Today is turning out to be a satisfying day!!  The morning started with a trip to the garden to plant some more peas!!  We already have a sweet pea variety in, but I had to start some Oregon Trail variety to pay homage to what was my home state for over 12 years   I also planted a vegetable called black salsify….its a perennial that is grown for its roots…i have only seen pictures of it, so we’ll see what it does!   A few weeks ago, my husband took the time to clean up and weed some of the abandoned rhubarb, and today we noticed some was ready to harvest!!  I was totally excited, but also felt a little bad…we had just had some dinner guests that had asked if we had some because they remembered it from last year here….only a few days off!

So that brings me to the second half of my day…working in the kitchen.  The yummy part…I will make up some pie dough, and then with that I will turn that rhubarb into tart alsacienne which means that the rhubarb is cooked in a firm custard.  Then I will make up some quiche with spring greens, some local goat cheese, and maybe a few mushrooms.  Quiche is so convenient for leftovers, so I tend to make lots!  To me this is the perfect spring day here in Maine…its about 60 degrees, sunny, and I got to spend the morning in the garden, and the afternoon in the kitchen, and the evening eating and sharing a glass of wine…Ahhh!

I went to meet Stu last week, and had a great time!  Stu Silverstein is the gentleman who will be teaching our class on earthen and brick wood fired oven building!  As I arrived, he had a fire already going in his large permanent earthen oven sitting in his back yard.  After introductions, we went inside to find a dough rising on the kitchen counter.  He chopped off a small piece and flattened it out and we went outside to bake.  Within a few moments, the bread was in the oven browning, and after a quick turn and maybe five or six minutes later, this lovely crusty yet soft bread was done.  We went inside to eat…I had brought a cream of mushroom soup with me, and they went perfectly together!  As I made the drive back down to the midcoast area from Augusta, I had the smell of another loaf of bread Stu had givien me wafting through the car, and I was filled with sweet visions of our own home baked bread, and pizzas coming from our soon to be oven at the inn!!!  Mmmm….

Lara here.  I spent the winter season in Switzerland, working in my uncle’s kitchen, and now my father/chef has started to ask me for my input for the menu….I was very excited at the prospect, but realized that I may not be able to rise to the occasion just yet.  While I was in Switzerland, I learned a lot of techniques, but it isn’t my style of cooking.  What I like to cook is inspired by what is in the garden!  I love fresh seasonal vegetables.  As a nutritionist I feel the best way to eat is as if there were no refrigerator, which means seasonal and fresh, or what we have had the foresight to preserve, and those practical veggies that keep well in a root celar!  Here in midcoast Maine, seasonal vegetables right now are sparse…we have a ton of greens of course, and some leftover potatoes, turnips, cabbage and carrots.  I haven’t been here a full year, so I dont yet have a lot of preserved foods, like I hopefully will next year…I did have the motivation to make some Japanese sauerkraut last year..mmmm!  While we did get garlic in the ground last year, not very much else got planted, so I’m a little bit lost for what to cook….if I was well prepared, I’d have planted nettles to make nettle and sausage (from my brother’s home raised pigs) filled silk handkerchiefs with some homemade pesto from basil we grew, and canned last summer….ahhh…I know what I’ll be doing this summer

But alas patience is a virtue, so in the mean time we look to what we have, plant like fiends, so we will have lots to work with this summer, and wait…..

Maybe a good time to make some bread dough, so I’m ready for our upcoming class…..

Upcoming Classes:



 

BUILD A WOOD FIRED OVEN. June 9th & 10th

If you’ve ever wanted to have a pizza oven in your backyard, then join us and learn how to build various types of wood-fired pizza/bread ovens. No experience required.
Participants will work with clay and brick and construct low-cost ovens that will make the very best pizzas and breads. Discussions include techniques for making pizzas, flat breads, sourdou

gh and no-knead breads. Unique sourdough starter shared with all in class.

Stu Silverstein, instructor, is an artist who bakes a lot of bread, builds earth ovens and writes about the process. He co-owns Railroad Square Cinema, Maine’s premier art house and for many years owned a brick oven cafe. Stu has also co-produced and directed the award-winning film Dead River Rough Cut, that happens to be the most requested movie at the Maine State Prison, no joke. Just recently he finished his latest book, Bread Earth and Fire. Way before that, after deciding against a career with the FBI, he finally got serious about his life and spent a lot of time driving VW buses across the country searching for great bread, but he never found any, and that’s why he learned to bake. Stu maintains the lively blog:  www.iBreadhunter.blogspot.com 

Food and lodging included
www.squiretarboxinn.com/specials

 

Make your own Earthen Oven

 

Can’t believe our 3 1/2 months “off” is almost over. For the last 6 or so weeks we’ve actually been working down at the Inn both outside & in, doing some fresh paint & wallpapering around the place as well as cleaning up the grounds. Polishing the floors & furniture is still to be done! At least our days are a lot shorter than when we are fully up & running. 2012 looks to be a good year with old & new faces coming to our bed and breakfast. It seems to be a year for weddings on Westport Island & we are getting a lot of reservations for different events. We are hosting a 3 day wedding in September for a best friend of Lara. They live in NY but love our Inn so much they are wanting to do the wedding here which we are thrilled about.

