A harvest and feast at my home in Maine

October 19, 2009

A harvest and feast at my home in Maine

A couple of weeks ago, I invited a small group from my television crew to join me for an inspirational weekend at Skylands, my home in Maine. It was also the same weekend that all the vegetables from the garden were harvested, providing us with an end of summer bounty. Tom Joseph, one of the chefs from the TV test kitchen, joined me in the kitchen preparing delicious and nutritious meals. We built up healthy appetites hiking and exploring all day and here are some photos of the harvest and of one great feast.

: This is the largest broccoli we had ever seen – grown in my own garden in Maine – it was delicious and fed eight of us!

: Tom Joseph prepared the dinner with me – he is one of the chefs in our TV test kitchen. He is a student at New York University working on his MA of Food Studies – his thesis is on Vietnamese Foodways/Pho (a traditional Vietnamese beef noodle soup).

: Tom making faces!

: Tom made a lemon tart with meringue – the curd was from the juice of my own Bedford lemons.

: The table for this Saturday night supper was set in the kitchen because we were serving messy lobsters in the shell.

: We roasted freshly harvested Mt. Desert potatoes – they were wrapped in parchment lined foil and baked until tender in the oven.

: This is before they were roasted.

: I am about to smash the potato on the table – this breaks up the flesh into a snowy fluffy mound – so delicious.

: I love my potato with butter and sour cream and chives.

: The lobsetrs were from Downeast Lobster Pound – soft shells called shedders – the meat is tender. The 1 1/4-pounders take 15 minutes to cook in boiling water.