Chislehurst Kitchen, based in Jaffrey, is one of the Peterborough Farmers’ Market’s newest vendors.

Every Wednesday at the Peterborough Community Center, Chislehurst’s chef and proprietor, Tim Gordon, displays his homemade treats. Gordon specializes in what he described as a traditional New England “old inn” style of cooking – small-batch jams, jellies and preserves, fresh-baked goods and candies, particularly chocolate. 

Gordon, who grew up in Jaffrey, has a lifelong love of food and cooking. He said it began when he was 15, when he started working at the Woodbound Inn in Rindge. From there, he received a culinary degree from Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island. But despite his background in cooking, Gordon’s career path took a slightly different direction when he started attending hotel school. 

“I’ve always loved food, loved cooking – but I eventually found myself on the front side of the door, managing, instead of cooking,” Gordon said.

Before his retirement in 2020, he managed Niblick Golf, where he operated a portfolio of golf resorts scattered across New England -- three in Massachusetts, and one in Connecticut – with hundreds of employees across each location, all of whom Gordon was responsible for. As he got closer to retirement, he rediscovered his love for cooking after the departure of a caterer at a golf resort he was consulting for gave him the chance to step up as chef for a few small weddings.

“I found that it was just so much fun!” he said.

He immediately started thinking about taking up cooking again. 

“In 2019, and when the pandemic came around, it just happened to be at a confluence of events where a bunch of my contracts were coming to an end,” Gordon said. “I decided that I wanted to step back away from the pressure of all that, and pursue a passion.”

So he retired from managing golf courses and set his sights on an area of his lawn he knew would be perfect for a man cave, but instead of flat-screen TVs or pool tables, he filled it with a kitchen built to commercial standards.

Gordon, who said he has a love of marketing, set to work building a brand. He decided on the name Chislehurst, which was the original name of his Jaffrey property back when it was a dairy farm that belonged to Pope Yeatman, an industrialist from Philidelphia who worked as the chief engineer for M. Guggenheim and Sons in the early 1900s. 

Adorning all of Chislehurst Kitchen’s products is the image of a biplane, representing Yeatman’s daughter Georgina, an accomplished aviator. Back when Yeatman owned the property, he would clear a large section of his field for Georgina to land her Waco silver biplane. It’s this same field that Gordon looks out over every day from the window of his kitchen. 

Gordon ensures that Chislehurst Kitchen offers a “core” selection of jams and jellies available year-round – including flavors like three-berry, cherry-cranberry and pepper-garlic. He also specializes in shortbread cookies – plain and toffee – and is offering four varieties of songbirds of New England chocolates. Chislehurst’s baked goods include cinnamon rolls, coffee cake and banana bread.

All of Chislehurst’s products are available on its website at chislehurstkitchen.square.site, as well as at the Peterborough Farmers’ Market every Wednesday afternoon.