Lara will be home in another 10 days from her 5 1/2 month apprenticeship in Switzerland. We’re excited to see what she has learnt. Jay, her husbamnd, has already been planting seeds in our little greenhouse for all the veggies that Lara would like to use at the Inn this year.

Popular Garden Plants:

Basil (Ocimum)

Bee balm (Monardia)

Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia)

Borage (Borago)

Caltrop (Kallstroemia)

Cotoneaster (Cotoneaster)

English Lavendar (Lavandula)

Escallonia (Escallonia)

Globe thistle (Echinops)

Hyssop (Hyssopus)

Licorice Mint (Agastache)

Marjoram (Origanum)

Mexican sunflower (Tithonia)

Milkweed (Asclepias)

Rocky Mountain Bee Plant (Cleome)

Rosemary (Rosmarinus)

Russian Sage (Perovskia)

Sage (Salvia)

Wallflower (Erysimum)

Wild lilac (Ceanothus)

Zinnia (Zinnia)

What an amazing early Spring we are having here in Midcoast Maine.

Attend a weekend class with renowned top bar bee keeper, Christy Hemenway of Gold Star HoneyBees at an historic inn in on Westport Island in
Midcoast Maine, in beautiful farm setting!  Includes 2 nights lodging, breakfast,  lunch & refreshments. Learn how to raise the bees and make honey. Start being more sustainable today!

Single occupancy $415.00

Double Occupancy for 2 students $590.00

Double occupancy & one student $430.00

Prices excl. 7% Maine lodging tax.

The Inn reserves the right to cancel the class if a minimum of 12 students is not met. Full refunds will be issued.

Dinner available by reservation.

This weekend I am in Barcelona for a few days visiting my cousin Leo who lives here for now. Beautiful spring weather compared with the cold we’ve been having in Switzerland.

I am looking forward to coming home again on April 16th in time for opening!  I have spent the winter (while the inn is closed) in Switzerland!  I came here to learn how to really cook!  As I have a bachelor’s in nutrition and a dad I could always call for direction, I’ve never been to shabby in the kitchen, but there is a huge difference in cooking for four or 25+….So, I came here and worked for 5 months in my uncle’s restaurant!  It has been great! I have learned many little tricks, and understand what it really takes to cook for lots of people!  I have copied quite a few recipes, and look forward to cooking them at the inn….some of my favorites are an orange,
walnut ricotta cake (I may try an adaptation with almonds, lemon and thyme). Another favorite is a chestnut soup that is to die for on a cold day!  A tartar with olives, dorado, and cilantro…a ceviche of sorts!  Some lovely sauces; a morel sauce that is to die for, and olive tapenade, and many more!  Any way, I look forward to returning, getting the gardens going, and then harvesting all those lovely veggies and cooking up a storm for you at our restaurant!  Till then, take care!

Photo of edible flowers picked in in July (lavender, thyme, dill, cilantro, day lily, squash blossom, Nasturtiums, chives, and basil).

After falling out of favor for many years, cooking and garnishing with flowers is back in vogue once again. Flower cookery has been traced back to Roman times, and to the
Chinese, Middle Eastern, and Indian cultures. Edible flowers were especially popularin the Victorian era during Queen Victoria’s reign.

Today, many restaurant chefs and innovative home cooks garnish their entrees with flower blossoms for a touch of elegance. The secret to success when using edible
flowers is to keep the dish simple, do not add to many other flavors that will over power the delicate taste of the flower. Today this nearly lost art is
enjoying a revival.

As we start to make some of the changes involved in the ideas I talked about in our previous blog, we will be offering classes to the public on these topics.  One of the first classes we have lined up is a beekeeping class.  We can have up to about 20 people in our classes, and once we have learned how, we will produce our own honey for the inn, and will try to make it our primary sweetener as opposed to sugar!

Another idea we are working on is a class on how to build a wood fired oven!  They make the most incredible breads, and will be awesome for baking pizza.  I think we would like to offer pizza with the toppings dictated by whatever is freshly harvested from the garden that week!  The ovens are made from a simple mixture of sand, clay and straw, so anyone can go home and make one in their backyard!

Of course, we will offer organic gardening classes, as we start to build our garden back up again!  This means having classes about all the basics, like composting, seed selection, starting seeds, transplanting, using cold frames and greenhouses.

We would like to have cheese making classes for both cheeses like chèvre, and also more firm cheeses like real Swiss cheese (my family is all Swiss, so we’re a lil biased).

We also have some friends that are excellent brewers, so we will host a beer making class, where everyone can sample their finished product…Mmmm!

Finally, we will also offer some cooking classes on things as varied as bread making (in the wood fired oven), sauces, canning, and cooking healthy without sacrificing taste!

I’m sure two days after I post this, I will think of five more ideas, and if you have any suggestions, feel free to contact us at: innkeepers@squiretarboxinn.com
Be sure to check out our web page for details about the dates of the classes as well as expenses, but rest assured you will be comfortable and WELL fed while you learn about some awesome methods of food production that promote both sustainability and health!