Farm Vegan Retreat, Part One

Hey everybody! I'm back from my weekend at the Farm's Vegan Retreat in Summertown, Tennessee. I was asked to come back and do a cooking demonstration for this one. The first such retreat was last February, and I demoed at that one too.

For any who aren't familiar with the Farm, it's a community of vegans and vegetarians who've been living on several thousand acres of land in middle Tennessee since the early 1970s. The original Farmies traveled to Tennessee from San Francisco in a caravan of school buses in 1971. In the mid- to late-70s, the Farm became a destination for progressives looking to practice the principle of nonviolence and shared respect for Mother Earth. It's still going strong, and they've begun holding Vegan Retreats (the next one is scheduled for February 24th-26th) a couple times a year filled with cooking demos and fun!

As a little disclaimer (and shameless plug), I should also mention that the Farm's on-site Book Publishing Company (yes, that's its official name) is publishing my Southern vegan cookbook. Due out in April!

Paul and I arrived on Friday night just in time for dinner! We missed the demonstrations, but the results were delicious. This is Oven-Baked Tofu, Fried Okra (from the garden), Potato Salad, and Fresh-Picked Salad Greens with Homemade Italian Vinaigrette:

Here's the dinner table minus a few latecomers. Douglas, the event's host, is the guy raising his glass of blueberry wine in the back. To his left are newlyweds Rick and Rose (more on their spontaneous wedding later) and me. To his right are his wife Deb and retreat attendees Tasha and Linda:

Ebony, another retreat attendee, arrived after dinner. But she heated up some leftovers before enjoying this tiny ice cream cone filled with the Farm's homemade Pina Colada Ice Bean. They make this creamy vegan ice cream on the Farm, and the folks who live there keep it stocked in their freezers. I've tried several flavors over the past year, and I can attest that this is the BEST vegan ice cream on the planet. I wish they could mass market this stuff:

That was it for the first night. We all retired early because we had yoga at 8 a.m. After yoga at the Farm's yoga studio on Saturday morning, we went back to Douglas' house for coffee and a tour of his home garden:

Then we went inside, where Douglas demoed the best smoothie I've ever tasted — frozen strawberries, soymilk, flax oil, hemp oil, and acai berry powder:

While we drank our smoothies, Douglas showed us how to make his Baked Coconut Granola and his Raw Granola. I mixed both together in this bowl with soymilk and some of the Farm's homegrown dehydrated pears:

But breakfast didn't stop there. Douglas also showed us how to make a traditional Farm breakfast — Yeast Crepes! These were so simple. Just a 1/4 cup of flour mixed with 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast and a little water. He added in fresh bell pepper and tomatoes that cooked into the bottom. You fry it in a skillet with a little oil and serve with hot sauce and soy sauce. Douglas said the original Farm folks made this often in the community's early days:

After breakfast, we got started on lunch. Here's Chelsea and Ebony stuffing husks with masa, vegan sausage/tomato sauce, bell peppers, and olives for our Homemade Tamales:

And here's the tamales, all wrapped and ready to steam:

After the tamales were prepped, Douglas took us on a Farm tour. We stopped at the lush community garden:

The garden, maintained by multiple Farm residents, has lots of pretty flowers!

And the veggie plants are still producing plenty of food. I'd never seen an okra plant before and was amazed to learn it has pretty flowers too!

Later on the tour, near Farm attorney Alan Graf's eco-friendly underground house, we ran into this ferocious beast!

At the end of the tour, we stopped by the Farm Store, where several of us loaded up on the Farm's homemade tofu, soy yogurt, and other yummy treats. Then we headed back to Douglas' for lunch and a few more demos (including mine). But that's enough pics for today. I'll share more Farm adventures tomorrow.

Down On the Farm (Part 3)

Last post on the Farm vegan retreat, I swear. I had so many pictures of the weekend-long vegan cooking conference at the Farm in Summertown that I had to break them into three posts. On Sunday night, I posted about the opening dinner on Friday. Last night, I posted pics from Saturday's cooking demos through lunch. Tonight, I'll be posting about everything that happened after lunch. For more on the Farm or the retreat, go here or here.

