After a great experience last year, we took our show on the road with Spice of Life once again, this time to New Creation Farm in Chardon. New Creation raises pigs, cows, chickens (meat and eggs), some dogs, and a whole bunch of kids (they have a pretty interesting story if you want to do a little research). They’re all natural, GMO-free, and all good – we bought our half-pig from them, and a few random chickens here and there, and can vouch for the quality. If you’re lucky enough to find a local source like this, where you know what you’re getting, what the animals are getting, and can watch them run around like happy animals do, it becomes just about impossible to go back to buying supermarket meat.
Anyway, we had a chance to walk around the farm(s; they’ve expanded so much that they use pasture at another farm down the road for the cattle and meat chickens), and visited with some cows, saw the egg-layers, some piglets (about 8 weeks), and some big pigs (5 months). And a new batch of puppies. It’s a nice little operation – hard work, for sure, but they do it right.
Of course, much of the food (at least the meat) was from New Creation, and most of the rest from other local farms, including the gardens right behind Spice’s restaurant. The food was fantastic, as was the dinner conversation. One of the really fun things about these events is that, since they’re not super-cheap (more than $20), the people who attend are serious. You know you’ll have something in common with everyone else, so it doesn’t really matter who you end up next to. We ended up between a couple of veterans, who’ve been to many of these and are on a first-name basis with the staff, and the couple who edit and publish Edible Cleveland. Talk ranged from discussion of the dinners at other farms (the one in Killbuck Valley with the mushrooms sounds like it’s a can’t miss), to backyard gardening (and chickens, or the opposition to), to the local restaurant scene, to the best local ice cream places (not enough summer to enjoy them all!). All in all, it was a really good time, and lasted well into the night. Definitely worth the time and money.
And since this is a pictorial, enough words for now. The food pics are a bit dark, since we were eating in a barn after sunset, but they give you an idea.
Abandoned by his mama, this little guy was up by the house to greet the guests.
There’s a pretty decent chance that one of these guys will end up in our freezer in about three months.
There’s also a pretty decent chance he was giving me the look because we had one of his relatives for dinner.
First course was a pork and liver terrine.
Second was a mixed-green salad, with Yellow House blue cheese, bacon fat croutons, and pickled onions.
Sweet and spicy Italian sausage fettuccine, with cherry tomatoes and eggplant.
Smoked beef brisket and spare rib, with potato salad, kohlrabi slaw, and chili peach barbecue sauce.
Pecan pie with homemade vanilla ice cream and bacon caramel sauce.
