comings and goings
Michele is a force for sure. When we are here and Michele is here, all boats rise together.
Younger family went west for a 10 day boating date with western family, so, Michele headed south for the cool(er) hills of Sunswept Farm. We sometimes call ourselves the 3 robots, for you old scifi channel buffs, commenting on the world as it passes by, and one soap in particular.
Michele got down here saturday night of the yoga retreat that was here last weekend in July with music and singing in the cool night air here on the farm under the peaked lite tent. For the final morning yoga Sunday, there were about 20 people here, michele included. We teamed up for breakfast for the 25 yogs and massagers ( michele got one of these too), musicians and us. Mi’chele always helps with the program of getting the assistants into the kitchen makin with us. We made lemon curd and maple scones for the lemon curd to go on. ummmmmm our new french friend did great following the director of curd, michele.. (please laugh now) we had lemon squeezing along with orange, hummus, home grown sausage patties and more. So the moving this place into a more better hum is what happens when michele is here. While sleeping well in the cool mountain nights and rising as we do, we got lots done.. we got to have a horse spa moment, where we took each horse, Joyti, Grace & Bob out to the front of the house, where michele had hot water, and horse shampoo, & scrubbers. the horses had 4 hands scrubbing everywhere, itching everything, ears, chest, belly ( very dirty bellies). each horse just stood there, didn’t move at all. we had dropped the rope cause each was just in such pleasure mode, why move?
friend veronica came along a week later, with a tamale plan, something that happens here every now and then. something happens, something in the air, maybe it is break between summer session at ab tech and fall, so some have a more still moment. but long time buddy, veronica, AKA veronimale brought all the fixin’s and a friend to make tamales. To the corn and masa makin’s we added homemade chicken stock and lots of butter, and some of our slow cooked pork for filling, along side of black beans and greens and a few more friends to help eat the moment. that night we also met WWOOFers for the first time, young folk who go from farm to farm to help and to see how people do their selves, moving like a traveler through to >>?? some destination that seems to be mostly self defined. that was lots of fun. through the week and a half people seemed to come and go and come, along side of picklin, and cannin’ we weeded and laughed a whole!!! lot. Michele is planning on being here for much of the summer 2011.. oh boy the circle , an arc is established with 3 or more…meghan ganser shared her thought that this land has it’s own dharma,, we circle in our way around this truth as co-owners creators here, ah let the cool breezes flow through as well. bye michele with love and gratitude for the connection to the universe. lightning strikes here in the mountains, again. more to come
The Slow Food Asheville “Mountain Fire” Terra Madre Fundraiser is just a month away now.
We don’t know what form the Spring Creek Food Group’s collaboration will take. Often, these groups form around a single type of food, but our group is quite varied — more joined by geography as well as dedication to organic, sustainable production methods.
Fundraiser Success!!
Smiles, to me, are what make an event a success. And guests of the Slow Food Asheville fundraiser held at our farm last Saturday were all smiles. The event was also a success in raising funds for airfare to get our WNC delegates to Italy next month for the international “Terra Madre” Slow Food conference. There were just over 150 ticket holders and the silent auction brought in a good share as well.
It was a pleasant surprise that so many folk — nearly half — did not buy advance tickets but paid at the gate (the 80-some-odd advance ticket sales made me a bit nervous about what the final numbers would be). I could understand a lot of gate sales if the event was in Asheville or even one of the other small towns closer to “civilization,” but I had not anticipated it to be so much a factor with an event that is about an hour’s drive from where most folks hail.
Fresh Rosemary sits beside the stuffed chickens being sewn up in the pig.
It was really cool watching the Porcetta prep process on Friday. Porcetta is an medieval dish where a whole pig is deboned, then stuffed with whole deboned chickens, which are themselves stuffed. Chef Mark made a yummy stuffing for the birds out of some of our beef and bacon from last year’s meat harvest. The beef and bacon were finely chopped by hand and mixed with fresh herbs from the garden, creating a wonderful sausage. By deboning the birds and pig, the final roast can be sliced clean through to reveal all the nested layers.
The final porcetta with stuffing layers revealed
We left the head, hooves, and tail on, but because the pig was all trussed up into a cylinder (everything tucked against the body), the final assembly didn’t look very pig-like past the head area.
Mike retrofitted a homemade spit to use with the borrowed VFD cooker. It was elegantly simple in its functionality … as all great designs are. Notched wood blocks on the end cradled the homemade handled spit. We wanted to rotate a quarter turn about ever quarter hour and needed a way to lock the spit in place so that the weight of the pig wouldn’t rotate itself out of the desired position. So, Mike added a screw to the block on the handle end. With vice grips clamped onto the handle and the screw riding inside their handle, the spit was locked in place. I think I may have to call him Mike-gyver from now on.
Lots of folks helped to make the event a success. Of course, all the delegates pitched in time and materials, but that’s to be expected since they were the beneficiaries of the event. But many more folks came to help too, just because they love and support Slow Food and wanted to help promote it’s philosophy linking food, community, and environment. THANK YOU VOLUNTEERS!!!! And the cherry on top is that all the volunteers were these really fascinating people who I hope will become longterm friends. After all, Slow Food is as much about community as it is about food…just another way in which the event was a success!!
Some of the many wonderful volunteers, shown here manning the cider press: JD Blethen, Phillip Kendall, Barbara Swell, Theta Drivon, and Julie Mansfield
To view all the pictures for prep days and event days that I managed to take myself (not enough, I know … more coming from others soon I hope), please click through to the event photos post.