Cornbread Supper

Carrot soup in a splendid green bowl seemed the visual essence of the way the seasons fold into each other: winter-rootsy carrots, elevated with creams and nutmeg and looking like the returning light of the sun, in a bowl the color of new green sprouts. Other lovely, tasty foods also graced our Winter Solstice edition of Cornbread Suppers. Squash and potato stew, w/cumin, almond, sesame seeds ground. Chili - HOT! Veggies: KY Proud! Vegan! made with ground almonds and spices, veggies with lemon-herb-mayo dip, Salad with apples, walnuts, and honey balsamic dressing Black Skillet/Buttermilk Cornbread - not sweet, no gluten, vegetarian New England Double Corn Muffins: Sweet, Contains Gluten, Vegetarian Chocolate-Walnut Toffee: no gluten

I may have lost the little Food Identification Slips from this week -- after all, I was quarantined in the upper reaches of the house so I wouldn't pass along a gift of winter malaise. I heard there was pumpkin flan!!!! And I see from photos -- Thank you, JKL -- that there was salad, and, of course, a giant savory cornbread pudding and some classic Black Skillet cornbread. I can also say that the sounds of the party suggested a good time appeared, and that some little people with lovely bell-like laughs were part of it all.

We have the reds - and the Casey County greens (see below) of the season on the Cornbread Supper table this December. In addition to these cheery Cranberry Bars (with pecans and almond extract), we had other delicious foods on December 7, 2009: Really Very Hot & Spicy Experimental Pumpkin & Turnip Curry Soup (Vegan) Trader Joe's Hummus Quartet (..."hum us a few bars, please, Joe".......) Baked Penne with Cheese Butternut Couscous Bluegrass Salad from Creating a Stir , (Kerry Zack) Buttermilk-Cheese Grits Casserole - slightly spicy - vegetarian Black Skillet/Hot Water Cornbread - vegetarian Homemade Local Cottage Cheese (pasteurized milk) very lightly salted Casey County Greens + Dill Vinaigrette

I'm thinking of a Kentucky version of this dish, reportedly invented for an "All Maple Syrup" meal three friends cooked up in a Vermont cabin. Prosciutto-Feta-Maple Cornbread To bring this cornbread home to the lower midwest/upper south/western Appalachia, we'll try getting that flour out of there. To localize the flavors even more, we'll try sorghum instead of maple syrup, though I believe the maple syrup flavor would be fantastic with cornbread. We have homemade feta from fine local Jerseys, and, as the article suggests, the feta is plenty salty. We'll try local country ham or bacon instead of the prosciutto. And we'll see! And report back.

The Monday after Thanksgiving we promised simple, flavorful, nutrient-rich food -- cornbread and multi-beans & greens soup. An after-Supper photo shows what a fine night it was for soups and stews. Energetic groups planned fine things for downtown this Monday, both to the east and west, round about Cornbread Supper time, 6 PM. So we encouraged people to go the 5:30 PM tree lighting at the Isaac Murphy Memorial Art Garden or to the 5:00 PM petition signing at the Distillery District , or both, and then come by Campsie. We promised there would be plenty of cornbread, hearty warm foods, and conviviality. People took us up on the promise, and we had a fine group, some of whom came in with cold cheeks and hands, and double-Santa flexi-straw-whistles, from the East End's first ever tree lighting ceremony. What they brought to and found on the food table: Beef Stew Grandma's Meat Loaf Multi-bean Soup with Greens and More; vegetarian/vegan, very little salt/fat Pumpkin & Turn

The late fall bounty from the London Ferrell Community Garden (tender fresh lettuces) and the Campsie garden (fennel, chives, mint, parsley, and toasted butternut squash seeds) led us into Thanksgiving week with proper gratitude. We also had a luscious platter of Middle Eastern goodness from Sahara. Late fall roses and double-blooming Korean lilacs formed the centerpiece. We enjoyed a cornbread casserole with Stone Cross Farm bacon and Blue Grass Parmesan , and an upside down caramel apple cornmeal cake that did not do justice to the wonderful Reed Valley Orchard apples involved. Israeli saffron couscous (veggie) cast a lovely yellow light. Spicy candied pecans inspired a left-behind love note from a young member of the group, who said, "The candied spicy pecans were so good. I would eat them every day if I had a box of them." Late arrivals were welcomed - both the people and the foods, which included a lovely pasta dish and a Black Bottom Banana pie from local favorite Miss

