Come Over

Wild food walks (and house concerts!) for summer and early fall.

I normally start these things in spring, but spring has come and gone, and I didn’t start, so I’m starting now. The belatedness will be forgiven with my sincere devotion to your pleasure, should you choose to join me. I have made some small changes this year to make these days together more pleasurable for everyone. The walks are now on Sunday afternoons to better accommodate people’s work schedules and so we can be as leisurely as we dream about (and I can be realistic about how fast I actually move). The walk will be a bit shorter, the late lunch a bit longer. I have accepted the help of my dear mother to make the transition into mealtime more graceful. Lastly, we will be seeing and tasting two new places. Those are the small but meaningful changes for now, but they are steps toward bigger shifts, so if you’re one of the handful of people out there with a gift certificate who is hoping to attend something resembling the walks I’ve been offering the last few years, I’d cash that baby in now. I’m 41 - times are changin’-so am I.

The Waterford Inne will be hosting us on August 2nd and September 20th. We’ll forage around the woods and fields and eat together in the prettiest barn I’ve ever seen. Kember, the innkeeper and all-doer of the place, has more style and inborn hospitality than anyone I’ve met, and I’ve been wanting to work with her in this dreamscape she’s made for a long time. These will be the first of what I hope to be a long relationship with the place. I’m already planning a special writing and wild food eating workshop with a VERY talented friend there next spring.

A few thirst trap photos taken by Kember to tempt you.

The other two walks will be in a new place within an old familiar place - our beloved Tuckaway Farm. I’ve been walking and eating with people there for years, but always on the same route. There is possibly no greater value I’ve found than in revisiting a place and deepening my relationship with a small piece of ground through prolonged participation. Once in a great while, though, I get wanderlust. Tuckaway Farm is over 200 acres of varied habitat and terrain, of which I’ve only set foot on a few dozen. There’s a river that cuts through the back forty that I’ve never even seen, and I’d really like to see. I’m gonna go down next week and scout a new route for our walks, and maybe I’ll find a perfect spot for a picnic by the river. Many of you have joined me repeatedly at Tuckaway, which I love you for, and I hope some of you will be as excited as I am to see a new corner of the farm with me.

If my river picnic plans turn out to be a pipe dream, they’ve just finished renovating the old Emery house with this beautiful kitchen for us to use, plus a big long family table in the dining room and lots of al fresco options.

I would typically have the meals at Tuckaway around a fire at a campsite off in the oak woods, but last year was such a drought it wasn’t safe to have a fire, so I used the kitchen in the Emerson house for the first time in August, which made this Palestinian mezze spread below possible. Wherever we land, you’ll be fed well.

There are two scholarship spots available on each walk for people to come for free that I hope someone will accept. Money is the least important and least interesting thing about us. If you’re low on cash and would like to come, please come; just email me so I can save a seat for you and a friend.

Last slot on my social dance card for the season is an entirely new endeavor for me and I’m quite curious (and scared) about it. Our old friend Sam, from Great North Sound Society, where I sometimes cook for recording musicians, has a new EP out that includes one of my poems and we’re throwing a little house concert to share it live. I hear the house is lovely and I can say for sure that Sam and his music are. As for me and the poems, it’ll be my first time reading this way, so no guarantee of loveliness but I will put my town clothes on and give my best. Come heckle me it’ll make me feel better. All the details on the invite below.

JOIN US!

The following Saturday, August 15th, we’ll have another intimate little house concert in the farmhouse at Great North Sound here in Parsonsfield, but this time with snacks (made by me)! Sam and I are still hashing out the details for this one, but the date is set, and it’ll be sweet, so mark it on your calendar now if it sounds like a good time, email me if you’re interested or have questions, and I’ll send out the official invite here very soon.

Hope to see you out in the breathing, blooming world sometime before winter. Whether you can come out and walk with me or not, the best way to support me is to share this post on your socials to help me fill these walks - thank you XO.