Our First Wedding

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Since we opened the restaurant this summer, we have had a lot of people ask us if we host weddings. It seems a lot of folks appreciate the quaint environment of the Tea Room and Chef's skills in the kitchen. The land and the property also provide a beautiful backdrop for photos....sometimes living here day in and day out, we forget what we have to offer.

So the short answer is yes, although our capacity is somewhat limited.

Already, earlier this year, young newlyweds Jessica and Scott decided to take some wedding photos at the farm....and they really made it all look so good.

With Jessica and Scott, our raspberry canes never looked so good!

This week it was time for us to host our first wedding at the restaurant. Although the weather has not cooperated greatly in the past few days, the day was perfect for Cathy and Dominic who wanted to take their vows and hold a small reception at the farm.

We were really happy to share this moment with Cathy and Dominic this week.

The newlyweds had some very specific requests of the meal to be served at this function. So they worked with Chef to create a menu with a bit of an Italian twist.

Using our principles (avoiding prepared "industrial" foods), Chef created from scratch a five course meal.

With sparkling wine, we served appetizers which consisted of home-made Goujeres (a cheese puff pastry), salmon and cream cheese as well as Duxelles (finely chopped mix of Portobello mushrooms) all wrapped in a filo pastry.

Chef's Goujeres are always a treat.

To begin the meal, Chef prepared an Italian wedding soup. A beautiful home made broth to which is added kale, meat balls, noodles and cheese. This was followed by an Arugula salad with home made croutons.

Chef's Italian Wedding Soup

The main course was a traditionally made Chicken Cacciatore on a bed of creamed polenta.

Chef's main course: Chicken Cacciatore

Prior to breaking into the wedding cake which was provided by the bride, the meal was concluded with a refreshing fruit salad composed of Papaya and Pineapple.

Plating the fruit salad.

We actually really enjoyed ourselves that evening, so much so that we do hope to host many more such events. In fact, it seems that 3 more wedding functions are already booked for 2014....it's perhaps time we create our own Ridge Berry Farm wedding album :)

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the farm, we still have a lot of work to do. This week, it was time to clean up the debris from the ice storm. The key problem are the trees around the manor and the barn.

Still encrusted in ice, some of the fallen branches were extremely heavy. It is no surprise that such large branches were literally peeled off their trunks.

Cleaning the debris of the ice storm proved to be heavy work.

We took the time to also prune some branches and clean up the resulting wounds. Our pole pruner proved useful although some of the damage remains on the upper most branches of our very tall pines

The pole pruner came to good use.

We still have some work to do, including an ancient, two trunk, 50 foot willow that straddles both our creek and path (half way down the farm). This one will prove to be quite a challenge. In the meantime, all of this work is generating a significant amount of fire wood and a massive burn pile.

Finally, we will conclude this week, by wishing all our readers a very Happy and Prosperous New Year!

See you all in 2014!

T'is the Season....

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We wish to take this opportunity to wish hall of our readers a very happy holiday season....whatever you may be celebrating. For us at the farm, the season is all about Christmas and as we prepare gifts for friends and loved ones, we ask everyone to remember those less fortunate.

Our Christmas has always been a family celebration centered around a Christmas Eve feast of roasted goose and for well over a decade, this has included a very special chestnut cake. This cake is decadent and yet, for those concerned, gluten free. So we thought we would share the details of our recipe in this week's blog.

Ingredients:

4 pounds of fresh chestnuts

1 pound of butter (room temperature)

2 cups of sugar

8 eggs (whites and yolks separated)

4 tbsps of rum (optional)

Process:

1. Score the chestnuts with a paring knife. This will prevent the nuts from literally blowing up during the roasting phase. We do this on two sides to make them easier to peel.

Scoring and peeling of the chestnuts is the most time consuming part of this recipe

2. Roast the chestnuts in a 300 deg. F oven for about 15 minutes or until the shells begin to peel away at the cuts. The chestnuts should not be overly cooked otherwise they will break up in the peeling process.

3. Peel the chestnuts. Remove as much as possible the furry skin that adheres to the nuts.

4. Grate the nuts to make a coarse chestnut meal. We use a food processor for this purpose. The aim is to get 4 cups of shredded chestnuts.