Warm fall days, even with some light frosts, have not stopped the production in the Campsie garden or our great nearby big sister garden space, the London Ferrell Community Garden. With four beautiful, large, fragrant Abraham Darby roses on the table, we enjoyed the benefits of a group small enough to sit in one large oval and have deeper than usual conversations. We enjoyed these fine foods: Beets with radishes pomegranate seeds, & celery, lemon/curry dressing SPICY yellow curry with vegetables and tofu (and rice) Local tomatoes, grits eggs, sage; exotic olive oil, black pepper, salt Acorn squash (Lex), black lentils, tomatoes, goat cheese, parsley & home-grown herbs Homemade cottage cheese: pasteurized Kentucky milk, salt, nothing else Apple challah bread pudding with dulce de leche Bourbon sauce; Great Harvest Challah, Reed Valley Orchard apples, Kentucky dulce, Buffalo Trace Bourbon Reed Valley Orchard mixed apples: Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Brushy Mountain, York, ??? Ke

Homemade, warm, delicious, especially all together: Brunswick Stew: Chicken, Lima Beans, Corn, Onions, Galic, Peppers, Flour, Broth KY Greens a la Kroger Dahl (not spicy) Pumpkin Ravioli & Sauce from Oliva Bella - Goat Cheese from Sappoo d'Italia Music (garlic) To Our Ears (corn) Vegetarian Honey Butter Cornbread, vegetarian, no gluten, contains dairy KY Black Skillet Cornbread, vegetarian tonight, not sweet, no gluten, contains dairy Dulce de Leche homemade, milk, sugar (organic) Walnut Turtle Bars (very crumbly!) Homemade CARAMEL SAUCE for Brownie Sundaes!

A beautiful meal! Here is how the providers described their dishes: Potato Soup with Sausage + Kale (contains beef, turkey, and pork) Rice Pilaf with Almonds, Peas, Raisins, Butter, Cinnamon, Cardamom White Beans with Fresh Sage and Garlic and Yukon Gold Potatoes Veg. Potato Soup w/Milk & Butter Brussels Sprout, Cherries, Balsamic Vinegar, s/p/canola oil, bacon w/o preservatives, etc. Apple Relish Kentucky Pear Pie Key Lime Pie New England Anadama Bread (cornmeal, flour, molasses) - vegetarian KY Black Skillet/Bacon Fat/Hot Water Cornbread - no flour/gluten Honey-Butter Cornbread - Vegetarian - (no flour/gluten) Homemade Butter - Local Milk, not pasteurized, not for pregnant people or those w/immune issues

Here we will mingle together photos and food descriptions tied to six excellent Cornbread Suppers, each different and each fine in its own perfect way -- just about exactly the way homemade cornbread varies happily batch by batch, and always satisfies. Late summer Cornbread Suppers featured many homegrown flourishes, none more astonishing than the biggest carrot ever seen - from a home garden just around the corner on North Martin Luther King Boulevard. The Campsie flowers keep coming, well into deep fall, and well after the first two mild frosts. Abraham Darby , our David Austin rose , blooms multiple times most years; in cool, wet 2009, one sturdy bush produced nearly continuous sweet-smelling, old-fashioned,apricot blooms from May through October. Which Suppers did the following dishes grace? No clue. All the little slips of paper from the six events have formed one super Smorga-family buffet now. Sweet potato & raisins in a cool sauce with couscous too Just About All Local Savo

A spell of under-the-weatherness helped us fall behind in documenting each Cornbread Supper, but we are back on track with the real events, and have been for several weeks. Join us each Monday night, 6 PM, for cornbread and conviviality.

