As is our recent custom we gathered at Stroudwater on Thursday for a feast representing the combined culinary forces of five families:
The disadvantage of this approach is that even if you only take a couple bites of each dish, you end up stuffed to the gills, but complaints were of a good-natured variety, and we took a nice walk along the river and through the woods before dessert (not shown), consisting of 12″ pies (apple, pumpkin/squash, and chocolate cream) and some sinful variety of chocolate coconut caramel bars.
Local content included Stroudwater potatoes (mashed, and also in gnocchi), butternut squash (for the pie, far superior to actual pumpkins) beets, and pesto, and Five Islands apples (plus sweet and hard cider, naturally). I hadn’t yet retrieved the pedal grinder for the winter, or we could have done virtually all the baking with Five Islands grain (we have rye and corn from this year, and wheat from last). It would be fun to try to grow the brussels sprouts next year, using Bt to keep the worms at bay. My folks were given a hoophouse by a neighbor, which should open up possibilities for a greater variety of homegrown greenstuff at Thanksgiving next year.
Given that we have close to a bushel of corn left from the patch I planted in the newground by the upper cabin, it would be tempting to figure out how to make tortillas or something for next year (Joanna made a very nice dish of enchiladas). The relative ease with which we produced this amount of corn even on a first attempt in indifferent soil brings makes me think it wouldn’t be overly difficult to produce enough to feed a flock of hens (though we would also need to grow some soybeans or other protein source).
Five Islands Orchard 