Peeled and grated chestnuts ready for the next step

5. Work the butter with a mixer or a spoon in a large bowl until it is "satiny" smooth, and slowly add the sugar. Add the rum and egg yolks to the mixture then add the chestnut meal.

6. In a separate bowl whip the egg whites until they form a firm peak.

7. Slowly introduce the chestnut mix to the egg whites by gently folding the mix together. Do this in parts (basically at most a cup of chestnut mix at a time). This process will dictate the density of the cake and it is most important to keep the mix as "airy" as possible.

The final batter ready for the oven

8. Prepare a spring form cake mold by buttering it and coating it with a thin layer of flour. This will prevent the cake from sticking to the mould. Since this cake is fragile, the spring form mold will allow you to easily remove the cake.

9. Cook in a 350 F. oven for about 30 minutes, or until the cake is firm. A knife inserted into the cake should come out cleanly. Once cooled, these cakes freeze very well.

10. We typically ice the cake with a dark chocolate icing (icing sugar, sugarless cocoa powder and butter). We then decorate it according as we see fit based on what we have on hand. This year we used a mocca icing and crushed almonds.

This year's final product...the trick now is to keep it safe from the girls!

11. A great way to serve this cake is with a dollop of freshly whipped cream. Portions should be kept small as this is a very "heavy" dish.

Optional: 

You can use the batter to make 2 thinner cakes which in turn are used to sandwich the cream and the icing is then drizzled on top.

Note:

This is a great seasonal cake since fresh chestnuts are usually available in the Fall until about Christmas. However, it is not easy to find good chestnuts in Ontario. Most are imported from Italy and as a result most are far from fresh. You will find that many nuts are dry, attacked by mould or insects. 

Dry chestnuts will have the shell already separating from the nut on the store shelf. This can be seen when you squeeze the nut and detect an air pocket between the flesh and the shell. 

Insect infestation can be seen on the outside of the nut by simply looking for holes.

Mould is not at all evident until the nut is peeled. It typically resembles a dusty bluish-green coating on the flesh of the nut.

Having said this, we are often disappointed with the quality of the chestnuts available. It is frustrating since they are so expensive. 

This year, we had to double the weight of chestnuts used in order to get the necessary volume of chestnut meal. If you buy too many, they can always be used for stuffing (they are wonderful with goose, but will do just as well for turkey).

We're just happy to have planted our own trees this last Spring. In a few years we hope this will no longer be a problem for us.

Having prepared our cake, this week at the farm really felt like Christmas.

First one of our good neighbours and frequent visitor at the restaurant dropped by to give us a "mother". A mother is a term used for a vinegar bacterial culture. As the culture grows it tends to coagulate together into a mass with the consistency of a fragile raw liver.

Meet our new "mother": Sophie.

We had always intended to make our own vinegars but to do so this culture or a starter was needed. With a mother, all you have to do is keep it fed with an alcoholic drink (a good red wine is best) and time after time you will be rewarded with a wonderful home made vinegar.

Over time, the "mother" will grow and will need to be cut down or divided.

We discovered that the origin of our mother is Bordeaux. So for some reason Chef suggested we call it Sophie (which we now do) just as he has been calling his 6 year old sour dough culture Roxanne.

Another great surprise this week was the arrival of our new wine making equipment. A 20 gallon fermenter with a degassing vacuum pump. We have a lot of work ahead to put this system together, but with renewed confidence in our wine making skills, we are ready to scale up.

We're getting serious: the new fermentation system

We chose a system from Blichmann Engineering called WineEasy. We picked this system because it is scalable to 50 gallons but also because it integrates a filter which allows for the easy and clean separation of the fruits from the wine (our current process can be very messy).

To conclude our week, we also took delivery of new pieces for our gallery's art glass collection. This included a large and rare Emile Galle vase from the turn of the last century.

A welcomed addition to the gallery: a rare Galle cameo vase

We will close this week with the results of the ice storm most of us have lived through in Southern Ontario over the past 24 hours. Overnight we had many power failures but more concerning were the sounds during the night. We woke up to many damaged trees and had to quickly assess the state of the property.

