How to Cook a Moose (37 page)

Heidi and Emily had run off to join a tribe of midsize kids climbing trees. At one point, a nearby tree sprouted eight or nine pairs of small, dirty bare feet that dangled from the leafy boughs. This, too, brought back memories of my own childhood, when we kids ran wild outside in a pack at parties while the grown-ups had their own fun and let us roam free.

Later, Heidi and Emily ran back to our table, their hands filled with blackberries they'd just picked. We all ate some.

“I don't think they really want you to be picking those,” said Melissa.

“But there was a path that led right to them!”

Back at the farmhouse, Melissa took pity on me and insisted on cooking me a proper supper. Brendan and I sat at the long kitchen table with more glasses of wine while she scrambled several rich, orange-yolked eggs from the farm's chickens in butter and set out a block of cheddar and flaxseed crackers. That would have been enough, but she insisted on warming up the duck soup Barbara had made the day before. I ate an enormous bowl of it; so did Brendan, even after all that pizza. The broth was glossy with duck fat, the pieces of duck, tender and sweet. The rice melted in my mouth. It was superb. I forgot all about the pizza I couldn't have.

We three stayed at the table, talking and laughing, while the girls played upstairs and Eliot and Barbara watched a movie.

Just before midnight, Eliot came into the kitchen and kissed the top of his daughter's head. “This reminds me of when you and your friends from school would hang out,” he said.

“Remember that night when I stayed up with two apprentices and got them drunk?” she said, laughing.

“Ha! Yes. That was very bad of you,” he said with a smile.

Four Season Farm is known for its rotating crew of healthy, hardworking young apprentices, so uniformly and staggeringly good-looking that every morning when they emerge from each outbuilding, it's as if a J.Crew catalog has come to life.

And indeed, the next morning, after the chickens had woken us up with their soft, wheezy harmonica chorus and we had all had a good, strong cup of coffee, I was washing vegetables at the pantry sink when I glanced up and saw a young apprentice emerge from the greenhouse door carrying a wire basket full of eggs he'd just gathered. He was shirtless, his muscular chest gleaming, his biceps bulging, his jeans slipping below the waistband of his boxer shorts to show off his tanned washboard abs. Taking in his tousled chestnut curls, sun-kissed face, and pouty bee-stung lips, I laughed out loud.

“What's so funny?” Brendan asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

He followed my gaze, took in that paragon of youthful grace and beauty, and then he laughed, too.

(“Honestly, looks aren't a factor in our hiring,” Barbara assured me when I told her this. “We often do it sight unseen, through good referrals and résumés. I chalk it up to farmy types being especially robust and healthy-looking.”) Maybe that explains why Mainers in general are so good-looking.

We spent the rest of that morning in the kitchen prepping vegetables for a huge lunch for twenty-five people. We minced many bunches of cilantro, pounds of onion, mango, tomato, red pepper, and avocado, and juiced a heap of limes, talking to Barbara about her life and work. She's a writer and a native New Yorker who used to write for a number of publications, including the
Village Voice
, and was a college English professor. She had an organic garden and a landscape consulting firm in Connecticut in the late 1970s and '80s.

In 1991, on a visit up to Midcoast Maine to see her mother, who had retired to Blue Hill, Barbara went over to Harborside to meet Helen, and there was Eliot Coleman, tying up tomatoes in Helen's greenhouse. Barbara and Eliot had been corresponding a bit and knew of each other's books. They were instant soul mates: It was love at first sight for her, and the feeling was mutual. She moved in with Eliot not long afterward, and they have been inseparable ever since. She now works closely with her husband in their many joint ventures; in addition to farming and writing, they travel extensively, all over the world, giving lectures and consultations.

Barbara also writes a regular column for the
Washington Post
on gardening and cooking called “A Cook's Garden.” I asked her what the latest topic was (she'd written a draft before dawn that morning), and she answered with succinct wryness, “Voles.”

Over a second cup of coffee and a bowl of granola and yogurt with blueberries, I took a break from chopping and paged through Eliot and Barbara's new co-authored cookbook,
The Four Season Farm Gardener's Cookbook
. The book was filled with incredibly beautiful, true-to-life photographs of the farm, one of which had a handwritten quote superimposed: “After washing up we fix a simple supper, much of it harvested before, still alive and flavorful. We feel like the luckiest people on earth.” The book also contained a thorough compendium of gardening advice and a resource section.

I pawed through the recipes avidly. Chicken Stew with Horseradish Cream looked delectable. Fish Soup with Tomatoes and Fennel looked like a light spring bouillabaisse I needed to make. I would have liked to dive into the book for a good long time, but there were onions to chop, and I didn't want to be a slacker, so I promised myself I'd buy a copy, read it at my leisure, and try out that beautiful-looking fish soup.

“Flash-pickling,” I said, thinking aloud, watching Barbara pickle red onions and cabbage for the fish tacos.

“What's flash-pickling?” she asked. “I've never heard of that.”

“That's what they call it in Brooklyn,” I said.

“I don't know; I'm just throwing these into some vinegar,” she said.

“It's all the rage among hipsters,” I said, and we laughed.

Barbara Damrosch's Chicken Stew with Horseradish Cream

(adapted from
The Four Season Farm Gardener's Cookbook
)

According to Barbara: “This rustic dish of chicken and vegetables, perfect for a family supper, is light but rich in flavor. A complete meal in itself, it's
easy on the stomach at times when you're not feeling well, or when you are recovering from heavy holiday fare. I often make a lot of it, then eat it for several days. Since the solids and the broth are served separately, each diner can pour or ladle in as much broth as they like. A horseradish topping adds even more flavor and a bit of zip.”

