She ate great food and made a dress July 13, 2008

Slow Food Seacoast hosted a fabulous picnic at Tuckaway Farm in Lee, NH.  Hubby and I took the little one and had a lovely time.  The grounds of the farm were beautiful, and the weather couldn’t have been nicer for July in NH.  It was warm, and a bit muggy, but the cool breeze kept it in check, the sky was a beautiful shade of blue, spotted with just the right amount of clouds…simply beautiful.

The food was provided by those in attendance, and that was a field full of great cooks.  The dishes were prepared, primarily, with local foods.  I made a chicken salad, with local raised chicken, threw in some onion tops, baby onions and peas from the garden, displayed on a bed of lettuce and garnished with some Nasturtiums, also from my garden.  Not even a Nasturtium petal remained after the crowed and made their way through the line.  I had a sampling of nearly all the dishes, just a small spoonful, as there were so many options.  Everything really was delicious, and knowing that most of the ingredients were locally raised, and much supported local growers and raisers.

The kids had the opportunity to tour the farm via a scavenger hunt.  My husband and the baby had fun with that, while I visited with some ladies under a nice shady tree.  Andy, of Andy’s greens gave a nice talk accompanied by a sampling time of local greens.  Having the opportunity to sample like that was very helpful in learning about the different flavors of greens and how tasty they can be, even straight from the garden.

It really was a fun time for the whole family and I’m thrilled we found out about it in time to attend.

Tonight I made another Trapeze Dress.  It doesn’t fit exactly like the last one, which is rather curious because as far as I know I did the same thing both times.  This one has the darts a smidge higher, making the arm holes not quite as comfortable.  Still comfortable enough to wear, but not great.

The Photo includes a store bought scarf that kicks around my closet, but rarely has been worn.  I think it looks good with the dress.  The dress is bit wrinkled because my fabulous iron has stopped working.  Back in the late 90’s I worked and lived in Manchester, with my then new husband.  One of our little pass times, which we go into because a friend of mine read a couple articles about a guy who made his living doing it, was Dumpster Diving.  We would go to store dumpsters, after hours and see what they threw away.  Seriously, you would be shocked at what is thrown in a dumpster, that is perfectly usable.   One store even threw the items into the dumpster with tags on them stating what was claimed by the returning customer to be the defect…often times they functioned fine, the claim was a lie.  One of those items was my Rowenta Iron.  Perfect condition, claimed to not heat up, brought it home, plugged it in and have been using it ever since.  I’ve dropped it a few times and cracked the casing, and it’s still worked.  Yesterday, however, it gave up, and now, really, does not heat up.  My new quandry…I would never have spent that money on such an iron, it was about $80.00 10 years ago, but now that I’ve had such a great iron, I don’t want to get a $10.00 department store cheapy either.  I can’t even go scavenge in a dumpster as most of the chains stopped using dumpsters and use compactors now…ahh the good ole days.