Everyone is welcome. This savory dish will be the talk of your dinner party, the unforeseen star of the show, the recipe that everyone will ask for.
The bacon grease slipping the sides of the pears, the savory coating of the salt and pepper, the tangy cut of the vinegar and mustard is, well, chef’s kiss.
ENJOY!
I just returned from being back home in Minnesota where the days are long, the time feels short, and someone is always in the kitchen! The farming and nostalgic recipes are rearin’ to be used so this pairing I created for Nashville Box Club, but one that uses my mom’s tried and true recipes!
Memories of her hands making this same dough, rolling it out, being in the kitchen. The pies cooking and radio on blast. Calling out to my Dad that it was time for supper after the 5 o’clock whistle blew.
The easiest pastry that can be used in multiple ways, this one as a galette. Don’t worry, she’s never been a lobbyist for the sugar board so this is minimal on added sugar and utilizes the natural flavor and juices of the fruit! Enjoy with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream and you’re set.
Part of Wild Wednesdays is the permission to try something new and guess what, you don’t even have to be good at it.
I’ve never made any kind of spring roll or egg roll, until I go through the process it can seem intimidating and then once the steps are strode though I usually wonder where it has been all my life (remember how LONG it took me to even try making a martini because the simplicity of it was mountainous in trepidation?!)
These Summer Flower Rolls are insanely easy, if you don’t have access to edible flower, ask around! Just make you know if they have been sprayed or not. For this recipe I used pansies, bachelor buttons and yarrow, with some garnish of the little white daisy ones that I wouldn’t recommend only because they are super bitter!
And, as you can see by the lack of my skills, they don’t have to be perfect or show worthy, they just have to make it from the plate to your mouth. Feel free to substitute with other things that you might have in your fridge or want to try!
Just do it.
Now that the heat has arrived in Tennessee, the craving for fresh, juicy, crisp anything is real. I’m talking light summer meals because we’re already uncomfortable sweating through every inch of clothing we are wearing, don’t want to add overstuffed and bloated to that equation also.
So check out this Savory Summer Peach Salad (?), I guess it is a salad but also maybe not, gonna give it the ability to be whatever it wants in this life. While this can be seen as more of an appetizer, if you want to make this your full meal, just add some meat like prosciutto and maybe some bread to help soak up some of the juices or even make your own small bites crostini. Add a glass of wine or a spritz and you quite literally have the perfect situation.
Enjoy!
Even with the weather being finicky and throwing us some serious shade (and cold), there have been enough brighter days to hold onto the beautiful fact that Spring is here and Summer is coming. Which makes me even more excited to eat outside basically every day and spend as much time as possible outside.
Last year during the throes of Covid, I got into playing with different grilled sandwich recipes and this one turned out to be one of my favorites, and when paired with the super easy Mediterranean-type salad it makes it complete. Cook together or make separately for a crowd!
So, pour yourself a drink, open the windows and let the summer roll around you as you make this delicious meal!
Pro tip: wait to add the fresh herbs if you are transporting to a friend’s house, adding them when you get there will look total baller and it will save the herbs from wilting too much in the salad!
The sun is back, summer is coming, Kat is happy again.
Woof, I don’t know about y’all but winter hits me harder e v e r y year and I am sick of it. But the last two weeks have played games with our hearts here in Nashville and inspiration and creativity is returning, along with a full heart.
Easy summer appetizer? Beautiful handiwork that takes 10 minutes? Go play. Here ya go.
The time has come.
Bathtub Bon Appetit. What is one of my favorite and ultimate ways to relax and what appears to be everyone’s less than secret obsession, is here. It’s kind of extra, self-indulgent, and pretty incredible. I feel like I should have my friends who have no gone on to try it for themselves to write reviews to show that it lives up to its hype. I’ve been doing it so long I don’t really remember when it started, only that at the first time I did it was because there was no other thing I needed most than to eat a McDonald’s burger in the bath. Fairytale beginning, amiright.
Now it’s moved onto cooking complicated dishes (or doing a fun game of what can I make from the pantry), sipping on a cocktail that fits the food and r-e-l-a-x-i-n-g.
It’s a combination of all the self care. Amazing food, tasty cocktail, bath, oils, crystals, reading or watching. Music and cooking. A time to decompress and stop time. The cooking begins the art of the slow down, the bath running, music playing, beginning to let the day go.
Soak a minimum of 20-30 minutes. You’re welcome.
I really dislike reading long, over explanatory paragraphs when the recipe I want and desire is hidden in-between or at the bottom. So, you won’t find that here.
But it’s the end of summer and tomato season so we’re gonna say a goodbye to our summer love with this simple dinner.
A take on Bruschetta, with a twist of course. I’m a sucker for veggies roasted and slightly charred and the mix of asparagus with the freshly picked tomatoes is swoon-worthy, also be prepared with a drop cloth because the delicious butter and savory oil will be dripping down your hands and face in a split second. Worth it though.
Live well. Love wild.
