The Living Kitchen

One of the unforeseen benefits of doing this blog is that people are constantly letting me know about events they think I might find interesting or “blog-worthy”.  This is how I came to know about the Living Kitchen.  My cousin Tina sent me the information and said she thought it sounded like something I would enjoy.  And holy moly!  She was right.

The Living Kitchen is a certified organic, 400-acre working farm located in Depew (about 45 minutes west of Tulsa).  Every summer they host a series of Farm Table Dinners.  These are themed dinners with the majority of everything on the menu being sourced from the farm.  After reading just a little bit about this amazing place, I immediately made reservations for the Found and Foraged Dinner.  This dinner would include a walk through the farm led by wildcrafter Jackie Dill.  Jackie Dill considers herself to be a “locavore”, living off the land as much as possible.  How exciting!!  I was beyond giddy and couldn’t wait for Saturday to roll around.

My date C picked me up at 5:30 and off we went.  Fortunately for me, C is also a major foodie and enjoys these culinary adventures as much as I do.  We arrived at the farm right at 6:20 (the earliest we could get there) and knew in an instant that it was going to be just as fantastic as we had hoped.  The farm is like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life and the cabin where we would have dinner?  Sweet goodness, it was beyond fantastic.  It was an old log cabin with an open living/dining/kitchen area, a downstairs bedroom, a bedroom and loft upstairs and a beautiful screened in porch.  It was breathtaking!! 

The porch

 

As soon as everyone was ready, Jackie led us on our nature walk.  Some of the things she pointed out on our walk were sorrel, prickly pear (you can sear off the “hair”, peel the fruit and sauté it up), poke, chickweed, and a host of other edible greens.  Full disclosure – I took a ton of pictures but after looking at them, they all just looked like weeds and I couldn’t discern one from the other.

By the time we returned to the cabin I was starving and the smells coming from the small kitchen literally made my mouth water.  As we entered the cabin we were handed a small drink made of Pellegrino and rose hips and something else (sorry, I was too excited to get all the ingredients).  It was so refreshing. 

Our first course of the evening was fresh chevre (goat cheese), pecan crusted and seared.  This was served with wild garlic oil, pot poke salat (I thought this was a typo but trusty Google assures me it’s not), and some crackers made with prairie sage. 

Our second course was a wild salad made with chickweed.  They added a little arugula and baby kale for variety and it was tossed with a white zinfandel vinaigrette with wild garlic and onions.  Honestly, and everyone around me agreed, it was like eating your lawn clippings – but it was really pretty good. 

The third course was a pork and chicken dumpling with henbit and seared morel mushrooms in a light chicken broth.  First of all – I was ecstatic about having the morel mushrooms.  I love them but they are difficult to find, plus you really need to know what you are doing before just going out and harvesting wild mushrooms.  Really not a good idea.  But the dumpling was delicious and I really wanted more.

Midway through our dinner we were served grapefruit ice.  It was a simple concoction of shaved ice with grapefruit juice.  It was a wonderful dish to serve right in the middle of our feast; so light and refreshing and tasty.

The fifth course was homemade goat cheese raviolis in lamb broth with braised curly dock, and smoked pork jowl.  This was amazing.  I love goat cheese and these raviolis were so smooth and creamy.  Thank goodness there was some fresh bread on the table so I could soak up all the delicious broth.

Our dessert was post de crème with fresh herbs, an almond biscotti, and buffalo berry blossom.  I’m not normally a big biscotti fan (too dry and I don’t drink coffee to dunk it in) but this biscotti was fantastic.  I seriously looked around at my dining companions to see if anyone had some left that I could have.

The whole evening was just ridiculously awesome - from the setting to the walk to the people to the food.  Everything!  After dinner, as everyone was lingering and chatting around the table, someone pulled out a guitar and started playing a little music and before you knew it, half the room was singing along to Summertime – the Ella Fitzgerald classic.  How perfect is that?!?!

If you want to experience this for yourself – go to http://www.livingkitchenfarmanddairy.com and check them out!  If you enjoy food and nature and just experiencing life – you will NOT be disappointed.