The hand that holds the dish made the crust from scratch, and improved the pie recipe, and brought the results to appreciative fans at the August 31 Cornbread Supper. About 25 people inaugurated the school season with dishes made from summer's goodness and lots of home grown and local ingredients. The little descriptive slips of paper left after the Supper included these tasty bits: Local tomato, basil, goat cheese, Italian olive oil and balsamic vinegar Zucchini, onions, basil & sage from the yard Veggie - green tomato salad Purple tomato pie Zucchini quiche Curry wheatberry salad Rice pudding with cinnamon [a cup of rice cooked in a quart of local milk for an hour, and then adorned further....yum] Cam's Appalachian Hot Skillet Cornbread "What We Had" Cornbread: (in the temporary absence of Weisenberger's White Unbolted Cornmeal): Stonecross bacon, Colonel Newsom's organic country ha, Elmwood Stock Farm eggs, Boyd Orchard corn, Homegrown hot peppers and h

Cocktail Impresario Mick Jeffries did not disappoint with his elegant summer drinks that matched Sonic's blueberry-sized ice globes with the last local blueberries we could find. Mick poured up small tastes for many of the adults at the largest ever (so far) Cornbread Supper: more than 60 people, counting all ages. Mick's "Blueberry Bramble" had many talking about the mysterious combination of fresh flavors that included Creme de Myrtille (blueberry) liqueur and Koch Family Pineapple Sage-infused simple syrup. Another quintessential Kentucky berry -- handpicked wild in Anderson County earlier in the day -- also showed up and showed off in a Blackberry Shortcake set inside Cornmeal Biscuit Shortcakes. See the assembly and the finished beauties, two platters of which lived precariously short lives among the Supperians. I tasted a bite of berries with a bit of the hand-whipped cream, and said, "Mmmmm. Cloves!" Nope. "Allspice!" Nope. That's jus

Awesome Alison -- That's how I think of her, now that I have been a lucky part of her engagement with a room full of interested farmers, potential farmers, and their urban allies. Alison drove more than two hours to share her expertise in year-round vegetable farming in Kentucky. In the earl 1990s, Alison and her husband Paul received one of the first Kentucky organic certifications for their Au Naturel Farm near Mammoth Cave. They then piloted the use of high tunnels -- unheated hoop-style greenhouses -- for winter salad vegetable production. Alison said a University of Kentucky professor, Dr. Emery Emmert , developed the technique in the 1940s and 1950s, and then Kentucky growers pretty much forgot about Dr. Emmert's discoveries. Alison also credited Eliot Coleman of Maine's Four Season Farm, who has written several books on winter vegetable production and organic farming, some of them with his wife, Barbara Damrosch , who writes a weekly column , A Cook's Garden

Quick news: Alison Wiediger of Au Naturel Farm will be at the July 20 Cornbread Supper to talk about high tunnels, or hoop houses, from 5 - 6 PM. Supper starts at 6 PM as usual. Mick Jeffries will make and offer fresh artisanal cocktails for the July 27 Supper. Blueberries, perhaps... Susan Miller, goat cheesemaker extraordinaire, Slow Food Bluegrass member, and proprietor of Bleugrass Chevre , will host a special country Cornbread Supper edition on Monday, August 10, on Grimes Mill Road. More details will follow - save this date for an extraordinary evening of Bluegrass/Bleugrass conviviality. No Cornbread Suppers on August 3, 17, and 24 while your hosts play in Massachusetts. We'll see you promptly at 6 PM on August 31. (and July 20 and July 27, of course.) And the July 13 Bastille Day edition of Cornbread Suppers? Fantastic. 45 people or so -- with only two short folks under the age of 10, which we hope is NOT a trend -- and a wonderful spread of food and drinks. Cornbreads in

Greens grower extraordinaire Alison Wiediger joins us at 5:00 PM Monday, July 20 - one hour before the usual Supper start time - to talk with us about growing vegetables year-round, using unheated high tunnels , also known as hoop houses. Please come! Alison and her husband Paul own Au Naturel Farm in Smiths Grove , Kentucky. The Wiedigers are national experts on high tunnels. They have written Walking to Spring , a book about using high tunnels to grow food year round. They do workshops around the country, and share generously with others about ways to launch and sustain a successful, profitable farm-based business like theirs. Of great interest to both growers and eaters: the opportunity for growers to create real profits and for eaters to enjoy fresh local salads in deep winter, thanks to greens grown in high tunnels. Come at 5:00 on Monday, July 20, 2009, to talk with Alison, and stay for the usual Cornbread Supper, starting at 6 PM. See the sidebar for location and other details