The hush of dusk falling is interrupted with bouts of laughter and voices, the popping of firewood and whoosh of embers as more fuel is added to a growing fire. Faces flush as the heat reaches skin and bourbon warms the belly. The colors changing in the leaves signifying an end to another season and the hint of anticipation of a new one.
An event inspired by the life and cooking style of Francis Mallmann, king of open fire cooking in his native land of Argentina. Bloomsbury Farm, 425 acres nestled in the rolling hills of Tennessee. A stunning vintage Lord & Burnham Greenhouse, complete with stone base, moved and rebuilt by hand by the owner’s father, to grow his prized orchids in. For the day, though, we are using it to gather and commune. When I design an event for Bloomsbury Farm or my own company, Wild Artifact, I go deep and look for meaning in everything, deep cuts for references and those small details you may never notice but mean everything. Taylor McFerran of The Hallway is the hype man every event, party and friend needs. He’s there to tell you that there’s enough time, split wood, run itinerary and do some impeccable marketing and will throw in enough “beautifuls” with a slight British lilt (he’s from Tennessee) to make you smile and breathe even though no, there is not enough time but it will all be perfect.
The styling slightly Nordic, slightly barbaric enough to think that hunters had just trekked in a mere few hours ago with the meat procured and ready to be cooked. Woodpiles stacked for both function and fashion, sheepskins dotted the landscape and leather hides layered against weathered wood grain.
This table holds stories, you can just make out the whispers of previous occupants, both sitting at the table and when it was the side of an original log cabin on the property, dating back to the Civil War. Bloomsbury Farm, located just outside of Nashville, is the keeper of such stories. Arrowheads and artifacts are routinely found while digging plots for fields and while walking through the forests and fields you rarely feel completely alone.
There is an energy here, a vibration not felt while walking down Broadway or sitting in one of the many new coffee shops that pop up in Nashville. It’s an old energy. The same one felt with hands that cupped the soil in 1756 and the same energy we feel when I walk across the yard or through the sunflower patch. The kind of energy felt when you are in tune with the earth, the moon, the sun. When your livelihood depends on Mother Nature’s kindness and in return you place the respect she deserves.
Chefs Courtney McKay and Rahaf Amer brought their food artistry to the fold when designing the meal for the event. Featuring locally raised meat, organic vegetables from Bloomsbury and a whole mess of cast iron, they elevated everyone’s taste buds. I never knew I needed an 18” cast iron of Lionsmane and Blue Oyster mushrooms but I know acknowledge the mistake I’ve been making all of these years by not having it. They also made my dream come true of roasting chestnuts over an open fire so, checking that off the bucket list.
Observing whole chickens cooking on the fire brought these primal reverberations coursing throughout the air, the gigantic mushrooms blackening over the open flames giving pause. Guests were mesmerized as they passed by and studied.
While farm-to-table dinners hit a trending rate a few years ago I believe in them so much. They take you outside of what you know, outside of the same concrete, air and people that surround you constantly. Whether it’s held outside in a rolling field, camped out in a barn or greenhouse, or being invited into the farmer’s house, it takes us one intention closer. An intention to sit at a table and wonder about someone new, to be curious about brand new person. One step closer to Earth and being invited to a look inside another’s life. That’s a special gift.
Then head back to Garrett to grab another cocktail, a custom bourbon cocktail featuring a burning palo santo stick placed under the glass long enough to smoke it up and capture the essence of the wood. For dinner, of course, Malbec from Argentina.
So, the next time you are at a dinner being held at a farm, step outside the circle of light for a few minutes. Appreciate how long and slow the meal was, the connections made, the conversation had. Feel your feet on the ground, open your hands, breathe deep. Close your eyes. Feel the magic.
Venue: Bloomsbury Farm - Nashville, TN
Event Design: Kat Wolle - Wild Artifact / Bloomsbury Farm
Chefs: Courtney McKay and Rahaf Amer
Photography: Nicola Harger
Marketing/Production: Taylor McFerran/The Hallway
Cocktails: Garrett Carr
*Scroll through the gallery for more pictures.
Last January, during a bout of sickness where, for a few days, I did believe that I was not going to survive the winter, I made up this recipe. I was housesitting and didn’t have access to my arsenal of voodoo stuff at home so I was making do with what they had in their pantry for whatever I could think of that could help me. So, this was born.
As always, you can adjust this for your own taste. I prefer bold flavors with a good deal of heat and spice but I also know if I gave that to my roommate she might throw up. So feel free to make this a version of your own! If you are feeling a cold coming on I would add two cloves of garlic and healthy amounts of freshly grated ginger (or dry spices if you have to) to really nip things in the bud.
Enjoy.
1 cup (8 oz) of broth (vegetable, bone or chicken, preferable low sodium)
½ tsp Himalayan rock salt
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 clove fresh garlic
Pinch of green onion tops
1 tsp of freshly grated ginger
*Pour broth into small saucepan and turn heat to medium/low. You just want to heat the broth, it doesn’t need to boil.
When broth is beginning to simmer, add the rest of ingredients.
Enjoy.
