By Wendy Carlson
Back when Tracy Hayhurst was working on her own farm, she would often pause to admire a particularly striking blue sky or take pleasure in the basket of fresh vegetables she had just harvested. “How many people get to have this kind of experience?” she pondered.
So, after she became the culinary director at Husky Meadows Farm in Norfolk, she started Seed and Spoon, a program of weekend farm stays and food events that are based on seasonally and locally grown ingredients. Visitors to Husky Meadows take a deep dive into sustainable agriculture by learning about native plants, harvesting organic vegetables and herbs from the farm’s two-acre garden, and using them to prepare imaginative dinners. It’s hardly the life of a hardscrabble farmer. At the end of the day, guests unwind in one of the farm’s five well-appointed suites, one of which is a renovated chicken coop.
The owners of Husky Meadows, David Low and Dominique Lahaussois, bought the 300-acre former dairy farm 30 years ago and named it after the breed of their dogs. But a few years back they began transforming the land into a center for sustainability and a diversified organic farm. In 2015, the farm began selling its certified organic vegetables and prepared foods at farmers markets and soon started a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Seed and Spoon was not only a natural progression, but a way to tap into the growing market of culinary tourism.
“We conceptualized this program as a way to involve people from near and far into the whole picture of what we do here,” says Hayhurust. “So it’s growing vegetables, working in the garden, harvesting, and then enjoying the fruits of our labor at dinner.”
The farm welcomes up to ten guests for two nights lodgings, special evening suppers, cooking demonstrations, and excursions. On a visit to the farm one weekend, several farm guests who spent their Saturday afternoon hiking up nearby Haystack Mountain State Park had gathered in the kitchen, with food they harvested from the garden earlier that day. Before dinner, they gathered in the communal living area, where wine writer and sommelier Terry Theise hosted a wine tasting of German and Austrian Rieslings.
Theise’s wife, Odessa Piper, founder of L’Etoile, who pioneered one of the first farm-to-table restaurants in Madison, Wisconsin, shared her culinary knowledge as she prepped. Dinner, served family style around an antique pine table, began with a salad of young goat cheese and husk cherries rolled in anise hyssop, then moved next to a roast farm chicken, a roasted squash “jewel box” filled with colorful autumn produce from the garden, and onward to dessert: roasted heirloom apples baked in phyllo purse with creme fraiche.
Beyond learning about native plants and harvesting, guests are encouraged to immerse themselves in nature. About 100 varieties of herbs and vegetables grow in the farm’s garden, and there is an extensive wild flower field, and hiking trails throughout the property. Special day events like mushroom foraging or a presentation on regenerative farming draw local visitors as well. One thing for sure, anyone visiting should come with an appetite and a pair of Wellies.