Our greatest concerns were the Kiwi trellises. Luckily these held up very well. 

Luckily, our new Kiwi trellises held up ti the ice storm

This was not the case for an old willow which was uprooted and is now blocking our trail.

An old uprooted Willow is now blocking our trail

This was also not the case for quite a few trees around the manor. One of our last remaining old pines on the back ridge lost many branches and we may now have to remove the tree.

A Juniper and an old Birch also suffered badly with many broken branches. While our treasured old Yew has been literally flattened. Hopefully it will come back to life.

An old tall Yew was completely "flattened"

Luckily our prized European Copper Beech is in good shape. The branches however flexed so low to the ground, our cars were boxed in under the tree.

Boxed in by the drooping branches of the Copper Beech

When the sun briefly showed itself the entire scene was almost magical. The farm was an ice crystal wonderland.

Nocino and Squash Marmalade

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Once again the weather has been nasty in Niagara. Temperatures dipped to 15 degrees C below zero a couple of nights and of course we were subjected to our second major snow fall. This has meant that the crew has spent more time working inside and a lot of farm or outside work has been postponed.

Unless it rains or warms up soon, we are just about guaranteed a "White Christmas"

We decided to take this time to open up the experimental jars of Nocino. For those new to the blog, the making of Nocino was an experiment we started early this summer.

Nocino is a sticky dark brown liqueur from Italy. It is made using unripened walnuts. In our case, we used the Black Walnuts that abound in the region.

The basic concept is simple. The young walnuts are quartered and let to steep in a combination of alcohol (grappa) and sugar, to which flavouring is added in the form of spices (such as cinnamon) and some citrus zest (lemon and/or orange).

The process usually takes up to 6 months and is typically complete for Christmas celebrations.

Our experimental "Nocino" ready to crack open

We opened our jars and started to filter the quartered nuts. The results were surprising. First, something in our process or recipe caused the mixture to take on a coagulated consistency (not very appetizing).

The nuts themselves are not edible. Since they are not blanched, they do contain a significant amount of tannin.

The filtered walnuts are too bitter to eat

The liqueur is very strong. We start with over 40% alcohol so that is no surprise. In fact not being used to strong liqueur we had to water it down for the tasting.

The taste is nice (it is reminiscent of the scent or perfume of green walnuts) but it actually has a strong hint of bitterness. As a liqueur, it is certainly not our favourite. We can however see how this might be improved. Doing further research, it is clear that both recipe and process can be worked on.

So in the same way we attempted the Armenian Black Walnut preserve this summer - and failed, we will be attempting this next year in the hopes of refining the taste profile.

In the meantime, we bottled some of our Nocino to see how it might evolve over time.

Our bottled Nocino... not a complete success

This week, we also decided to pursue something we developed last fall: a squash marmalade. This was based on a classic French recipe (typically based on the Potiron squash).

Last year we used Blue Hubbard. With the quantity of Orange Hubbard growing on the property this year, we decided to try it with Orange Hubbard.

The result was a touch different but still very nice. For 3 volume of squash we blended 1 volume of organic oranges from Florida.

In fact, after making our first batch this week we're almost sold out (one jar left!).

A new Seasonal product: Squash Marmalade

We've decided to make this a seasonal preserve. Perhaps next year (to get right into the mood for Christmas) we'll blend the squash with Tangerines or Mandarins.

With the Holiday Season now fully underway, the team continues to be quite busy preparing both corporate and personal gift baskets.

Carol (the Elf) working away at gift baskets

We have had to produce so many of these, we no longer have sufficient space for storage. For the time being our gallery has been used for warehousing.

The gallery is rapidly filling up with gift baskets

Since we are also delivering some of these larger orders, we've discovered we may have another problem: transportation. Our Ford SUV is too small and our pick-up truck just won't do in this weather.

Next year, we're likely to participate in farmers' markets, so with this in mind, we've come to the realization we may need to equip ourselves with a van.

This being the Season of giving, we have also decided to process extra batches of our home made cookies for local charities. Weather helping, this is something we plan to deliver this week.