Immediately after lunch, I ran over to the Book Publishing Company to prep for my 2 p.m. demo. I was scheduled to demonstrate my Tempeh & Carrot BBQ Sandwiches and my Tofu Deviled "Eggy" Bites (both recipes are from my upcoming cookbook, to be published by the Book Pub Co. very soon). Here I am preparing the Creamy Poppyseed Coleslaw for the 'cue sandwiches. On the side, you can see the tofu squares for the deviled eggy bites:

Here's a close-up of the slaw bowl before the vegan mayo and poppyseeds went in:

Here's the Tempeh & Carrot BBQ filling sizzling on the stovetop:

And here's me and my lovely assistant (a.k.a. the boyfriend) with a platter of tiny BBQ sandwich samples. The class loved the barbecue! Most folks either loved or were totally weirded out by the deviled eggy bites. They get their egg flavor from black salt, and you either adore black salt or you don't, right?:

Right after my demo, chef Alan Roettinger, author of Speed Vegan and Omega 3 Cuisine, went on with his demo. He's a professional chef, and his style is way more gourmet than mine. I enjoyed being treated to such fancy foods!

For starters, Alan made this AMAZING kalamata olive tapenade with a secret ingredient (it was chocolate!!). This recipe is from Omega 3 Cuisine, which I should be reviewing very soon:

Next up was Pimento Soup with Vermouth from Speed Vegan. I'd seen this recipe in the cookbook before, but it didn't sound nearly as appealing as it tasted in real life. The vermouth gives this soup an amazing complexity of flavor that I can't even describe. Plus, y'all know I'm a fan of any food made with alcohol:

And then Alan fed us Red Quinoa with Zucchini and Corn and Napa Slaw, both from Speed Vegan. This was my first time trying red quinoa because I've always been too cheap to buy it. OMG ... I think red quinoa is my new favorite food!

After eating sample-sized portions all day, none of us were all that hungry for dinner. But the Farm was holding a community dinner Saturday night, and we weren't about to miss that. Community dinners are fund-raisers for the Farm School or other special organizations, and many of the Farm's residents attend. This was a chance to meet Farmies who weren't involved with the vegan retreat. Plus, there was live music and a school play. Here's the list of menus for community dinners, appropriately held in the Farm's community center:

Saturday's menu featured Thai Stir-Fry (with some of the best, firmest tofu I've ever eaten!!), Yellow Rice, and a Green Salad. Despite my lack of hunger, I cleaned my plate:

And for dessert, a homemade Vegan Brownie. And yes, I finished that too:

By the time we left the Farm at 7:30 p.m. to make the three-hour drive home to Memphis, I was as full as a tick! We had a fabulous time at the retreat, and I ate some of the tastiest vegan food I've ever had. Plus, we made some new friends. I wish we could do it all over again next weekend!

Down On the Farm (Part 2)

I'm back again with more photos from this weekend's vegan retreat at the Farm in Summertown, Tennessee. For more on the Farm, an intentional community of vegans, vegetarians, and environmentally-minded hippies, read yesterday's post. In a nutshell, I was invited to demo a few of the recipes from my upcoming Southern vegan cookbook, which is being published by the Book Publishing Company at the Farm.

But before I went on, I was able to watch lots of other demos by some of my vegan heroes. I blogged about Friday's opening night dinner last night, but tonight's post will focus on the activities between breakfast and lunch on Saturday.

