Farm & Forage

The day got off to its usual start yesterday. We didn't need to leave for our Farm & Forage lunch until around 12:30, and that left plenty of time for slow-stitching and rainbow scrap blocks.

First, I got a start on my 3rd mystery project. If you've been paying attention, I've done four mystery projects in the past couple of weeks. I've already finished #4, which was the teal mini swap, to be revealed later this month. Earlier, I traced out #3, and yesterday I started stitching it. It'll take me about a week to stitch this and then another week or so before it is received by its recipient. Until then, only peeks for you:

When I'd finished with that for the morning, I went outside to document the reblooming of the second gerbera daisy. If you follow along, then you know I've whined incessantly about how I can never get the gerbera daisies to rebloom. I moved them to a sunnier spot this year, and I've had better luck.

It's neighbor to the left, the third of the three plants, has a bud on it too. Now, if the squirrels will just leave it alone, it too should have a flower pretty soon.

Sadie was all ears and eyes while I was out, even if she is a little out of focus.

Back inside, I surprised myself by finishing the four light blue blocks for the Paintbox Pizzazz quilt. This is the second of this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts.

And that left me just enough time to shower and get dressed to go to the Farm & Forage event at Sokol-Blosser winery just down the road. We live in the heart of Oregon wine country here, and so we're members at several local wineries, this one included.

The idea with Farm & Forage, is that we're tasting wines, but a chef is also making up little "snacks" to eat while we taste. Here's the "menu," although it doesn't really say what the dish is. It just notes what is included in each dish. The items listed in red are items farmed and foraged from their own vineyards and gardens.

There was another group in the room with us, and they asked the "wine guy" to take their picture, which emboldened me to ask to have our picture taken as well.

This is chef Travis dressing up the first course.

The first course was a small bowl of gazpacho made with cucumber, tomato, and onion, all from their own farm. The little flowers you see are edible. This was so tasty.

After that, a couple of little raviolis. One was stuffed with squash puree. The other with kale and something else...I forget. They made their own yogurt, and the broth for this was made with the whey from the yogurt. All the little flower garnishes are edible.

The next course was a lamb chop, sourced from a local farm. The dishes were so pretty.

Those little round "grapes" are actually husk cherry, which is a sort of little mini tomatillo. The meat was quite a bit more rare than I usually like, and I've had trouble being squeamish about lamb in recent years (although we used to eat it all the time). Anyway...I hesitated only a minute with this, and then ate it with no problem. It was very yummy. The "schmear" underneath is some of their yogurt, but it's been mixed with stuff to make it taste a little like hummus.

The small setting and close seating made it fun watching the cooking as it progressed.

The next dish was albacore on the left and fillet mignon on the right. Along with the beef were some shishito peppers. I mentioned those recently. They are some of my CSA favorites. Also the peach had been browned on its cut side, and then sprinkled with a little red pepper. It was a surprisingly delicious combination. On the left, the albacore was accompanied by some pickled chanterelle mushrooms, and those were very tasty.

Finally, this little dessert. It has a couple of dollops of a yogurt whipped cream, layered and topped with a little yogurt cakes. The reddish syrup around it is made from their own plums.

Having devoured everything, I walked around the room taking pictures of all the items they've harvested from their gardens. Below are cherry tomatoes on top, and then the husk cherries below.

They had tons of tomatoes. I told them I'd have my canning kettle on to boil if I had this many tomatoes.

Turning to the left there was more of everything.

They'd also been preserving plum jam and jelly and the jars were sitting around.

On a trip to the restroom, I noticed these chocolates in their tasting room.

Proceeds are donated to local animal rescue organizations.

We took a little walk through the vineyards before heading for home. The skies were cloudy, but the sun was shining.

Interestingly, the grapes were just beginning to ripen. The next three pictures were taken just feet apart and on the same vines. Some were still quite green.

Others were beginning to color-up.

Still others had nearly all-purple clusters.

There were also some pretty blooming things around. They have lovely flower gardens at this winery, but we were especially taken with these. They grew along one whole wall of the tasting room, and each flower was perfect. They were prolific bloomers.

And that was pretty much the end of the day. We arrived home around 4:30 p.m. After all that wine, I was ready for a nap. I noted it was late in the day for that, but my eyes had other ideas. I fell asleep on the couch and didn't wake up until 7:00 p.m. Geez. I worried I wouldn't sleep last night, but I did. I suppose I needed the sleep, even without the wine.

So today I'm going to get started on the paper-pieced unicorn. I really want to get both quilts off (the zebra and the unicorn) to my friend so she can pass them along to her granddaughters. There are a few house-keeping chores on today's calendar, and they'll probably be a welcome respite from the paper-piecing. But first, slow-stitching.