sunset through the hoops

Check out a little moving pictures taste of the muddy fun out at Sunseed Farm yesterday right here.  More photos and thanks coming soon.

~Lisa

Suzy and Nora are back, inviting us to taste their breakfast goods.  The first time the girls took part, it was to help us celebrate our first anniversary, and now we get to help them celebrate their first!  Fresh off a visit from Anthony Bordain and a new menu for the spring season, they are ready to rev us up for our big hoop building weekend.  There seems to be some road trip story about a desperate breakfast stop at a certain well known fast food joint that has led them to cook up what we will call:
·        M. C. Griddle Cake breakfast sandwiches – two pancakes filled with egg, cheese and your choice of bacon or pancetta
·        A simple omelet –eggs gone fluffy with seasonal herbs, served with toast and bacon
A little hoop greens will round out the both
Don’t forget our “fruit seasonal” (sometimes freeze-onal) regular breakfast choices: Waffles with gingered apples or blueberries and Lisa’s bread pudding (blueberry this week, and sweetened with honey until Michigan figures out how to grow some non-GMO sugar!)

Looking forward to seeing you in our kitchen!

As you may have seen in an earlier blog post, the Spirit Farm hoop build was challenging and exhausting due to the miserable weather and less than perfect hoop kit that arrived at the site.  Jeff and I decided to throw our volunteer hoopsters a party to show our appreciation, and to make it even better, we scored some door prizes to give away from some awesome and generous Selma supporters.

Our volunteers were really pleased, and felt extra-appreciated.  We were thrilled that folks in the community are so generous and thoughtful.  Thank you so much to:

sweet display @ red shoes

Catherine from Red Shoes, one of Ann Arbor’s best gallery and gift shops, donated a sweet smelling, long burning soy candle from her home wares collection.  Red Shoes has cool everything –from sweet and funky gift cards, to lovely jewelry;  and baby gifts to graduation presents.  Catherine takes extra care with the special gift wrapping, adding to the loveliness.  Be sure to stop by her place, check out the fairy door on her front porch, give her cute pup some love,  enjoy her pretty little canaries, buy  a little something, and tell Catherine thanks for her support.

a refreshing Arbor Teas Thai iced-tea

Arbor Teas, the neighborhood tea company owned and operated by Jeremy and Aubrey Lopatin, gifted our volunteers a beautiful bag of herbal berry tea, packed in their new, completely compostable bags.  Arbor Teas in deeply committed to fair trade, organic teas, and eco-friendly packaging.  They  bicycle deliver in Ann Arbor, and ship all over the world.  If you haven’t had an opportunity to try their teas, come by and have a cup some Friday morning soon, or, even  better, order a bag of your favorite tea from their website, and be sure to mention a thanks for their support of RP&F!

easy to shop @ everyday wines

Mary from Everyday Wines was both generous and thoughtful.  She donated a hefty gift certificate to use in her lovely Kerrytown store, so that the door prize winner could choose exactly what they want from her ample supply of reasonably priced white, red and bubbly selections.  Mary also offers beautiful accessories to her wine selections, including glasses, openers and other items, and there are always some delicious bottles of sparkling wines chilling in the front case, just waiting for a spontaneous picnic or party.  She also carries some Pot and Box goods–when I was there the other day there were some sweet little terrariums all ready to come home and spread some happy plant joy.  Stop by her shop soon, and let her know you appreciate her support of our work!

Last but not least, John Roos, of  Roos Roast Coffee donated a couple of bags of his best coffee in all the land brew.  What can we say about Roos that captures his enthusiastic, consistent, glorious support of all RP&F events? I’m not sure if regular words work.  How about hugetastic? Or fabumassive?  You get the idea.  Check out Roos’s latest venture–his coffee shop on Rosewood.  Stop in, buy a pound or two, and be sure to thank John for his ongoing support of all things Selma.

We all had such a great time at the party we want to keep it going.  Sign up for our next hoop build here, and be part of the community that builds hoops together, and celebrates our successes together with drinks, snacks and door prizes galore. Are you someone who has a service, a shop, or a product you would like to donate to our volunteers as a door prize for our next party? Please contact me and let me know!

Big thanks again, to everyone. See you soon,

~Lisa

It was a busy, busy morning here at Selma Cafe.  So busy that I couldn’t take as many photos as I would have liked.  By the time I got around to capturing the deep red beauty of David Klingenberger’s The Brinery goods, this is the tiny bit that was left.  This end-of-the-jar is the very special and delicious Spring Storm Cloud Zapper beet kraut that David is creating and selling at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market.  This, along with David’s kim chee was  spooned and slurped up right along with his lovely spring fritata.  The fritata was packed with onions, asparagus, morels, shitakes, cheese and eggs, and served with a side of nettle pesto.  David cooked up the fritatas in a skillet and finished them in the oven.

The morels were a perfect spring time addtion to the fritatas.

The garnishes were extra pretty this week as well, with johnny-jump-up flowers and chive tops direct from Tantre Farms.

Along with David’s fritatas, I made individual ramekins of spinach souffle, in a bechamel base, seasoned with nutmeg.   One of my favorite things about the souffle recipe is that it calls for more egg whites than egg yolks.  Why, you might wonder, do I want extra egg yolks?? The answer of course, is it takes egg yolks to make pudding.  And we love pudding around here.  So, each souffle special had a little dollop of vanilla pudding on the side, made with Tantre Farm milk, Dry Bucket Farm eggs and local honey.  We offered bacon with each of the specials, along with lovely hoop house greens.

