We're Moving In

To view the latest from Ridge Berry Farm visit our new blog and site!

Although we have lived in the old Victorian manor for over a year now, it had not yet become our home...until this week.

The interior work on the house is finally coming to an end. Our front door is complete and looks gorgeous.

A well fitted main door means we were able to remove an awkward storm door

As seen from the inside, the new stained glass picks up on the bay window's Art Nouveau pattern

Before, the old doors were salvaged, not properly fitted and with stain glass not representative of the times

What has really transformed our house though is the kitchen, the heart of any home. The kitchen is complete and we can now enjoy making our own dinners. Chef's cuisine was great, but we have tired of eating on the veranda of the Tea Room (particularly as the weather is cooling).

Finally, a functional kitchen

The original kitchen being dismantled some 3 months ago

This milestone meant that we could now also begin removing some of our belongings from a storage shed. It is amazing how much "stuff" people gather over the years and it is now time for us to seriously de-clutter. Much of this "stuff" has been  accumulating in the barn and this is not a long term solution.

As we empty our storage shed, it actually feels like we're moving in

We now have to organize our furnishings and do some decorative work. But it's also time to start another phase of this project: the manor's exterior.

This week was the beginning of the brick work. The walls are being washed. Some damaged bricks will then be replaced from our inventory of old bricks of the same period. The whole thing will then be sealed.

The outside refinishing begins with the brick work

While work on the house has progressed, Tristan and I have continued to make the final touches to our Biodome. This week entailed the installation of fan hood covers and the external installation of solar panels for our fans and a water pump.

Installing solar panels on our Biodome

This week, we have also had the opportunity to carry out a few food experiments.

The first entails the Concord grapes generously given to us by a neighbour. I was dismayed by the amount of green (unripened) grapes I was throwing out when de-stemming. After a completing a batch, it dawned on me that we could transform them into Verjus (litterally green grape juice).

Unripened (green) Concord grapes can be transformed into verjus

 We "crushed" these hard grapes by processing them in a blender. We then filtered the juice using a cloth. Although the Verjus is not as clear as I would like it to be (we could have used a finer filter). The results are exactly what we expected: a very tart juice that can be used wherever we would normally use lemon juice. Although tart, this juice still has a familiar grape finish, so it is perfect for dressings.

Our first bottle of Verjus

We also decided to carry out a foraging experiment this week. In this case, it concerned Highbush Cranberry. These we had identified earlier this Spring, now it was time to process them.

Highbush Cranberry

The Highbush Cranberry is not related to the well-known Cranberry people use for Thanksgiving dinner. It is more closely related to the Honeysuckle. These beautiful bushes generate bright red berries that can last well into the Winter.

The real problem is that there are three varieties of this plant in North America. They are difficult to differentiate, but all are edible, although one (a European native tree) is not very palatable.

The only way the discern them is to simply taste the berries. In our case, the berries were quite bitter. However, we also noted that much of the bitterness is from the seed so we decided to juice them anyway.

Beautiful Highbush Cranberries ready for steam juicing

The result was a very pleasant smelling juice (just about identical to Cranberry juice). However, it was still very bitter and now I fear we may only have the "unpalatable" European variety.

This has not deterred us however and we will definitely keep searching our land for a native tree.

Meanwhile, our vegetable garden continues to be bountiful. In particular, the tomatoes are amazing.

The tomatoes just keep coming

Although we sell some of our tomatoes and Chef uses quite a few, we still had to do quite a bit of canning. You can never have enough tomato sauce in the pantry...however this week we added salsa and tomato relish.

The relish was quite a pleasant surprise. We used our two large heirloom varieties for this (Cuostralee and Marizol Gold).

These tomatoes are so large, the Marizol slices look like pineapple

The recipe is simple. We sliced our tomatoes and some onions (ratio by volume amounts to 2 litres of tomatoes for 1 litre of onions). Combining them in  a bowl we salted them and waited until the next morning to drain all juices.

We placed this in a pot with one of our hot peppers (finely chopped). We covered the whole thing with white vinegar. We added some sugar (just less than half a litre). We brought this to a boil for 5 minutes and then added spices - in our case we used some 2 tablespoons of curry powder and a similar amount of mustard seeds.  We let the concoction simmer for an hour and then we were ready to can.

If the relish is a bit too liquid, it can be firmed up with just a bit of flour or corn starch.

We found the taste of this relish to be reminiscent of a good ketchup and I'm not sure our first batch will survive long...we'll probably have to make some more.

Our first batch of tomato relish

Once again this week, someone from the community and a regular patron of the Tea Room (Renee) brought something really special: Jerusalem Artichokes (or Sunchokes).

We had been meaning to plant some of these, but the rhizomes are actually hard to come by. This is surprising since it is a native plant that takes to the soil well and can be quite invasive once established.

Jerusalem Artichokes or Sunchokes

One rhizome can multiply 20 times in one year so it is a very productive plant...it is also quite a delicious root. So with this batch, I had enough to share with Chef who rapidly concocted for the restaurant a wonderful soup: Cream of Cauliflower, Jerusalem Artichokes and Potatoes.

Tristan's new favourite: cream of Cauliflower, Jerusalem Artichokes and Potatoes

Now that the summer season is over, things have quietened down at the restaurant. As such we've challenged Chef to use this time to develop his own line of canned goods.

This week we launched Chef Beck's line with two new preserves: Powidl (traditional stewed plums) and, Corn and Heirloom Tomato Relish.

Chef's new line: Powild and, Corn and Heirloom Tomato Relish

With the colder weather sneaking up on us every so often, this week Christine also had us transform a part of the market into an extension of the restaurant. Our guests can now enjoy Chef's cooking while protected from the elements.

The "sheltered" portion of our restaurant

Finally, I will conclude this week with a photo of some new guests to the Tea Room: baby snapping turtles.

So far this week, three of them have attempted to enter our store. In all cases, we have been returning them to the swamp or the pond hoping that they survive.

I'm not sure where they came from. The nest we reported on earlier this summer (by our raised beds) seems to be undisturbed and free of shells.

Why they would come to the store is a real mystery. Perhaps there is another nest not far away (?).

The third baby Snapping Turtle this week trying to enter our store.