Our popular Christmas cookies are being readied for local charities

With the grey, cold and snowy weather, we have had some major concerns about the Growing Dome.

The water tank temperature has dipped to as low as 3 degrees and we have had two nights where the dome temperature has dipped to below zero.

Because of the lack of sunshine, snow has been accumulating on the panels and the water has no opportunity to warm up.

Snow slowly accumulating on the greenhouse panels (as well as the solar panels).

We believe we may have lost all of our fish. Nevertheless, the dome is still harbouring an environment conducive to plant growth.

In our hydroponic beds, seeds continue to germinate and seedlings are growing (although not very rapidly).

Beurre de Roquencourt wax bean seedling (still in fine form).

The end result is that we still have a lot of hope for year-round "off the grid" operation once our thermal mass (the water tank) is exposed to a full summer of warming.

So we leave our readers this week with a photo of the dome during our latest snowfall. It is amazing to think that this structure can still shelter life in these conditions.

All is white outside while things remain green inside

Winter Has Arrived

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It may not yet be December 21st, but Winter has certainly come. This week's cold weather followed by a good blanketing of snow has seriously hampered all our plans at the farm, including our work on the manor.

The most important thing to do was to rapidly change the Bush Hog on the tractor for snow clearing blades.

With snow on the ground, the Bush Hog will no longer be necessary until next Spring

As a result of all this we have now concentrated on inside work - including the greenhouse dome.

We have now gathered one full month of data on the dome. Although we've missed a few days, we have been recording daily inside and outside temperatures (around mid-day, minimum and maximum values), relative humidity and water tank temperature.

November Dome Temperatures

With temperatures dipping to below -10 degrees C at night and the skies overcast for the greater part of the week, we've seen a couple of minimum readings reaching just below zero inside the dome. Nevertheless, the environment still seems conducive to plant growth. This week, our heirloom wax beans have started to germinate.

Germination continues inside the dome

On the other hand, our fish are not doing so well. Our water temperature has dipped to 9 degrees and this is just not conducive to healthy growth of Tilapia. In fact, we are rapidly starting to count the bodies and most fish have become dormant. As indicated last week, with no possibility of raising the water temperature, we are forced to look for alternative species. Now we have to decide when we want to introduce new fish and we may just wait until Spring.

While we tackle these issues, Chef has been taking on the role of "nut processor". Now knowing more about nuts than he had before, Chef was able to take on the final task of shelling the Black Walnuts and even starting on the Hickory (no less difficult).

Chef tackling our Hickory nuts

Meanwhile, we also took the time to launch a new preserve: Arctic Kiwi Jam with Coconut Milk. Coconut and Kiwis make a good combination; the result is an interesting Tropical blend.

A new preserve: Arctic Kiwi with Coconut Milk

Inside work has also encompassed the glass gallery. This week we took delivery of new pieces for our collection. These included period glass originally from France and the US.

One of the newest addition to the collection: a Durand King Tut pattern vase (c. 1920)

New additions to our Schneider collection (c. 1910-1920)

Since a lot of our blog readers are from around the World and situated in much warmer climes, I close this week with a few pictures of our first taste of Winter this year.

The view from the back of the manor

The Growing Dome....still helping us germinate seeds

Beautiful, cold, quiet Winter morning....perfect for a walk

The Kiwi trellises are overloaded with snow and ice

The Beaver Pond

Our back corn field

The entrance to the Carolinian forest

New Arrivals

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Last week we were already in the mood to prepare for next Spring. In fact, we had already started a tray of various vegetable and herb seedlings in our Growing Spaces greenhouse dome. We continued our endeavor this week by adding the second element to what will be a closed loop ecosystem: fish.

Early, we had settled on Tilapia as our fish species of choice. The reasons were many fold: they have been used in Aquaponic systems before (so there is a lot of information and data); they mature rapidly (within 6 months under proper conditions); they are easy to breed (one female will produce 200-1000 eggs per spawn and will spawn every 4-5 weeks); and finally, they are a good source of protein (their white flesh and "non fishy" taste have made them a popular dish).

There are many varieties of Tilapia and we settled on the more popular species, the Blue Tilapia. So this week we picked up 300 Blue Tilapia "fingerlings" and added them to the large water tank in our greenhouse.

