Saturday July 28, 2012
Hi my name is Mia Moorehead and I am an intern with Heirloom Meals and here is my story about this summer:
I arrived at Boulderwood farm in Stockbridge, MA, on June 3, 2012, unsure of what to expect for the next eight weeks. I admit coming from a grueling and busy semester at Smith College, I was more than excited to be in the foothills of the Berkshires for the summer. Driving down road and taking in the scenery, put me at ease for what would become my home for the next two months. Before I knew it, it was Monday morning my first day!
As I was settling into the workspace, I would soon begin a task that would push me. That task was to help Carole manage her online presence in the emerging social media atmosphere. It is actually trickier than I thought and encompasses a deeper thought process I had ever experienced. All in all we pressed on and even enrolled in a boot camp online-course to learn from the “experts”. As the course continued I would learn the importance of being authentic and believing in an important cause. There were many days where we felt like we weren’t making progress, and it was in these moments that we made the decision to honor the values of Heirloom Meals. So we decided to embrace social media while exploring love and kindness. Through trial and error we would learn that our authenticity as individuals outweighed the fast changing social media world.
Aside from updating the online world with Heirloom Meals, I was able to get back in the kitchen. In fact, my interest in Heirloom Meals was sparked because I learned at an early age my way around my Gigi’s kitchen. I was able to relive some of my most memorable memories in the kitchen, truly makes my soul smile. I know my Gigi would be proud of me. There was a day when I made lunch for the Heirloom Meals headquarters and I made one of my favorite recipes growing up, Okra Gumbo and Hot Water Cornbread. It was such a powerful moment for me to have made something that connected me with someone I miss more than anything. And in the moment there were tears in my eyes, but on the inside I was smiling because I was doing something I love.
About eight weeks ago, I would not have imagined that I would have learned so much about myself. I had formulated a recipe for how things would go for me. To my surprise it changed my perception of how I view myself. For one, I prefer contact with human beings and I love sharing. I learned how to share with everyone my happiness through cooking, and plan on being a success. For me that means I will continue to relish my upbringing until it translates into becoming a businesswoman, remaining true to myself. This will forever be known as my Savory Summer at Heirloom Meals, because through the bonds I formed I was able to get back into tune with Mia.
Thursday July 26, 2012
First Place Winner: Ruth Migliorelli's Blueberry Buckle
Second Place Winner: Carol Narum's Blueberry- Bran Breakfast Muffins
Third Place Winner: Scott Keough's Blueberry Custard Pie
Do you still need ideas of what to make to celebrate National Blueberry month? Well, try out these fantastic recipes. Need something cool and refreshing? Try Ally Hemming's Patriot. What about something sweet? Try Ruth Migliorelli’s Blueberry Buckle, Madeline Finnerty’s Blueberry Cake, or Scott Keough’s Blueberry Custard Pie. Or, try one of my interns' yummy blueberry heirloom muffin recipess - Carol Narum’s Blueberry-Bran Breakfast Muffins or Mary Vaughan’s Blueberry Muffins. One thing is for sure you won't be disappointed. July has truly been like blueberry heaven!
Wednesday July 18, 2012
We've been busy here at Heirloom Meals and have gotten a little behind on our radio guest blogs. But we're catching up today and I want to introduce you to three distinct and very interesting people, each of them have a very unique Heirloom story!
Leslie Reichert is commonly known as the "Green Cleaning Coach" as she has returned to her ancestral ways to create a Green Cleaning Recipe book based on the cleaning recipes of her own grandmother. Find out more about how to clean your house using simple natural ingredients such as vinegar and baking soda HERE.
Italian born professor Fabio Parasecoli learned to appreciate food through his travels and co-authored the book "A cultural History of Food". Hear more about his journey to understand culture, history and food HERE.
Tessa Edick is a true American-born girl who has used her fond childhood memories based around local food and agriculture to create her adulthood business successes; starting a business called "Sauce 'n Love" and selling it to move on to create the "Friends of the Farmer Festival". Listen to Tesse's story HERE!!!
