i love it when all of the local business string their lights and  fill their spaces with holiday cheer.  this year i was amazed by the gingerbread house at one of our favorite local restaurants;  five and ten.  pastry chef, shae rehmel made a replica of  five and ten’s ‘house’ logo.  take note of all of the details, that garden is killing me!

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nothing reminds me more of fall, as fresh georgia mountain apples.  baking apple pies or making fresh apple sauce leaves the house smelling like fall for days.

i recently made some rustic apple tarts, they are quick and simple to make.

ingredients

-fresh apples

-your favorite pie crust

-maple syrup (or other sweetener)

-flour

-cinnamon

-walnuts (optional)

directions

-preheat oven to 400 degrees

-cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper or wax paper

-cut the apples into small pieces (i left the skins on, you can remove them if you would like)

-coat the apples with flour and sprinkle with cinnamon

-drizzle some maple syrup over apples and add the walnuts, mix

-divide your crust dough for the individual tarts

-on a floured surface roll each tart into small disks

-spoon some apple mixture onto each disk and fold sides over the apples to contain them

-carefully place the tarts on the baking pan

-bake in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, until apples appear cooked and the tarts are slightly browned

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i met todd and dale at the farmers market after reading an article on them in the flagpole.  i talked to them a little bit about their homestead and interests and became excited to pay them a visit to vesta, georgia.  todd is a carpenter and organically farms and sells his goods to the athens community.  dale works for the university as well as plays the fiddle in several local bands and enjoys writing.  she has recently been doing beautiful farm fresh flower arrangements for weddings.  it was a pleasure to get to know the two and i thank them for showing me around.

besides the veggie fueled volkswagon in the driveway…the overall landscape took me back 100 years.  inside, the house has been beautifully preserved and is filled with wonderful antique collections.  the walls, corners, and hallways are composed of of old instruments, hats, miniatures, tiny found skeletons, and doorknobs to name a few.  all are arranged in wonderful vignettes that warm each room.  many of the walls and ceilings are hand honed planks-untreated and have aged gracefully over the years.

the main street used to run through their property- which is now the driveway which takes you to the old post office and todd’s hand built studio.  his studio is filled with reclaimed building supplies:  old windows, beautiful wood, things that need not be wasted.

their home is lucky to have such caring dwellers as they are so respectful of the homestead’s history and future.  such a wonderful place!  -kristen

In addition to the post office/barn and Todd’s shop there are several other outbuildings. There’s a shed of some sort – possibly once a smokehouse, a root cellar, a bunk house for farm hands and/or possibly slaves, a buggy shed, the vestiges of a barn long ago collapsed and another two room house which may have housed travelers or workers adjoining the back porch. There’s even a pump house made with granite that was quarried nearby and has been re-commissioned as a homemade walk-in cooler for the veggies. There’s a small cemetery in the back that has three graves of the family that, presumably, built the house, or first settled there.

The house itself is a simple single story vernacular Greek Revival farmhouse. The original section is a simple hall and double parlor layout and has had two gable sections (sheds?) added sometime later, we think in the later 19th or early 20th century – enlarging the house by four more rooms and an extension of the central hall that runs the length of the house. We believe these sheds included a dog trot that was eventually enclosed and became a continuation of the center hallway. Except for a bathroom (hurray indoor plumbing) and a back porch that connects the house to the smaller bunk house, not much else has been changed. When we found the place it had not been lived in for at least 18 years. We could see where electricity was added and updated on an as-needed basis. One room had a small fuse box (with fuses) and one room had a small, inadequate circuit breaker. Another exciting detail is that we bought the house from descendants of the family who built or first settled here – it had never been owned outside of the family. There were no records of the house ever being built or sold – just the land and farm. We have no idea when the house was “born” – but materials and techniques suggest the original section was built anywhere from 1850’s – 1880’s. We’ve learned that it’s hard to determine for certain from this evidence, since older building methods continued to be used in rural areas when more modern techniques were used “in the big city.”

The first thing you notice upon entering the house is the wood. The walls floors and ceilings are all wide, hand-finished planks of heart pine. Much of the wood was left unpainted. You can see the hand plane strokes on every board. Every nail is a hand cut nail – inside and out. The central hall walls are vertical planks of unusual configuration. Every other plank was mitered on each side, front and back to a “tongue” and the other boards were left as is but “grooved” to receive the mitered planks. It makes an interesting paneling that is the same on both sides of the wall so that the two rooms on either side of the hall have the same pattern. Neither of us has ever seen anything quite like it. Some of the planks on the floors and walls are quite wide – you just don’t see wood like this every day. Since Todd is a woodworker and restorer, he was so thrilled to have fallen into this property. It couldn’t be a better place for someone with such a deep appreciation for wood. He still can be caught from time to time just rubbing those plane marks with his hand with this strange smile on his face.

We moved to Georgia from Colorado where we had an antiques business. We both had been collecting most of our adult lives; consequently our house is filled with old stuff. In fact, I met Todd at his own backyard antiques/yard sale in Missouri one week after I had moved there (from Athens back in 93) – which is so apropos as often it’s the case that the things I prize most I got at a yard sale. Our first date was a farm auction in Missouri. Things could have gotten off to a rocky start if there hadn’t been two of these incredible birds’ nests amidst the dusty treasures. We both saw this nest – a pouch really – and we both wanted it – obviously – but amazingly, another one was found (what are the odds?) and oddly enough we were the only bidders on these beauties. A really sweet magnifying glass was also procured, along with a sweet pressed wood architectural remnant. Our buying and collecting has slowed quite a bit ever since we found this place – the ultimate antique purchase – and we’ll be fixing it up for as long as we are here. We see so much potential, and we have a long way to go and so little time to devote to the many projects at hand.

