Below are excerpts from stories that the farm crew shared with Semester 52 students and families this Family Weekend. We are exceedingly grateful – each of us – to this group of students for depth of their work this spring. The sheer quantity of work completed by the hands of Semester 52 students and staff […]
To Semester 52: So Many Thanks Read More »
The ramp (Allium triccocum), also known as wild leek and wild garlic, is a wild growing spring delicacy found across much of the eastern half of North America. It is a perennial member of the onion family with a strong garlic-like odor and a pronounced onion flavor. Because these plants are rare in Maine, though
Earlier this semester, Courtney and I were discussing what the kitchen has made in the past. When she mentioned kimchi/ spicy fermented cabbage (김치) my ears perked up. I was excited to hear Chewonki had fermented one of my favorite foods before. We talked about the process the cooks used, and I wanted to do
“What! No sugar? Are you crazy?” These are the words I was expecting to hear from my fellow Chewonki community members, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by their excitement and encouragement for our week of no refined-sugar. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything other than curiosity and support for this endeavor, but after researching
A Refined-Sugar-Free Week at Chewonki Read More »
In tandem with Chewonki’s Refined Sugar Awareness Week, I decided to look into how Chewonki can use natural alternatives to refined sugar in the kitchen for my Human Ecology Project. Specifically, I explored the feasibility for the kitchen to stop using refined sugar. Human ecology is the study of the relationship between humans and their
Replacing Refined Sugar in the Chewonki Kitchen Read More »
…or haymaker’s punch is a favorite beverage both with the kitchen staff and farm crew here at Chewonki. Switchel may have originated in the 1600’s in the West Indies although the ancient Greeks were drinking oxymel, which was a honey sweetened vinegar syrup. Herman Melville wrote in I and My Chimney, “I will give a
Here’s another great fish from Salt + Sea in Portland: Atlantic Pollock (Pollachius virens). We’d catch these guys occasionally when we were fishing for mackerel as kids and my mother would cook them up for the dog or cats to supplement their daily ration of dried food. The fillets that Jay delivered last night were
Here are some observations on cheese making and Chewonki by Clare Churchill-Seder, one of our Outdoor classroom instructors: I just have to tell you, the feta Bill and I made last week is wild. It’s delicious. It has a smoother texture than the traditional sheep or goat’s milk feta and tastes tangy, salty and fresh.
Hermione was the last of the ewes to deliver, though we thought she’d be the first judging from her gargantuan belly. But, at long last, the Chewonki lambing season ended on Saturday evening with the birth of twins, one male and one female. Here is the roster of new lambs in total: Patches: 1 mottled
Lambing is Over (at last!) Read More »
A reflection from Hilary Crowell, Assistant Farm Manager There are certain tasks that we complete and routines that we follow every day and every week at the farm. In these tasks I am reminded that when we take good care of our farm, the farm takes care of us. We cycle the root cellar produce