
Rain capture
A lovely couple staying at the inn came down to the vegetable garden this morning to see “Kingsbrae [F]Arms where we’ve been getting the salad greens, radishes, pea shoots, turnips and tat soi blossoms they’ve been eating during their stay. The rain was steady and I commented about what good sports they were trudging through wet grass and ducking dripping vines. They said “there is no such thing as bad weather…just bad clothes.” Good point. We soldiered on.
Frankly the weather has been about as good as it gets for gardening. Plenty of precipitation to fill the rain barrel where we steep comfrey tea bags to produce a powerful organic fertilizer. Plenty of intermittent sunshine for steady growth. It’s crazy to think that much of the ground now filled with spring vegetables was buried by snow drifts just two short months ago.
We get a lot of questions about our dinners. The simple fact is that we don’t have a restaurant so much as a dinner party open to all who’d like to come each evening. When we get asked for a menu, all we can show are some menus from the past because we never serve the same thing twice. Afternoon callers will find there’s a good chance that Chef Ciaran Tierney is out in the garden thinking about combining lovage with corn polenta for the Bay of Fundy scallops or grilling tender green onions to drape over cod.
He might be doing a rainbow
appetizer salad of speckled trout, purple mizuna and red giant mustard greens or deciding to harvest some early new potatoes so he can whip up a batch of puffy pommes dauphines to accompany the short ribs.
It’s a bit of…errrrr….a crap shoot, but we love it and hope our guests do as well. You never know what you’re going to get, but in the talented hands of Ciaran, the food will be honest, well seasoned and true to its flavorful origins, so you’re in good shape. If we have to put up with trendy dictates, the ones from the garden and sea are certainly inspiring us with ideas for our summertime dinners.
Here’s one. Whoever was the first to say, “o look, oysters…let’s eat’em,” must have been thinking about our Kingsbrae Arms “oysters & pearls” prep. Prince Edward Island Malpeque’s with garden chamomile & lavender infused tapioca mignonette. Salty, savoury & sensual on the tongue. We know that now. Must have taken a bit of courage back then.