Catarina Cowden learned to bake from her nana, Rosie. With simple Italian staples — wine cookies, lemon cakes, and the like — Rosie’s confections were a lot less about culinary pretension and a lot more about bringing people together.

“It was always about sitting down at the kitchen table and eating together and making the stuff together,” Cowden said.

In her own way, Cowden now carries her grandmother’s legacy forward. Her tasty treats help tie the community together across the Hudson Valley at farmers’ markets and eateries, and her new café in Midtown Kingston provides a Sunday hub for locals.

Cowden and Rosie, who lives in Rhode Island, still chat at least once a week, often about recipes and baking. Originally called Rosie’s Bakehouse, in November Cowden renamed her outlet The Little Rye Bakehouse.

“I’m the little guy,” she joked.

Cowden does just about everything at Little Rye. Before baking a variety of goods for her ever-evolving menu, she sources local ingredients and mills her own whole grain flour from farmed rye and wheat berries. She also manages the nitty-gritty paperwork aspects of her business with the skill of a former editor — she studied creative writing in college and formerly wrote for blogs and entertainment websites. In fact, Cowden was “working from home” almost a decade ago when she and her partner decided to move from the city to the Hudson Valley.

“I was just done living in my four-bedroom apartment in Bushwick,” she said.

But getting out of Brooklyn wasn’t enough.

“Moving up here really woke me up to the fact that I did not want to spend my life in front of a computer,” she said.

Cowden had always baked in her spare time. Lacking her grandmother’s early training, she was completely self-taught, but she was known to friends as the baker of birthday cakes and event treats. Eight or so years ago, she decided to take her hobby a step further and began working in local restaurants and bakeries, including The Last Bite in High Falls and the Mud Club in Woodstock.

Her editorial and organizational skills came in handy in every outlet, but what she really wanted to do — only wanted to do — was bake.

“I describe it to people as kind of similar to artists or creatives who have a studio, and they just go in there and focus,” she said. “I similarly just want to be in the kitchen and focus in and have no distractions. That's what I really love to do — so it was just finding a way to do that.”

In the summer of 2021, Rosie’s Bakehouse began selling at Market on Market in Ellenville. Several outlets knew Cowden’s baking already from her work in other restaurants, and before long she was selling at other markets and pop ups. She also began making food at Tubby’s in Kingston while renting their kitchen for her own business.

Now, The Little Rye Bakehouse sells wholesale at Damn Good Honey’s farm stand, Tivoli General, Accord Market, The Ridge Tea and Spice Shop, and Darlings restaurant. Little Rye can also be found at the indoor Kingston Farmers Market in Uptown.

In the new year, Cowden opened a small café at 588 Broadway in Midtown, open on Sundays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. With the wholesale local partnerships, farmers’ markets and cooking at Tubby’s, Cowden has enough to keep her occupied and so far, she said, has no plans to extend hours.

Since the café’s opening, a few locals have already made it part of their Sunday routine to drop in, and Cowden is content with this small, simple manifestation of the community Little Rye endeavors to inspire.

“I love this community,” she said. “Sundays are my way of opening up and giving the opportunity for people to see what I do.”