Barn Dinner

Before I left for my time in Ireland, I catered a dinner in a barn/studio for a friend. It was the end of September, the nights were perfect for an outdoor fire and to have the big barn doors slung open to let some sea breeze in. There was still plenty of garden produce available for salads and side dishes and it was also cool enough for several crocks of baked beans. Steamed lobster, a broth made with mussels and saffron, and ice cream sandwiches made with home baked molasses cookies, helped to round out the meal. Every year I cater a limited amount of these farm to table dinners. I love doing them. I enjoy cooking at different locations, working with the scenery and atmosphere that each one offers up. Next summer I hope to offer a few Tear Drop trailer dinners. What do you think… vintage Tear Drop trailer, an ocean view, and a meal prepared with food from our farm and locally sourced ingredients?
Here are some photos from the barn dinner….and, yes that is a sheep making her way through the dining area. I did mention the word barn, didn’t I? Oh my! If you have any interest in having a very special meal prepared and served out of the cute and cozy teardrop trailer, email questions at fernwoodnursery@fairpoint.net. I’ll even brings along some sheep if you’d like!

To The Watering Hole

There’s a heap of green beans ready to blanch and freeze. Also, a forest of broccoli and waves of swiss chard to harvest and preserve.The tomatoes are threatening to ripen in great numbers and all at once…slicers, cherries, and pastes. The kitchen is about to see a lot of action. Heat or no heat, it’s time to can! But by late afternoon today, it was unanimous. It was time to put away the weeding buckets, hang up the harvesting knives, and head for the watering hole. Hip Hip Hooray!!
These next words from the book Clabbered Dirt,Sweet Grass by Gary Paulsen. A farming story….and delightful read.

High summer brings thick heat and there comes a day when dust itches the skin, when the flies and the gnats and the no-see-ums and the thick, humid air and the heat that presses down all build together so that the sweat doesn’t help, shade doesn’t help, and somebody says something about going swimming, just a word, and it becomes the only thing in the world. By the middle of the day work is impossible, everything is impossible but going down to the creek. There is a place, always a place, a special place where the current rounds a bend and goes through a double culvert under the road, and right there, right in that special place the water has dug out a great hollowed pool. Green, green deep to soft brown cool with speckled minnows fleeing from the great splashing monsters who tumble, fall, dive, cannonball from the heavens into the cool clean clear water.
Clothes hanging on the willows, dust hanging on the willows, dirt and grime and work hanging on the willows while the water takes them, takes them all.
The swimming hole.