See and Be Kitchen: A Catskills Bakery Built on Love
See and Be Kitchen is a bakery, a community center, and a miracle in a sleepy corner of the Catskills. It’s easy to plan a little day trip around a visit, since it’s 15 minutes from Gracie’s in Leeds and 15 minutes from Catskill (home of the Thomas Cole Site, New York Restaurant, Hilo cafe, and Bittersweet ice cream) and 15 minutes from the destination-worthy botanical shop, Hort and Pott in the pretty hamlet of Oak Hill. For those of us who reside nearby, it’s a place we want to visit every day.
The owners of See and Be, Chrissy and Ben, came to Cairo from Brooklyn, where she ran the fleet at Brooklyn’s Pizza Moto and he was a head baker at Cobble Hill’s Bien Cuit. They built their business around whole baked goods, which were available all over the area at restaurants and cafes.
When the coronavirus hit, many of those restaurants shut down. With lighting speed, Chrissy pivoted the business, sourcing food from local purveyors and running a grocery delivery service for neighbors who were avoiding the supermarket.
Today, they’ve got a wide range of items available for pre-order and pick-up from a little tent outside the shop’s front door. And as the Catskills reopen, they’re hosting socially distanced events (like pizza parties and bake sales) to bring the community together.
They also have a little dog named Mr. Dudley. My almost-6-year-old daughter, Ramona, has been afraid of dogs all her life, but spent an hour petting this “little old puppy” as we sipped affogados and snacked on the world’s finest cinnamon buns. See and Be is such a safe and welcoming space, and its owners are so warm and friendly, that even my shy child jumps out of the car and starts chasing chickens and chatting with anyone who’ll listen the moment we arrive.
When we visited, See and Be was setting up outdoor seating, and I snapped this photo of their Super Seeded Bread in their leafy parking lot. I had to dig right into this warm-from-the-oven honey-sweetened wheat and rye bread, packed with pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, poppy, and chia seeds. This is the sort of bread I could live on.
Their perfect pizza focaccia is another must-try and my son Archer’s current favorite item.
They’re also offering a fresh produce package with seasonal goodness from local farms. Mine was bigger than what you see below — I couldn’t fit all the mushrooms and the giant bag of spinach on my cutting board display!
I snagged some Cabmambert from the See and Be cheese department, melted it on a Super Seeded slice, and topped it with grilled zucchini and chopped garlic scapes for the best vegetarian dinner I’ve had in ages.
See and Be Kitchen is located at 512 NY-145, Cairo, NY. Check their website for current hours.