It  was really fun to have David in the kitchen. He has a sweet and positive attitude that pretty much rubs off on everyone. And, he had his own little posse of Tantre friends who came by to support him.

All in all it was a really great week at FM@SELMA.  Thanks to everyone who came out to help with prep Thursday night: Noah Miller, Nevon Clark, Michelle Fortin, Charles and Simone Racine, Nicole Aruda, Jennifer Jensen, Susie Baity-Stearns, Mike Woodruff and Olivia Gramprie.  Thanks too, to our Friday morning set-up, server and clean-up volunteers, including Anne West, Cassie Peabody, Siri Gottlieb, Mike Christianson, Carolyn Miller, Jennifer Jensen and, especially Michelle Fortin, who worked into the afternoon to bring order back into our kitchen.

Next week we have Nora and Suzy from Taste our Goods back in the kitchen again with some breakfast sammies to amaze and delight us.

See you then! ~Lisa

Sure, Jeff and I had a few concerns when we headed out to Detroit at 7am Saturday morning.  Ever the optimists, we hoped the “30% chance of rain” forecast was happening sooner than later.  “Fine”, we thought.  “Get it over with”.  Probably just as well we didn’t know then that it would continue to rain, intermittently, along with a bit o’ hail, and gusts of wind that were both bone chilling and strong enough to take our breath away…for the next 12 hours.

We had an omen though. A good omen, right there on the side of I-96. The sun was low on the horizon to the east of us, and behind us was the pouring rain.

I knew right then and there, we were going to have an amazing day. And we did.  (Okay, granted, this rainbow isn’t the exact rainbow I saw out the side window of the van.  But Jeff wouldn’t pull over and stop so I could get a good picture.  Instead, I’m giving you a look at a different rainbow. Because really, it’s the vibe of the thing that matters, don’t you think?)

Alright, first things first. We got to Spirit Farm and looked over our list. Warm clothes? Check. Work gloves? Check.  Mud boots? Check.  Hoop supplies ready and waiting? Check.  Instruction booklet on how to build a hoop house? Check.  Washtenaw Dairy donuts and Roos Roast coffee?  Heck yeah! CHECK AND CHECK.

We got fortified, and we got to work.  And let’s put the emphasis on the WE, okay? There  were close to 25 people who got themselves to the D, through the maze of closed expressways, construction delays and rainstorms.  They made the commitment to spend their whole Saturday working hard in less than ideal conditions– at times it was down right miserable.  And not one single person complained. Not once. Look, they’re even smiling, and it was pouring rain when I snapped this shot right before lunch.

Massive, huge, gigantic, way-big THANKS go out to Tomm Becker, Dan Carroll, JP Swanson, Marty Weid, Dan Bair, Ed Granchi, Ed Weymouth, Kendall Kuneman, Rachel Chadderdon, Elizabeth Beers, Ian Daum-Bost, Mary DuCharme, Anne West, Kristine Perria, Debowrah Montgomery, Claire Maitre, Morgan Mihok, Jody Bogumil, Aaron Lawerence, Gretchen Gerhke, Devin Foote, and Pastor Matthew Bode.  Thanks also go to Michelle Fortin and Judy Stone who couldn’t come to work, but supplied us with some delicious food to keep us going, and Kate Devlin, our host and hoop recipient, who organized the soul food dinner for us at the end of the day (more about that later).

Okay, backing up for a bit, let’s take a look at the hoop site.  Here’s the spot, with a view of the Spirit of Hope church as a beautiful back drop.  Check out the link, and read a little of the history of this old church.

One of my favorite tidbits is that the stained glass windows in the church were some of the first stained glass created by Louis Comfort Tiffany. In addition to the loveliness of the church itself, Spirit of Hope church is inclusive of everyone who wants to worship there, no matter what their sexual orientation.  They also  offer numerous services to the neighborhood and the community, including a weekly soup kitchen, a day care center, daily AA meetings, and access to fresh produce.  Now that they have a hoop to plant in, that produce will be available year around.

Before we get to the actual build, check out the funky coolness of the place:

cob construction garden maze

baby greens in the cob bed

mosaic on the cob walls

more garden spots near the chicken coop

garden bed frame

blue bottle tree

their sweet sign, blown over by the wind

using tires in the chicken coop

more mosaics

archway with hand carved reliefs of hobos--homeward bound during the depression.

bowling ball fountain

pretty stones in rain water with zebra.

Gregg Newsom and family stop by to visit

One of the best parts of a hoop build is seeing just how much can be accomplished in one day.  Check it out:

the hoop supplies ready and waiting

constructing the bows

Ed busts through the old to make way for the new

setting the remaining ground posts

installing the bows

team work

laying out the baseboards

bows and more bows

installing purlins

moving towards the end walls

We had a goal to get everything ready for end wall construction before lunch, and we did it.  The end walls are always better to work on after lunch.

we were just too muddy to track into the church for lunch, so boots stayed outside.

A delicious lunch in the upstairs chapel, thanks to Kate Devlin and her crew.

a few volunteers climbed the spiral staircase in the tower and got an awesome view.

After lunch, we got back to it, constructing and installing the end walls.

steel end wall framing - so much easier when done laying down!

poly-carb panels, ready for cutting and fastening

preparing to lift

setting the first end wall.

view from the inside

finishing the second end wall

carrying the second end wall to the other end of the hoop for installation

second end wall in place.

happy, wet and grateful.

Just as we finished gathering tools and cleaning up the site before dinner, the sky to the east of us cleared, and there was another rainbow.  We all cheered.

And then we went inside, and had the most amazing soul food dinner EVER thanks to the church ladies who spent the afternoon cooking for us.