Friday July 13, 2012
The other day I was looking out at the garden and I realized I had an abundance of collard greens. Without hesitation I quickly emailed my friend Dawn DeAngelis. Some time ago I remember her mentioning she had a great recipe using collard greens. Dawn responded and I thought this would be perfect to feature as one of Carole's Concoctions . Dawn shared her story with me,
"The recipe is not mine. It's from Epicurious. And I still love it. When I moved to New Hampshire form California in 2000, I dearly missed all the fresh veggies and greens I picked up every week at my local farmers market. One day I picked up a Gourmet and found that recipe. I made it countless times that first year, because collards are plentiful in New England markets.I brought it to a pot luck once and the description of Shredded Collard Greens with Walnuts and Pickled Apples was not exactly a big enticement to folks to try the salad. So a friend told me to change the name to:Winter Green Salad with Walnuts and Apples. I did. And the salad is always a hit."
So the interns and I decided to try it out, we picked the collards, and did the pickling of the apples. And this is how the salad turned. We hope you will try this tasty salad. Here are some pictures of how it turned out, it's quite pretty, and yummy too!
The recipe can be found here Winter Green Salad with Walnuts and Apples.
Wednesday July 11, 2012
This week, Carole has asked me to consider the foods that I crave most on returning home to my small mining town, Copperton, in southwestern Utah.
I pondered this a while, as my tastes from early childhood have considerably changed with the exposure to new foods and a stronger sense of where my meals originate and are processed from. As a result, grape juice from concentrate, frozen French fries, and pancakes from quick mixes are now off the list. Regardless of this, I still have a weakness for Kozy Shak’s Tapioca pudding cups and beg my mother profusely to buy them before I return home, so that they are waiting for me in the morning.
My grandmother never cooked more than the odd dry chicken or ham for the holidays when my mom was a kid, so she tells me. Her expertise lay in the sugary confectionary of candies and sweets, which were about the only homemade things that my mom could ever recall her making, to this day. In hindsight to this, my mother has come considerably far in her own meal-making, and there are several, relatively homemade dishes that I find instant comfort and inner peace with as soon as I smell them. Her famous chicken Coq a Vin, for one.
My mother’s job keeps her away from the house most of the day on weekdays and is thus a big fan of the bag-freeze method of making meals that are time consuming. She will often devote an entire day to making the Coq a Vin, cooking it slowly in a huge soup pot for hours, adding in a touch of this and that for seasoning, sticking her wooden spoon in every so often to balance the flavors. Once the chicken is finally cooked, the meat is practically falling off of the bone and is infused with the delicious broth from the pot. Quick as anything, she will lay out handfuls of plastic zip lock bags onto the counter and ladle portions of Coq a Vin into each bag, carefully labeling each bag in black sharpie. Then off to the big freezer downstairs they go, to be slowly consumed over the next few months at the family’s leisure. For me, there is nothing more comforting than coming home for lunch and getting into one of those freezer bags. Even the defrosting part in the microwave is a kind of food ritual in our house. And the Coq a Vin? To die for.
Since coming to Smith College and getting absorbed by Carole’s own food process, I’ve come to appreciate the difference between canned vs. locally grown produce, plantation beef vs. grass fed, and admit that the homemade tapioca pudding that we made several weeks ago, seriously trumps my treasured Kozy Shack cups. I see this as a positive thing, as I am likely to make more meaningful decisions regarding food when I return home in the future, bringing with me the recipes and cooking skills that I have developed over the summer at Heirloom Meals headquarters. I plan to make some killer batches of tapioca, canning them in the fridge for months of enjoyment in the traditional family way. More importantly, it will be my way of giving back to my mother, of saying, “thanks for the home cookin'.”
Friday July 06, 2012
We Want YOUR family Blueberry Recipe!!
July is National Blueberry Month! So here at Heirloom Meals we decided to host a contest to try some of your authentic family favorites that include Blueberries. To enter please follow this link: http://www.facebook.com/HeirloomMealsWithCaroleMurko/app_197602066931325 or comment below. We can't wait to try your recipe!!
Thanks!