Blue Tilapia Fingerling (DoA)

We expected some losses as we gradually introduced the fish to their new surroundings. By the time we emptied the bag containing the fingerlings, a half dozen or so were already dead. Nevertheless the majority looked to be in perfect shape swimming in schools as they found their new freedom in our 3000 gallon tank (in a tank this size we can accommodate over 1000 fish). At the time, the tank temperature had gradually gone up to 16.5 degrees (some 3 degrees higher than the previous week).

Water temperature has now become a major concern. Optimum temperature for Tilapia is over 20 degrees C. Last week, we were concerned about the survival of our fish and with the cold weather now upon us, temperature fluctuations to below 15 degrees is a great concern. Because the greenhouse is operated "off the grid", it is impossible for us to adequately heat such a large volume of water.

In any case, we are pushing ahead hoping that some fish will survive what will be 3 grueling winter months. If they do, they stand a much better chance next year when the water tank has had one full summer of exposure to warm temperatures (our tank was filled with our cold well water in September). Also, once we have one full year of operational experience, we will have a better feel for the type of fish which may survive our environmental conditions on a year-long basis.

In order to begin filtering some of the fish waste we decided to add some water plants to the tank. We opted for Duck Weed which apparently Tilapia also enjoy as a source of food.

Our water tank is showing signs of life with both Tilapia and Duck Weed

We are now monitoring things very closely. Right now, the cold water is just not conducive to much activity from the Tilapia.

In the meantime, the environment in the dome itself remains conducive to plant growth. Our original potted plants (fennel and strawberries) are doing very well and the seeds planted last week have started to germinate.

Lettuce and others have started germinating

On the farming front, it was also time to prune our Kiwis, starting with those newly trellised last year. This is where we now get a better feel for where and how these fruits grow. Kiwis grow on the third year shoot of a vine. These vines can be distinguished by their colour. The most recent shoots are lighter brown and the older vines turn grey.

Late harvest Kiwis showing the different year growth of their vines

Even though the Kiwis have taken very well to their new trellises, the pruning process is still very difficult. When we extracted the Kiwis from rampant Wild Grapes and Roses last year, we were left with unstructured vines which had not be pruned for many years. The result is that it may take a few years for us to properly train all of these vines (while maintaining fruit production).

The old Kiwi vines have taken very well to the new trellises, but it will take years to train them

As far as the Ward Manor is concerned, we are finally coming to the end of the outside renovations.

The wood working and troughs are almost done. Gord (one of the talented workers on the Tucker Construction team) commented that it must have taken them years to finish the wood work back in the 19th century; even with modern tools, he considered it an incredible task to rebuild all of the external finishes.

Some of the rebuilt and restored external finishes waiting to be installed

The wood was also painted with a primer and we expect to do the final painting in Spring (where we will be changing the colour to something more appropriate of the times). Meanwhile, the team also worked on fitting new storm windows to protect their Victorian counterparts and provide a touch more insulation.

Fitting new storm windows

All that will remain is the iron work and the rebuilding of some columns for the west wing veranda.

This progress has allowed us to commit to the next phase of the project: landscaping.

Our effort here is focused on the back ridge which is a mess and the front of the barn where we have an ineffective parking lot. So this week, we started work on some "hardscaping" of the parking area.

Extending the delineated parking area on front of the barn

Because of the gradients involved (both on front of the barn and on the ridge behind the house), we've started to take the first of many deliveries of massive armour stone. Luckily we have ample space to temporarily store these.

Our first stone delivery

I will close this week with an amusing event. One evening, Christine screamed as she entered the dining room.  It turns out, we had a bat in the house. I'm not sure how it got there, but perhaps all of the work on the outside of the house scared the little rodent and forced him to find a more suitable shelter.

Either way, it was an evening of comedic dance as two full grown adults try to capture and/or chase a little bat out of the house. You don't often see that in the city.

A small bat, comfortable atop our study

PS. It turned out that the best way to calm the bat was to turn the lights on. He proceeded to make himself comfortable atop our study. Once there, things were a lot easier for us.