Ah, the watermelon juice! As unexpected, refreshing, and utterly cool as the 54 people (at least) who came to Cornbread Supper this week. At least 13 people were first-timers. At least 10 wiggly ones were under the age of 8 or so. Food poured in, "supervalue" sparkling J. Roget poured out (and we liked the Extra Dry better than the Brut) - and then the hula hoopers showed up! Lovely hoopstress and neighbor Ms. SB brought a clutch of hoops of different sizes, and a hoopathon set in after the meal, working circles around the short end of Campsie. So many energy circles got set in motion and rippled out into space, we're still eating round-cornered food days later. Mexican Cornbread, adapted from a family recipe and filled with Kentucky ingredients, disappeared quickly. So did the Blue Moon/Full Moon/Music vegetarian cornbread, made with Blue Moon Farm's leeks and Music garlic. So many treats, one a cool green pea soup with mint, with its seductive, surprising, slow cay

It was a foodie extravaganza, unpreplanned, as always. Wines came in abundance, too, as seems to be the case each week. Pictures of some of the foods follow after the listing. It's too bad we have no audio record of the oohs, ahhhhs, and outright squeals that greeted the deviled eggs, and the yummmms all around for all the other delights, including these (from the paper slips describing the dishes): Homemade gnocchi, with homemade ricotta as a prime ingredient Pistachio nuts and sunflower seeds Vegan blueberry pie (Blueberries, Ginger, Sugar, Wheat & White Flour, Cornstarch & Salt) Green Beans Vinaigrette Black-eyed Peas (meat-free) Mediterranean Coucous w/Lentil Salad (w/vinaigrette, tomatoes, arugula, mint) - and Feta Cucumbers & Dill w/garlic and lemon & a bit of Feta Last Spring 09 greens from Campsie garden w/lemon mustard vinaigrette Blueberry (barely) cornmeal poundcake from Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life Buttermilk Vanilla ice cream - local pasteurize

Nice moments from this week: > The arrival of an unexpected cold bottle of champagne, and the way so many people said, taking a glass to share a small sip, "I never turn down champagne." > The way one of the shorter Supperians reached for the bite-sized muffins labeled "Carroty Apply Goodness" and said to me, "I love these." > Seeing newcomers each week, and seeing others who come often; enjoying new connections and reconnections. Foods we enjoyed: Carroty Apply Goodness (of course) Watermelon Soup with garnishes (goat cheese, fresh mint) (The famous) Beets, Apples, Celery, Red Onion, Marinated in Garlic & Ginger w/dusting of curry Roasted Pork Loin Pesto Cilantro & Noodles (No Nuts) Whole-wheat pasta with tomatoes, mushrooms, garlic, etc. Beans w/vinaigrette Bread Salad - Italian Blue Moon Cornbread w/Stone Cross Bacon; garlic, shallots, leeks, and Kenny's Swiss & Cheddar Blue Moon Cornbread vegetarian: garlic, shallots, leeks, an

Cheers erupted when the beautiful blue bowl of beet salad arrived. The beet salad has already established a fan group. The June 15 beet salad, however, packed considerable surprise: apples, celery, and .... drum roll .... a stunning curry vinaigrette. We had 19 quality Supperians this week - the smallest group ever, including, as always, some people attending a Supper for the first time. The conversations, the tastes of all the foods, and the pace, and possibly the high ratio of bottles of wine to humans, all gave the evening a special character. Cornbreads for the night included a green chili onion cottage cheese Parmesan casserole and some overly soft lemon blueberry cornmeal muffins. Other foods included slow-cooked black beans with Elmwood kale, a noodle dish, and an array of salads. Lovely mint-flavored brownies with a light icing, and a large bowl of beautiful crunchy-fresh grapes finished the meal and delighted adults and children alike.