The Wind Attack

You may be wondering why there are birthday candles in the Thanksgiving Turkey pictured above. The real answer is because we couldn’t find any dinner table candles in the farmhouse. However the metaphorical answer is because we are celebrating this Turkey, the farm on which it was raised, and an amazing day spent with old friends and new.

This year, I spent Thanksgiving on a beautiful non-commercial family farm deep in the woods of Maine. The farm owners were off to Ireland on vacation, and they kindly left their farm and one of their birds for myself, three of my close friends and the farmsitter to enjoy. No, we did not have to kill the turkey ourselves, although that would have been an adventure.

Yet we were still very close to our meal. As we cooked and ate this beautiful bird, outside the kitchen window roamed a handful of living turkeys… and chickens, ducks, horses, goats, a pig, a cat, a bunch of dogs and who knows what else!

It’s a magical place; a homemade, ever evolving farmhouse in the middle of thick woods with a yard full of beautiful animals. It’s the kind of place you’d think only exists in your imagination, and yet there it was, real and before my eyes. The perfect setting for my most memorable Thanksgiving yet.

Finding Local Ingredients

My friend Leah had dangled this Thanksgiving on the farm in Maine “carrot” over my head over a month ago. She was offered this opportunity because she is close with the farm family. There was no hesitation in my decision to make this plan happen. I booked flights and our friends Meghann and Marty decided to road trip up from Michigan to join us.

Leah said that “it would be a real Maine holiday.” With this in mind, I tried to have a majority of the meal be made from ingredients locally produced in Maine.

Finding local ingredients in Portland, Maine was actually easier than I thought it would be… even in late November! The Farmer’s Market and the Portland “Public Market” helped supplement the ingredients we would have on the farm. From fresh vegetables to amazing raw honey to three great artisan cheeses, we gathered a real taste of Maine.

Of course, it only seemed proper that we had some sort of seafood in in our Maine Thanksgiving, so we went down to the harbor to explore the local fish market. We passed on lobster, but ended up leaving with oysters and squid!

Journey to the Farm

Our shopping complete, we headed out in the dark and rainy New England evening towards the farm. Once we left the freeway, there was over an hour of driving through pitch black foggy roads, which got progressively more narrow, curvy and bumpy.

We finally arrived and slowly guided the car up the dangerously rustic driveway. As we walked up towards the house, we immediately heard a rooster crow!

The farmhouse is off the grid and powered by solar panels. The charge was low when we first arrived, and the farmsitter was out getting gas for the back-up generator, so we had to explore the farm by flashlight.  It was great fun as the new world slowly revealed itself to us.

Finding the fresh eggs in the hayloft was perhaps my favorite moment of this trip. It was like a real life easter egg hunt, but instead of some cheap candy, the prize was the best eggs I’ve ever eaten!

Michael the farmsitter returned to the house with his friend Mike. Acquaintances were made and then we shared fried egg sandwiches. Later Leah, Meghann and I made s’mores (with handmade marshmallows and gourmet chocolate) over the singular wood-burning stove that heats the entire four story farmhouse.

Over the Rainbow

It wasn’t too hard for me to get up on Thanksgiving morning. I was filled with excitement over all the food preparation and consumption ahead of me. I awoke to the sound of trickling water that I hadn’t heard the night before, and looked out the window.  A small stream trickled through the woods, two of the dogs were running through it.

I walked downstairs and looked out the window into the yard, and then immediately ran outside with my camera. Our journey hours ago through the darkened drizzle had brought us over the rainbow.

Thanksgiving Breakfast

Meghann, Marty, Leah and Mike were all still asleep as I returned to the kitchen to make breakfast. Fresh eggs and a wonderful gas range with six burners plus a four burner griddle  (I wish it were in my kitchen!) was the inspiration. I decided to make a root vegetable hash with broccoli, onions, fried egg and roasted beet chips, along with some cornbread and honey.

The fresh eggs were an absolute delight and as you can see, the large oblong ones had two yolks! I was quite surprised when I first saw this.

The eggs had a delightfully light mouthfeel and the yolks were rich and flavorful as they ran into the veggie hash. This was the best breakfast I’ve had in a long time. Truly farm fresh!

Bring on More Food!

After breakfast, the girls went for a walk around the farm while I started cooking dinner. The owners of the farm had left us one of their very large 20 pound turkeys already plucked and in the sink. The previous night I went about the difficult task of getting it into the brine in a really big pot!

Mehann and I carefully drained out all the brine and transfered the monstrous bird into the roasting pan. Marty and I smothered it’s skin with butter and herbs and into the oven it went!

Later in the day, more new friends arrived: Michael’s Mother and Marydale. We opened some wine and brought out the cheeses. It was a delightful cheese board with crackers, pear slices, and raw honey. We all loved this Maine raw honey; it was a thick paste that melted flavors all over our tongues. It was especially divine paired with the local goat cheese called “Sea Smoke”, which was layered with vegetable ash.

After more than 5 hours of cooking, everything made it out onto the table. With every dish I had came up with and the dishes that everyone else contributed, we had quite a large spread. Not to mention many, many pounds of turkey.

You could say that I’m still a vegetarian; I seldom eat meat and the meat that I do consume is almost always a product of small farm operations. Throughout the day I discovered that not only myself, but also Leah, Meghann, Michael and Marydale were all in the same “vegetarian” boat. Kind of troublesome with a 20 pound bird on the table.

However, once we all blew out the turkey candles and applauded this beautiful bird, not a single person refused to eat this it. And everyone enjoyed it too. It somehow felt right. This was the real deal version of the idealized Thanksgiving dinners that so many American’s have every year. It was a meal both made with love and raised with love. We were eating a bird that had a healthy happy life in the farm yard, and a happy flavor at the table. Dare I say it was the best Thanksgiving turkey I’ve ever eaten? It was.

Two different groups of friends were brought together at this meal, and we all got along grandly. The meal was set to a playlist of only the music of James Brown (and the cooking to Tom Waits and Devendra Banhart), a last minute decision on the part of Meghann and Leah. At pauses in eating, people all around the table were grooving in their seats.

Leah and Meghann, Marty and Me

Michael and Michael’s Mother, Mike and Marydale

The meal was served with blueberry wine that was produced on the farm from the farm’s blueberry patch! I have never had such a thing before, and I’m honestly not into wine, but this was surprisingly delicious. The Maine residents at the table also proclaimed that the wine was excellent, saying that “it trumps commercial blueberry wine.”

Dozing into the Night

After dinner we went outside to enjoy the bonfire that Michael had built. It blazed strongly despite the continuing drizzly rain. We could hear the long howls of coyotes in the distance of the surrounding woods. The dogs barked into the dark void. It was both eerie and beautiful.

Back inside, we all took turns dozing in and out of sleep. It had been a long day, but a very satisfying one. I was entranced with the joy this day on the farm had given me and wondered what it would be like to live there on a full-time basis. There is certainly an attraction of moving towards a more self-sufficient lifestyle… Living in a place where the hands on the clock have little meaning, surrendering to the light of the day.

But most of me was like Dorthy wanting to return to Kansas. As much as I enjoyed this place, my mind and body longed for the home that is mine.

As we packed up the car the next morning, it was pouring rain and most of the animals had sought shelter in the barn. As I waived goodbye to Michael and the dogs, I didn’t feel sad.  Leah’s dog rested her chin on my leg. I smiled contently and watched the countryside roll by.