar face to many. For five or six years he owned the Lake Fairlee Fresco Deli that operated out of Baker's Store in Post Mills. He closed the deli after the owner of Baker's, Mike Pomeroy, passed away and the store changed hands. But Glen's background in culinary arts stretches back much further.

Glen’s passion for food and cooking started at an early age, inspired by his Belgian grandmother's home-cooked meals. Her traditional techniques used only fresh ingredients and still guide the way he cooks. By the age of eight, he was cooking alongside his parents, Betty and Dan Ferriot, who were also culinary innovators and started All Seasons Salsa, a family business selling fresh salsa, sometimes credited with making salsa a Vermont staple. The salsa business operated through the 1980s and '90s for almost 20 years out of their "huge industrial kitchen" on All Seasons Drive in East Thetford. Glen fondly remembers his parents making mind-boggling quantities of salsa every week.  

By the time he was 18, Glen was already a local executive chef. His boss encouraged him to get professional qualifications, and thus he enrolled at the New England Culinary Institute. From there he traveled the world as an executive sous-chef for the Ritz Carlton luxury hotel chain, then returned to Vermont to the position of Executive Chef at the Lake Morey Inn. He was also the chef at Hypertherm in Lebanon, NH, where he designed the company's new $2.6 million kitchen. Back in Thetford, he now runs an on-line catering company, Fresco Catering, working out of two kitchens. One is the kitchen on All Seasons Drive, the other is at Smith Maple Farm on Gove Hill Road in Thetford. There he not only conjures up maple-based barbeque sauces, mustards, and ketchups, but also is integral to operating the 10,000-tap maple sugaring operation.  

Although he's a very busy person, Glen says the new pizza business that will be part of Fresco Flowers "was going to happen anyway" as an adjunct to his catering. A bonus is his partnership with Christy, because catered events like dinner parties and weddings frequently need flowers. While Glen and Christy knew each other in high school, they became a couple after reconnecting in Post Mills a few years ago. Christy has been growing plants for a long time and tended the flower gardens at Crossroad Farm. Residents will recognize her from the farm stand. She credits the Taylors with teaching her a lot about growing as she learned to start all kinds of vegetable seeds as well as flowers.

Indeed, behind the Fresco Flowers building stands the nearly finished greenhouse in which she plans to raise a large part of her flower inventory. The greenhouse is double-walled to extend the growing season, and she hopes to grow flowers year-round by providing some heating. To get started, she already has daffodil bulbs on hand and plans to expand into more types of flowering bulbs, as well as annuals and perennials. Through connections in the flower business she knows a tulip grower in Chelsea who might provide cut tulips to sell while she gets her own flower production up and running. 

Another avenue would be a once-a-week delivery service of fresh bouquets, since she noticed at Crossroad Farm that many customers wanted new cut flowers every week. There's also talk of her growing pickling cucumbers so that Glen can make their own brand of pickles. And she knows many small producers of Vermont products who could add to the offerings.

The interior of Fresco Flowers is still unfinished. However, a brand new pizza oven and a walnut wood bar are already in place. The oven, from a company in Europe, arrived not as parts but as a complete structure weighing in at 1800 lbs. The twosome had rented a tractor for the installation and recalled the breathless moments as the oven dangled from the tractor's bucket before it was carefully lowered into place. Glen predicts that he will be able to bake a pizza in 60 seconds or thereabouts, by keeping the hearth at 500 degrees F.  The temperature would be about 800 degrees F under the flaming wood on the other side of the oven. He is still seasoning the oven with test fires and soon will invite friends over for the first trial run of pizza. Of course, no chef can stay limited to pizza forever. Roasts and other breads are all possible.

The dream is to open for pizza — on Fridays only — as soon as January 10th, though Glen admits a more realistic date might be the next week or even in February. He hopes to obtain a liquor license so people can stop in at the end of the workweek for pizza and beer. However, to serve food to the public more than one day a week requires a state license with a time-consuming application process. It may be in the works since this could be the nearest thing in Thetford to a real restaurant.

A similarly burdensome process with an unsure outcome is the application for direct road access onto Route 5, a state highway. At present, vehicles can arrive at Fresco Flowers from All Seasons Drive, but exiting onto Route 5 rather than turning around to leave would be easier and a more efficient use of land. Fortunately Thetford Zoning Administrator Kelly Gardener has been very helpful with the zoning permit process and also promised to send a recommendation to the state in favor of the exit onto Route 5.

When asked to describe his favorite pizza topping, Glen quickly replied, "pesto with fresh mozzarella." The essence of good food lies in simple, fresh, local ingredients which they both aspire to promote at Fresco Flowers. When they are fully operational, Glen hopes to serve each pizza with a lovely flower on top.

Photo Credit: Li Shen