Local Treasures

“It's a lot easier to talk about this stuff than it was 10 years ago. You can go anywhere now, and people's eyes don't glaze over. They actually understand it.”

Imagine this: You open up a jar, set out a plate of crackers, and the world beats a path to your door.

The increasingly busy life of the Dunai sisters should be that easy. Kathy Dunai-Thibedeau and Donna Dunai run Cupola Hollow Farm in West Suffield. The tobacco and dairy operation was started by their grandfather, a Polish immigrant, and continues through Thibedeau's teen-age daughters, Amanda and Ashley.

From tobacco and cattle, the sisters have moved into jams and jellies, relishes, soap, pies, and fudge. The products are popular in part because they taste good. And they're popular at product samplings, the Dunais only have to open a jar to get attention because the family is riding a wave of interest in locally produced food. The blueberries in their jam come from the bushes out back. Those are their herbs in the dried dip mix, their cucumbers in the pickles. Read more