A Late-Ripening Summer
August 31, 2017 Missive from J.K. Farm
If I have the luxury of time, I always opt to take the train. A few years ago my mother gave me a triptych of photographs she had taken from her Viarail seat en route to Montreal from Belleville. It was autumn and the changing colours on the trees were at their dazzling best. In the images one can’t make out the trees though. Rather, the pictures convey a beautiful abstract colour field all blurred together through the motion of the train. I love this triptych and I love taking the train for the feeling the photographs evoke. When I stare out from the moving train, the landscape becomes a blur and I am taken up by the blur and transported to a meditative state. I might fall asleep next or I might write a letter or I might create a menu. It is a timeless state where one is not in one’s familiar surroundings and somehow this pleasant unfamiliarity can yield great creative productivity and sometimes a profoundly refreshing nap.
I am also fascinated by the train as a mode of transportation, threading our vast country together. Carrying people, with their hopes and dreams packed in their suitcases, and goods trading from one corner of Canada to another. Recently I was involved in an event at the Royal Ontario Museum, celebrating through food, the diversity of our country. Our kitchen was one of ten kitchens representing Canada as a whole. One of the categories of representation was “The Railroad”. It was an interesting exercise to research what the railways were serving in the dining cars as one was clack clacking through the wilderness of New Brunswick say, surrounded by an infinity of trees. Soldiering through the prairies there would have been bison, in Quebec a venison stew perhaps. My research dated back to a time when the commercial salmon fishery was still open. Today farmed salmon has supplanted the wild fishery. In the west, the Pacific Salmon Fishery is still open. In the end we decided to serve a take on the classic “cold poached salmon mayonnaise” instead of on a plate, we presented the salmon in an éclair, a classic pastry from the railway dining era.
This past weekend, from our tiny corner of our vast country, we presented another edition of our summer dinner series. We were excited to introduce Jeremiah Soucie from Kinsip Distillery in Bloomfield. Jeremiah shared a unique cocktail made from his gin with our guests during the cocktail reception on the ridge. People basked in the warm afternoon sun, perhaps aware that these perfect dog days of summer were transitioning only too soon to the cool and crisp of autumn. People lingered there next to the twin cherries, swirling the ice in their glass and not wanting to leave. In the dining room the team stood ready to receive our guests for dinner. Mary and Colin Stanners were at the table and shared their beautiful wines from Stanners Vineyard, a short walk up the road from our farm. Kara and Darold Enright joined us this evening as well. We featured their oxtail and bone marrow from Enright Cattle Company in our menu. It was a pleasure to acknowledge them and their contribution to the evening. It was also a treat to provide some new taste sensations for them to experience.
This has been a late-ripening summer. Tomatoes are just now starting to come on. All of a sudden it seems, the garden has come alive. Shehan is harvesting more and more with each passing week. There is okra and beans. There are tomatoes and peppers. As the season progresses, so does the menu evolve, always changing, always reflecting what is being harvested, now.
Saturday August 26th, 2017
An evening with Stanners Vineyard
2014 Stanners Vineyard Barrel Select Pinot Noir,
VQA Prince Edward County
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