Breakfast began at Douglas' house immediately after our 7 a.m. yoga session. We had deliciously-moist, berry-pecan muffins (which Douglas demonstrated), Soysage (made in Nashville), and the Farm's amazing plain soy yogurt (made onsite) with nuts, raisins, and raw granola (also demo'd by Douglas):

After breakfast, Douglas showed us how to make his AMAZING raw crackers, a recipe I will most definitely be recreating. Then we caravaned over to Tofu Queen Louise Hagler's house, where she demonstrated how to make Papadzules from the Yucatan Peninsula. Louise has been in Mexico for a while, helping another cook veganize Mexican recipes, and this was one of her experiments. Here's Louise showing us raw pepitas:

Here's Louise talking about tomatoes (I think):

And here's the finished product. Well, half of it. Since we'd be eating all day, we each got half of a corn tortilla filled with fried tofu and topped with a toasted pepita sauce, homemade tomato sauce, and habenero sauce. This was delicious. The pepita sauce gave it such a wonderful flavor:

Afterward, I just had to get Louise to sign an updated version of her fabulous Tofu Cookery:

Next, we headed to Barb Bloomfield's house (where Paul and I spent the night) for a vegan dessert demo. Barb showed us how to make these delicious vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were so good, the cookies in this jar went fast!

Then, Barb took a healthy turn and demonstrated Raw Chocolate Tarts with Cashew Cream. She let us create our own tarts and pipe the chocolate-avocado and cashew cream onto them with pastry bags. Barb is the lady in green holding the pastry bag:

Here's my tart! Delicious!

Next, Barb's husband Neal talked about growing wheat grass. Then the only kid in the workshop got to grind the wheat grass so we could all do shots:

Finally, we retreated back to Douglas' for lunch. After breakfast, he showed us how to make tamales with masa, a vegan sausage-spiked tamale sauce, and fresh salsa. As you can see, I loaded mine with salsa:

There were a few more demos and a walk through the Farm post-lunch, but I had to skip those so I could prepare for my 2 p.m. cooking demo. Check back tomorrow for pics of my class and Chef Alan Roettinger's demo.

Down On the Farm (Part 1)

This past Saturday, my boyfriend Paul and I road-tripped over to Summertown, Tennessee for a vegan retreat at the Farm. I was asked to lead a cooking demo there on Saturday, nestled between demos by the legendary tofu queen Louise Hagler and Speed Vegan Chef Alan Roettinger! Needless to say, I was honored to be included in such an awesome group of vegan cooks. The Book Publishing Company, located on the Farm, is publishing my Southern vegan cookbook later this year.

In case you've never heard of the Farm, it's a community of vegans and vegetarians who've been living on several thousand acres of land in middle Tennessee since the early 1970s. The original Farmies traveled to Tennessee from San Francisco in a caravan of school buses in 1971. In the mid- to late-70s, the Farm became a destination for progressives looking to practice the principle of nonviolence and shared respect for Mother Earth. The above photo is an aerial view of the Farm that I borrowed from the their website.

Today, a handful of the original settlers (and a few newbies) still live on the Farm. They make their own tofu and soy yogurt, and the on-site publishing company puts out amazing vegan cookbooks (think Tofu Cookery, the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook, Sweet Utopia, etc.). They have an awesome solar-powered school for Farm kids, and many members grow their food in community gardens. I could write all day about place, but I've got a blog post to do. So if you want to learn more, check out the Farm's website.

The vegan retreat began on Friday night at Douglas' house. Douglas has lived on the Farm since its early days, and he organized the retreat. We met at his place for an opening night supper, and Paul and I arrived just minutes before the meal was served (good timing!). We started the meal with a glass of Douglas' homemade Blueberry Wine:

Douglas' daughter Leah helped prepare two delicious soups — Butternut Squash Soup and Creamy Potato Chowder:

Here's my plate with the potato soup, a baked sweet potato, one amazing raw cracker, and some cornbread made from ground corn that Douglas grew in his own garden:

After dinner, Douglas brought out Ice Bean!! There's a soft-serve Ice Bean soy cream machine at the Farm, and members fill up tubs to bring home. Maybe it's because it's homemade, but Ice Bean tastes better than any other ice cream I've ever had.

He had chocolate and orange-vanilla, and he served it tiny little ice cream cones. How cute are these?!

After dinner, Paul and I drove over to cookbook author Barb Bloomfield's house (she wrote Fabulous Beans and Soup's On), where we retired early in one of her guest rooms.

I took a crap ton of photos at the retreat, so I'll be splitting these up into three installments. Check back tomorrow for pictures of Louise Hagler's cooking demo!