This morning we herded the kids out to the car…yes, little girls, not goats, “yet”. We headed to Kittery Maine for a breakfast that was hosted by Slow Food Seacoast and Tidewater School. What a great time. The food was an impressive spread of all local ingredients, yes all local!
Buttermilk Pancakes made with Buttermilk, Whole Milk and Flour from Brookford Farm, Kate’s Butter, Local Honey and eggs. Topped with Sugarmomma’s Maple Syrup.
Apple Compote made with apples from Wolf Pine Farm sauteed in Kate’s Homemade butter, and sweetened with cider and maple syrup. The compote was topped with yogurt from Brookford.
Scrambled eggs from several farms, including Chicken Nick’s, the son of Sugarmomma.
Two kinds of sausage, Peppercorn Fennel Pork from New Roots and Turkey made with apple cider from Cider Hill Orchard, turkey from Misty Knoll Farm Maple syrup and native seasonings (sumac and sasafrass).
Apple Cider to drink, though they had coffee and tea, available from White Heron Tea and . Not local to NH, but they were sourced with Fair Trade methods.
After breakfast Slow Food Seacoast was giving away various seeds for planting. These were seeds that were seed saved and are part of the Raft list. I selected Blue Scotch Kale, Early Blood Rooted Turnip Beet and Orach.
The Tidewater School is so amazing. I really love everything I’ve been too that involved them. Their May Faire is a “Don’t Miss” and is held at their school on May 14 this year. They had two activities available today. One involved taking a piece of bark, layering the inside with potting soil, pressing that down, adding soaked wheat seeds (from Brookford Farm), and pressing them into the soil. When it’s home we need to spray it with water to keep it from drying out, and in a matter of a few days there should be little sprouts of wheat grass, that will grow into several inches by Easter.
Next they had cleaned out some of the egg shells from breakfast and let the kids fill them with soil, seeds for Tennis Ball Lettuce, and cover with soil.
Both girls enjoyed the activities and are excited to see what will happen. The Bark is on the table, but the lettuce is under the grow lights downstairs for greater insurance of success.
I’m so glad we went. It was a wonderful family time. I can’t find my camera, so no pictures, but hopefully it turns up soon.
Oh, by they way…
SugarMomma said it’s been a bumper crop for Maple this year! I highly recommend picking up a bottle.
New Roots had a fun annoucement on their Facebook Page…be sure to friend them: We are offering a Farmers’ Market-based bulk purchase program. We have 10 Heritage Breed Meat Shares available for $200. This will entitle the shareholder to $225 of meat from now until December 31, 2011. This can be used for chicken, pork, lamb, beef or goat at the Portsmouth and Exeter Markets. Email farmers@newrootsfarm.com for more info or to register.
Brookford Farm has awesome CSA options available that could make the grocery store just about obsolete. They have choices of Meat, Veggie, Dairy and Grain options for 12 week CSA’s. Year Round, even!
News from my Homestead…Calliope has begun nesting and pulling fur! Hoping for a litter tomorrow. Sometime next week, there should be some Muscovy ducklings wandering about. For their sake, I hope it warms up.
How nice that you write about these things today of all days…I had a very frustrating experience at James’s doctor: he had three shots of different vaccinations(I only gave him the ones Italian law prescribes, which was more than enough for me anyway, but here it is not, of course. I had somehow resigned to that…..). And then we discussed a bit eating habits- I should know better than listening to a normal doctor. I find it so stupid that here they insist on low fat milk for young kids with no particular problems. Whole foods, that’s what kids need!!! it reminds me of the first doctor James saw when he was 5 days old: she said I should give him chamomile tea because he was growing up too fast(wqhat? Breastfed, 5 days old?). I Think they read too much and they don’t see…
Anyway, I’ll drop it here, ’cause there are so many other things. Back to your post: Tidewater is the first school I visited with James in mind a couple of years ago , when we started thinking about moving here (and at Christmas we visited Pine Hill in Wilton). A very nice place indeed.
And Sugarmomma’s grade B is in our fridge, picked up on NH Maple weekend. James decided this was the best for his yoghurt!
And sprouting bark, how nice…we have sprouted lentils in cotton balls, must move them to soil if I want to keep them for Easter… Thanks for your news and for sharing them with us!