1 whole chicken (4 lbs.)

2 large carrots, scrubbed but not peeled, sliced diagonally into 1-inch-thick pieces

2 medium ribs celery, cut into 1 1/2-inch lengths

1 medium-size onion, peeled and quartered

3 medium leeks (white and light green), split lengthwise, well rinsed, cut into 2-inch sections

4 to 6 small white turnips, about golf-ball size, unpeeled and left whole

1 quart (4 cups) chicken stock

1 cup dry white wine

2 bay leaves

4 whole cloves

1 tsp dried tarragon or 2 tsp chopped fresh tarragon

1/2 tsp dried thyme or 1 tsp fresh

1 tsp salt (less if broth is salty)

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup whole-milk yogurt

1/4 cup prepared white horseradish (not creamy style)

Cut chicken into pieces, separating drumsticks from thighs, severing wings, splitting breast down middle with a knife or poultry shears. Cut the breasts in half crosswise to make 4 pieces. Cut back in half. Remove skin from all pieces except wings.

Place carrots, celery, onion, leeks, and turnips in large soup pot. Add all the chicken pieces, including giblets (minus liver). Pour in the stock and the wine. Bring just to a boil over high heat, skimming off any thick foam that floats to the surface.

Reduce heat to simmer. Add bay leaves, cloves, tarragon, thyme, salt, and pepper. Simmer, uncovered, until chicken is cooked through and vegetables tender, 1 hour or a bit more.

Meanwhile, whisk sour cream, yogurt, and horseradish in small bowl. Spoon horseradish cream into small serving bowl. Set aside at room temperature.

When stew is done, taste for salt and add more if needed. Using slotted spoon and/or tongs, lift out chicken. Remove meat from bones (discarding bones). Using slotted spoon, transfer vegetables to large warmed platter. (If a few bits of vegetable remain in broth, that's okay.) Discard bay leaves. Add chicken to platter.

Pour broth into warmed soup tureen or Dutch oven and serve alongside meat and vegetables. Give each person a generous soup bowl and have them help themselves to stew and broth. Pass horseradish cream. Serves 4.

When just about everything was chopped that needed chopping, Brendan and I went off for a walk. We headed down the road that snaked along the coastline and came to a large, clean, rock-rubbled beach on a wild, secluded cove, where we picked our way over the sand to sit on the tallest rock and look out to sea for a while. It was easy to lose track of time there in the fresh strong breeze and sunlight, inhaling the smell of kelp left on the rocks when the tide went out, looking out at sailboats plying the choppy waves. I didn't want to leave.

But eventually, we headed up the rickety wooden staircase back up the bluff to the road and through the woods to the Nearings' property. As we approached the stone house, the solid-looking chalet that Helen Nearing had designed and built by hand using rocks from their land
and hand-mixed mortar, a ruddy-cheeked young woman wearing stretchy pants came out and said, “Welcome to the Good Life Center! We're about to have yoga, but we're open for visitors from one to five.”

We smiled at her, thanked her, and went on our way, happy to have had at least a small gander at the famous place. As we bushwhacked our way back to Four Season Farm, I chuckled to myself at the aptness of our encounter. I almost wished we could have stayed for yoga, but lunchtime was approaching.

While Barbara grilled marinated haddock and cooked spicy ground beef and warmed corn tortillas in the oven, Brendan and Melissa and I heaped the table in the long great room with plates and bowls of the taco fixings we'd prepped: sautéed onion, mango salsa, tomato salsa, cilantro, pickled cabbage, pickled red onion. We set out a board of cheese and crackers festooned with grapes and leaves from the vine right outside, and a plate of fresh spring rolls a neighbor had made. We opened bottles of cold white wine and poured some for ourselves.

Promptly at noon, the other guests arrived, most of them writers in this case, as well as a farmer and a painter; there's no “fashionably late” in Maine, as we'd learned years ago when we first moved here. If you say noon, you can expect all your guests to assemble well before 12:05, barring acts of God and kidnapping.

We all piled our plates with tacos and then sat around the long table under the grapevine pergola on the granite cobblestone terrace, which was reached through double French doors off the long main room of the house. On that hot, dry summer day, it felt as if we were in Tuscany. It could have been a commercial for the idyllic Maine farming life. Young green bunches of grapes dangled overhead; the flower garden beyond the terrace was in full bloom. Healthy, happy chickens roamed and pecked through the shady woods beyond. The sky was a deep blue and the sun shone. As I looked around the table at the attractive, smart, interesting group, I thought all we needed was a
superimposed caption:
MAINE: THE WAY LIFE SHOULD BE
. I felt a wave of gratitude toward Eliot and Barbara for generously hosting Melissa's writer friends and serving such a lavish meal for our benefit.

The other writers owned summer houses in seaside villages about forty-five minutes from Four Season Farm, and lived in Brooklyn or California the rest of the time. As soon as they realized that Brendan and I lived in Maine year-round, they interrogated us, asking how we'd done it, how we managed to make a go of it.

“We moved here on a whim,” I said. “I don't know how we make a go of it. We're writers, so I guess we can live anywhere. You can do it, if we can.”

“We want to,” they all said hopefully. “We'd love to live in Maine year-round. Maybe we will. Maybe we can figure out a way.”