Tonight’s crew dinner will include kohlrabi slaw, beet greens with goat cheese sauce, risotto with peas, baked chicken, and strawberry rhubarb pie. Every last nibble, save a few exotic imports like the Arborio rice, will come either from their fields or a Maine farm nearby.
The young couple is cooking a lot of food for six people, and it’s a good thing: When their crew arrives for supper, they’ll be good and hungry.
Mark Guzzi is the owner of Peacemeal Farm in Dixmont, one of the area’s oldest organic farms, which he bought from farm co-founder Ariel Wilcox in 2003. While Guzzi chose to earn a bachelor’s in sustainable agriculture at the University of Maine, he didn’t come from a family of farmers
Advertisement
But, largely through a summer job as a crew member on a New England farm, his passion for food and farming grew. “I was very excited when I found out all you can grow in this part of the country.” He also become interested in eating that food: As a UMaine student, Guzzi became one of the Orono Farmers Market’s best customers, a place that would later become a mainstay for his business. “Back then, the market was held on Thursday mornings; I’d walk around all day with food I bought there. One time, I road around campus all day with two watermelons dangling from my handlebars.”
Today, his is still a familiar face at the Orono Farmers Market, now as one of its most popular vendors. (Each crew member at Peacemeal Farm spends one day manning a local farmers market for a total of six a week; Guzzi and his dog, Tasha, work Orono.) Peacemeal Farm focuses largely on vegetables you can eat raw, such as lettuces, peas, beans, spinach, broccoli, peppers, squash, and tomatoes. Though they’re considered commodity items in the general market, his certified organic status turns his veggies into a valuable niche product that is in high demand by the growing number of consumers who are willing to pay more for locally-grown, pesticide-free food.
While Guzzi has confidence in his product mix, he also believes each market vendor is only as strong as the market he or she sells at. He’s pleased with how the Orono Farmers Market has grown since his days as a student. “Over the years, it’s just gotten better and better.” He believes this is because, unlike some markets, Orono continually allows new vendors to join the market. “Lots of markets don’t do that, and everyone loses.” Orono’s open approach, he says, makes it “a great market for both the vendors and the customers.”
Another fringe benefit of working with a diversity of vendors is being able to make some delicious trades: Virtually everything Guzzi’s family and crew eats is either grown on their farm or on the farms of their Maine colleagues.
“One of the things we all try to do we when it’s our turn to cook is to use what we picked that day, which is part of the fun of cooking on a farm,” Ferry says as she stirs tonight’s risotto. “The rest of the food, like chicken or cheese, we get from the other people at the markets.”
Peacemeal Farm, for example, supplies Appleton Creamery with fresh basil for their goat cheese. In return, Peacemeal gets what’s left of their samples at the end of each market day. Ferry looks in the fridge. “Right now, we have quite a supply of goat cheese!” She takes a dent out of their supply by whipping up a creamy cheese sauce to serve over her steamed beet greens. Meanwhile, Guzzi takes his baked chicken out of the oven.
It’s perfect timing: In comes the farm crew. Christa Sanders-Fleming enters the kitchen first, all smiles behind an impressive layer of farm dirt. She looks over her boss’s shoulder. “What are you making, Mark?”
“I’m finishing up some slaw,” he says.
She reports the good news to the rest of the farm crew—Mike Bahner, Molly Crouse, and Kelly Battershell—as they find a place at the table. “Mark is the slaw daddy.”
Guzzi admits it: “I do make a good slaw.”
He helps Ferry fill plates for everyone, then finally sits down, with Camella on his chest, and watches quietly as his crew digs in. Despite the late hour—it’s nearly 10 before they all start eating—the small table is buzzing with energy and humor.
They explain their life to the uninitiated: What’s it like to work at Peacemeal Farm? Mike Bahner (who eats with a set of fancy chopsticks) describes their Monday morning “walkabouts,” where they “walk the farm and plan the week’s work.”
Is it hard to wake up in the morning? “Not really,” Battershell says. “We all want to be here.”
Can you sample food as you pick? “That’s part of the job,” Guzzi says. Sanders-Fleming, between appreciative bites of slaw, tells about the pros and cons of testing the vegetables as they harvest them.
“They’re delicious, but after about a pound of peas . . .”
Bahner agrees, after a big lunch, even with the most coveted veggies, like snap peas or sungold tomatoes, “You just . . . can’t . . . put it in your mouth.”
No one’s having a tough time putting food in their mouths tonight, however. The chicken, which Guzzi coated in mayonnaise and breaded in cornmeal spiced with paprika, salt, pepper, and a bit of curry, vanishes quickly. “This is an organic farm, but we’re all carnivores here,” Battershell says. “We need our protein.”
They also need their sleep. By the time they finish the rhubarb pie, the clock is inching towards 11. They all have to be back in the fields at 6 a.m. Ferry, the last one to sit down and eat, admits farm life “is a lot harder than most people are willing to work.” Guzzi agrees. But he’s happy. “If you don’t mind working your butt off, you can do pretty well.” He gets up carefully, so as not to wake his sleeping daughter. “We’re right where we need to be.”
Peacemeal "Kohl" Slaw
Serves 8
4 kohlrabi
4 bok choy
6 summer turnips
l/2 bunch parsley
l/2 bunch scallions
1 cup mayo
1 l/2 cups plain goat’s yogurt
2/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup vinegar
Maple syrup to taste
Wash all veggies. Shred the kohlrabi and summer turnips with a grater or food processor. Chop the bok choy, parsley, and scallions. Mix with other ingredients; add salt and pepper to taste.