Speaking of time, it nearly all goes to Veribest Farm these days. Todd is a man obsessed with his veggies. He cares so much for these plants, it’s a wonder he can bring himself to eat them. It’s not just the veggies. He puts as much care and feeding into the dirt with his home made composted mulch and pet worms – thousands of them – that he constantly feeds compost to and he ecstatically collects their castings. Black gold. Our small patch of garden at this point is just under an acre. It may not be enough to make enough money to quit our day jobs, but there’s some room to grow. We have a lot to learn and it may be too soon to expand. And anyway, I’ll never forget the words of Tim Mills of Mills Farm – “If you farm to make money, you’ll starve. If you farm as a way of life, you’ll thrive.” This is the mantra as we pick, wash, bundle, arrange and pack until midnight Friday and then get up at 4:30 in the morning to load, drive, unload, arrange and prepare our smiles for the crowd hungry for fresh, clean veggies that are produced nearby by the very people they are chatting with. It’s such an incredible exchange. These good people who come to the market get, along with their produce, something perhaps even more valuable – a connection to their food and its nourishment. One customer commented, “I haven’t seen any beans today, do you have any?” She learned that beans were scarce that day because we had been through a tremendous heat wave – nearly ten days of high 90’s, which stopped the vascular action of the bean plants cold (so to speak) – they simply shut down temporarily. So, beans that were plentiful the previous week were not available. The customer gained an experience of farming, of the growing process and the frustration – together with the realization that it’s part of living off the land. Yeah, she could go get some beans at a grocery store, but she could also get some lovely tomatoes, a melon and peppers directly from the farmer that week and hope for cooler weather, god forbid some rain, and have fresh beans next week – along with the rest of us.  -dale wechsler

the “bird nests”

a collection of old nails and doorknobs fixed to a ceiling beam

back view of their house

a side view of their house

old post office

the shed

the old slave house

the root cellar

todd’s “hand built” workshop

one of dale’s farm grown arrangements

click to enlarge

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well…. rebecca got back from vacation and the tomato crop had exploded, along with 3 kinds of beans and one jalapeno plant that’s producing enough for an army.  nothing to do but spend the whole weekend sterilizing jars,snapping beans, filling jars,and filling the freezer.  a lot of work, but oh so fulfilling to see all those quarts of tasty tomatoes on the pantry shelf, knowing we’ll be treated to summer all over again come winter.

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this past week has been pretty darn hot.  all you can think about eating is something cold.  i had some left over cobbler that i made from some blackberries that i picked at the studio.  i thought i would try making some ice cream with it and the result was decadent!

the recipe

1 pint half and half

1 pint whipping cream

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cup leftover cobbler

——

directions

-add the creams and the sugar to a saucepan and turn to medium heat

-heat for about 20 minutes, stirring to prevent burning.  you do not want to boil but you do want to see steam coming from the liquid

-stir in vanilla

-chill in the fridge overnight

—–

making the ice cream

-follow the directions for your ice cream maker

-when the ice cream is just about done, add the cobbler to the mixture

-continue with the mixing

-when the machine is done mixing, put ice cream in the freezer for a couple of hours…then serve!

-

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this past weekend we made a quick trip to asheville, north carolina to celebrate our first year anniversary….and for some inspiration.

asheville is a little city tucked away between the blue ridge mountains and the great smokey mountains.  the city is filled with elective characters and artisans, and restaurant after restaurant offering plates made from their locally grown goods.  while we were there we went to a couple of farmers markets to get inspired by their extensive locally grown movement.  it is inspiring to see a city that demonstrates so much support for their farmers and artists.

sharing some details of our adventure

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it can get too cold here to grow lemons in the natural elements.  rinne has some lemon trees growing in her greenhouse, made from old-recycled windows.  i stopped by for a harvest.  

i have always wanted to preserve lemons, it is an simple way to create a lot of flavor and create a natural condiment.  preserved lemons are traditionally used in moroccan cooking but once you taste them you can get creative with how you use them.  i had some left over kumquats from yesterdays cake, so i decided to make some preserved kumquats too.  you can use them in recipes that call for preserved lemons.

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what you will need

-clean jar(s)

-handful of organic lemons (any type will do)

-kosher salt

how to preserve lemons  (or substitute the kumquats for the lemons)

-wash the fruit very well

-put about an inch of salt at the bottom of the clean jar

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-cut the lemons in half and roll them in some salt

-make sure that salt gets into the crevices of the lemons

-place fruit in jar

-about halfway full, pour some salt over the jared lemons 

-continue salting the lemons and adding to jar

-try to fit as many lemons into the jar as possible, using force to get the last few in.

****you want as little air in the jar as possible

-pour any remaining juices that may have been lost in the cutting of the fruits

-pour some salt over the top and put the lid on the jar

-place jar in a dark place to preserve for  at least a month (up to a year, the longer they preserve, the more flavor)

-every few days it is good to shake the jars to make sure the salt covers the fruit

-after preserving, store in the refrigerator for up to a year

enjoy!!!!

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