big table farm made a big splash in San Francisco

You can now find our wines at these esteemed establishments in San Francisco! Big Table Farm wines got a very warm welcome this past week - Thanks to Revel wines!

Farallon
Slanted Door
Greens
Atelier Crenn
Wo Hing

(no shortage of great food but also lots of beauty at these fabulous locals!)


Atelier Crenn's artistry

Oviparous Valentine

There are things from all our childhood kitchens that bring back sweet memories... for me it's my mom's blue dutch oven, the mix-master, her joy of cooking cook book (which I'm lucky enough to now own) and this little gem below!



I was musing with one of my brothers the other day about this cooker saying how it was the greatest totally gratuitous kitchen gadget ever but oh how I loved it - and if I ever saw one again I would totally buy it - not because I need an egg poacher in any way but just 'because' it's such a sweet little gadget and reminds me of my dad so much - street car hash, poached eggs on toast you name it he LOVED this gadget too!!! it made eggs perfectly every time...

So what does my ever so thoughtful brother (Joseph) do he finds me one and has it shipped to me for valentines day!!! I was so excited I poached an egg immediately!!




this ones for you dad! xo clare

A day off from the winery

Harvest has gone beautifully this year but full on like every year .. but a great vintage for us for sure - more on wine on another post this post is about meat! more specifically pork ...

I've had this day on the books for a while so I avoided the winery yesterday and left Brian and crew to barrel down pump punch and stomp.

The day started out really nicely it was a beautiful morning on the farm which I got to enjoy always a good start to the day to not have to rush through chores as this is my favorite part of each day.





At a very civilized hour my friends Linda and Kathleen showed up and we processed 45lbs of Big Table Farm pork into 4 kinds of sausage, plus scrapple.. : )



It was very fun and with three capable ladies workin together it really was pretty darn painless so much so that we got to enjoy a leisurely lunch on the grass and took a walk to the back field mid day enjoyed the sunshine and picked up wind fall apples... Thanks Kathleen for the beautiful corn soup! It was a lovely day and I'm so lucky to count these women among my friends!!







the sausage features sage, fennel and apples from the farm and garlic and red pepper flake, fennel, garlic and shallots from Ayres Creek Farm ...



Tip - If stuffing sausage into casings it too much work and equipment you can always get ground pork and flavor it your self and put it into rolls and freeze it... this makes such a nice handy breakfast meat : ) there are so many recipes to choose from and it's pretty fun to flavor your sausage and taste through out the process till you get it right...

Some photos from the James Beard Dinner

I just received some beautiful photos from the James beard dinner .. just had to share!! still remembering that meal with a huge smile !!! nice work chris!












also as a extra bonus I have an art show at the james beard house which is still up ! : )

'Life on the Farm in Willamette Valley'

and a write up on the JB blog here! : )

work and reward

Right on the heels of the big event we have 17 tons give or take a few bales of hay to bring in (7 from our field and 10 from the neighbors). This means driving around a field strewn with bales picking them up loading them into the truck driving to the barn stacking them and then going back and doing it again and again and again : ). The bales are not too heavy about 65lbs each so that's about 30 odd bales to the ton. We did the work over the course of a few days and had help from our neighbor Joe and two friends Johnathan and Andrea - Thanks guys - as usual our community came out of the woodwork to help keep the farm going.






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It's a great feeling to have the winter hay in the barn.

As a bit of a reward -- yesterday evening I went out to enjoy the beautiful evening light and look at the garden and visit with my man a bit who was also enjoying his evening in the garden ... we chatted walked around and actually slowed down and enjoyed the farm... Then we then had an impromptu diner on the new fire pit built by the OSITF crew ... We enjoyed one of our chickens and some much needed gin and tonics!! it really was perfect celebration of all the work of the last few weeks and a bit of re-kindling of our friendship, partnership and love ... as my friend maia says ..enjoying the life we are working so hard to build... : ) cheers to the moments we can just sit and relish in summer.


brian's beans popping up : )

Big Table Farm is going to the James Beard House!!!

so the James Beard Foundation is kind of the foodie version of the Oscars - They invite chefs to cook at the James Beard House in New York City and administer the annual James Beard Foundation Awards, which recognize and honor excellence among chefs and others working in the food and beverage industry. So Chris DiMinno the Chef of Clyde Common here in Portland is doing a meal June 16th and has invited us to pair our wines with his meal!! it's a great honor to pour our wines at this very prestigious place and for it's dinner guests along side of Chris' great cooking! so I'll be flying back for the meal - does any body have a couch for me to sleep on in the village - I promise not to take up to much room. And if your in NY book it should be a great meal!!!

fall always gets the better of me

Between open studios, the fall wine release and web site updates, finishing up the septic install and now harvest coming on strong - blogging has fallen by the wayside a bit .. but just in case you thought I stopped feeding the animals - I wanted to share some snap shots of the last couple weeks...



Cecelia - I actually got up 'early' to do chores and thought of you so I took these shots!






This is a few weeks back one of our 'new to us' OLD vineyards



so when most folks say "we put in a septic" they don't really mean they where the ones that plotted site plans shuffled paper and permits back and forth with the county, schlepped many hundreds of feet of pipe and drain field liners and actually used a shovel and operated a back hoe for weeks on end... The septic project in finally complete!! wow I think this falls into the category of project you only do once your self.





the little miss clementine took another trip to California a few weeks back and met a new boyfriend we are crossing our fingers for pups right before thanksgiving...



Of course there's lots of fall bounty!







and just in case you thought the pig was having all the fun...



back story --
yesterday at the winery at 6pm as Brian stomped in a bin of grapes with nothing but his undies on the lab delivery guy came in and i think got his whole evening ruined.. he really just didn't want to see Brian 1/2 naked in grapes and didn't really think people still did that .. it was classic!!! all he said after groaning loudly was 'are you serious?'



big thanks to all the folks that came to open studios and took art and wine home!!

also if you aren't on our big table farm mailing list... the wine release letter just went out if you'd like one, e-mail me or just visit the big table farm web site!!

bacon and bill

Our friend bill was out this weekend for some pork smoking! boy was that a nice visit. And I loved these sweet shots...

love that man of mine

Brian made a simple diner earlier this week - 'ham and cheese sandwich' with some greens - the catch was it's was on his home made bread with lovely local cheddar our Farm raised and smoked ham, toped with our friend matt's homemade mustard and some greens from our friends at Square Peg Farm just sauteed lightly in the pan - humm that took the humble ham sandwich to a whole new level. I really tried to only eat half... to no avail!

smokin'

c






Brian spent all day yesterday smokin' pig - he smoked two hams and an entire belly!! Big Thanks go out to Picnic she was a lovely pig and VERY tasty! fresh smoked bacon as an appetizer hard to go wrong... - there was a great group of friends who enjoyed the fruits at the end of the evening... good times



the ham with the last bits of one of our first prosciuttos and eggs lots of eggs areound here!!