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!

Yet another exciting Slow Money Success Story, this time from a delicious, if chilly, source: the coast of Maine! This article originally appeared on SeafoodBusiness.com

So, my name is Lara, and I am the daughter of the innkeepers Mario and Roni, that many of you have come to know during your stays at The Squire Tarbox Inn!  After 8 years of hard work they are beginning to think about retiring, and have put the inn up for sale, but alas in this climate, that may take some time, so that’s where I come in to the picture!  I have moved to Maine from Oregon to join the team, and help them take a break from the maddening pace of
an innkeeper’s life!  I spent last summer there, working side by side with them, observing and thinking about what I’d like to see happen at a place like that.
As many of you have seen, it is incredibly beautiful, with it’s historic buildings, and it has all the infrastructure to be a working farm.  Some of you may have been lucky enough to visit when my brother’s organic vegetable gardens were in full swing, and it was stunning…he has since outgrown the acreage, and moved to another piece of land just down the road!   We are very happy for his business success, but we miss the incredibly satisfying feeling of being able to see, touch and smell all those gorgeous vibrant organic veggies on site!  We hope to re grow the land he left.  I have my bachelors in nutrition, so love veggies, and especially odd, obscure and heirloom types, and we will focus on those alongside many of the important restaurant staples!  We have always used some of his vegetables in our cooking, but I would like to produce enough that after a year or so, we use almost exclusively our produce (alas we can’t grow lemons in Maine without greenhouses)!  I also have a passion for incorporating herbs into cooking, so we will be planting lots of beautiful, healthy medicinal herbs in our gardens as well!  If I stay long enough, I would like to start creating our own animal products too!  The previous owners made and sold goat cheese, so that would be the first place to start, and we already have chickens in charge of the breakfast supplies…aka farm fresh eggs!  I have thought about starting to raise meat birds as well, and even perhaps some sheep for milk and mutton….my brother raised pigs on the property, and I would like to do this again….the quality of the pork is UNBELIEVABLE!!  My basic philosophy on cooking and eating healthy is that if you raise it yourself (or visit an inn where someone else lovingly raised it) you can eat almost whatever you want, including butter and cream and the likes, and not only is it healthy for you (within reason) but without having to do too much to it in the cooking process, it TASTES fabulous!!  Some other fun projects we have in mind are to build an earthen oven for wood fired pizza and bread, to have canning parties, to have a roasting spit in the restaurant where we carve your dinner for you right in front of the fire, and many more ideas….keep checking our website as we start to update about all the changes we will start to make this year!  www.squiretarboxinn.com We are a family that loves food, and we look forward to sharing its beauty, vitality, and even sensuousness with all of you!

We’re almost 1/2 done with winter and we have been spared the worst. So far so good. Another beautiful day today. I knew if I got real winter tires with studs we wouldn’t get too bad a winter…it’s like taking an umbrella along to keep the rain away!! We’ll be opening again on April 19th so don’t forget to come back and see us.

Check our page out under ‘The Squire Tarbox Inn’

Need something to do in the winter in Maine. Check this miniature circus out at the Penobscot Marine Museum http://bangordailynews.com/2011/12/09/living/bex-bros-circus-returns-after-25-year-hiatus/

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving feasting on turkey with family and friends :  It’s hard to believe now with these warm temperatures that Christmas is only 25 days away. Don’t forget to still join us here for a meal before we close January 1st until April. We are open Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays and don’t forget Thursdays is Swiss night when we serve cheese fondue and raclette. We are also doing our New Year’s Eve dinner so make a reservation for that.

The fall season was a bit of a dud (as far as the leaves) but our guests enjoyed themselves regardless…The pumpkin regatta in Damariscotta was a big hit, with lots of fun activities and silliness   Folks enjoyed apple picking at our local orchards as well!  We had our first snow before Halloween even got here…it might be a long winter!!  The plows were on it, however, and everything went smoothly.  We are now looking to our holiday season…we are offering an exquisite Thanksgiving dinner for inn guests and locals alike!  After that, we move into Christmas parties and our New Years’s celebration!!!  Then a little rest until we start up again next spring.  Thank you to all of our guests that make each season we do business totally worth it!!  Next year we are going to begin adding some classes/seminars to our spring and fall schedules…we are looking at beekeeping, cooking, and maybe beer making.  We plan to add more in the realms of cooking, gardening and homesteading!  We look forward to your participation in learning some truley valuable skills, or just some fun hobbies!  Happy autumn and winter to you all!