Outstanding In The Field East Coast

What a crazy month it has been! Sorry for my lack of posts. Internet has been very limited along the road. We have made it to the East Coast! Our bus has been trucking along the coast through Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia! We slowly made our way down to Georgia and it feels good to be home! All of our dinners have been successful and full of good food, fun and great company. I will post of pictures from the meals and chefs as well. Here is a little bit of on the road fun....

Some highlights of the East Coast:

We spent one Saturday morning at Vermont's Farmers Market in Burlington. The market was full of wonderful cheese, vegetables, maple syrup and vendors selling hot food. I had incridible Hot Tamales, which brought me back to Mississippi days. If you are ever in Burlington you must try Rookies Rootbeer. Dave and Jenny Rooke have a booth at the market and I was eager to taste it. It was so full of flavor and I could taste the freshness. The rootbeer is all natural and hand-made in their home in VT. They only use six ingredients and the soda goes through a forces process of carbonation.

At the farmers market I also stopped by the Half Pint Farm stand and got some vegetables for lunch for the crew. John also bought some eggplant and other veggies to cook for us. After our visit to the market we spent the day driving to Maine. After having to stop at the boarder due to a train spilling chemical waste we decided to turn around and stopped at a river site in New Hampshire for a quick dip and some lunch. John cooked us lunch while we jumped in the water and cooled off.

I enjoyed visiting Four Season Farm in Harborside, ME. Barbara Damrosch and Eliot Coleman are incredible farmers doing great work in their area. Not only are they well known for their farming methods but they are well-known writers, teachers and researchers. They have made a huge impact on the way people farm in our country.

Eliot Coleman is well-known for his development of cold-weather growing techniques. At Four Seasons Farm he produces year round vegetable crops in harsh winter conditions, using unheated and minimally heated greenhouse structures. It was incredible to learn about how he produces all types of vegetables during the winter. He calls this growing season his "winter harvest," where he grows fresh vegetables all year round. The traditional fresh produce season in colder parts of the country begins in June and ends in September. I learned a lot from my visit to this farm. In Maine we stopped again to dip our feet in the water- to also say we went coast to coast. After that we stopped for some Lobster Rolls. You cant go to Maine without having one! Caleb found a fun fish ride in the town.

I also enjoyed going to Cape Cod. We hosted a dinner at Cedar Spring Herb Farm in Harwich. I recommend all of Donna's products. She has amazing teas and natural beauty products.

I really enjoyed my time in NYC. It was exciting to go to an urban farm again. Just like Chicago it was a farm (community garden) in the dead center of the city. My sister and brother-in-law came to the dinner in Manhattan, which also was very special to show them what I have been up to the past few months!