I met Holly Bea Adair the way I tend to meet most people these days: She’s a reader of my newsletter, one who would always pop into our chats or book club meetings with the most gorgeous photos of dinners and tablescapes or lush outdoor backdrops. There was a clear and considered beauty to her everyday existence, and food was at the foundation of it. Central Stem, her company, embodies this ethos as well. We met when she hosted a perfectly executed dinner for On Eating in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
In considering ways for Tomato Tomato to expand, it was obvious that I should ask Holly if she wanted to collaborate on a TT x Central Stem holiday shop selection: Items that would be lasting heirlooms rather than disposable and thoughtless ephemera. This commitment to sustainability and craft makes the magazine and Central Stem natural partners. With Terratela, we’ve even made a Tomato Tomato T-shirt with the Nahuatl spelling that originated the word in the world, stitched into a T-shirt made of food waste–derived fabric.
Today, to launch the shop, we have a special issue with the story of Central Stem and profiles of the five makers we are featuring—and of course, the shop itself is ready for browsing!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
“Post-COVID, I was seeing the craze of people all of a sudden wanting more experiential events. I was seeing people pay hundreds of dollars to go to a chef’s dinner—but what are they taking away from it besides their Instagram posts?”
“Each Shelton Metal design begins as an original hand carving. I intentionally preserve subtle irregularities, textures, and tool marks because they give the finished object its character. Even when a piece is cast, polished, or reproduced, it still carries the history of that first sculpture.”
“From a design perspective, we want to update these things, but to also make them timeless in a new way. I never want to make a product look not Amish. That’s the beauty of it. They’ve been making it the same way, especially with my rugs and my brooms. They have a loom that’s been in the family for like 150 years.”
“I wanted to do something for the cook community—especially because it ties in with our storytelling of the fiber so well—and a lot of chefs I meet, if not pretty much all chefs I meet, have some kind of food waste tied into what they do. We wanted to build garments for them.”
“Remark Glass started as a very boutique design firm working exclusively in recycled glass, and that naturally evolved into a community-driven project because what we were looking to do is create a circular environment in which the community members and bars and restaurants were contributing their waste glass, and then we were reinventing that into different wares that could be used in those same places.”
“The thing that makes being a small business really difficult is also the thing that makes my brand really, strong, and valuable. I think we need more independent designers. I think that the marketplace as a whole has really moved toward conglomeration—it’s all big money and execs making creative decisions, and I think that we’re, on a large scale, moving away from companies that are actually driven by a creative person’s vision for the world and their passion.”
