The luthier community Gathering

This is Our Tribe

It’s Gathering time. Every year at this time, we head sixteen hundred miles due east, to the shores of Squeedunk lake, in north central Minnesota. There, at the home of Grant and Christy, we meet with friends old and new to celebrate stringed instruments, and much more – This is our Tribe.

We own www.luthiercom.org, a site dedicated to the building of stringed instruments, and the sharing of that arcane knowledge with anyone and everyone who wants to take part. The Gathering is an unusual thing for a modern day social networking site – A dedicated time for friends from the ether to actually meet in the real world, at a truly magical place. There is much talk, much sharing of special skills, much music played and sang, and very, very much food and drink. Monica and I are Co-Hosts and designated event Chefs, and it couldn’t be more fun to do – The Gathering is a magical place to cook.

Grant and Christy grow much of what they eat, so virtually all the produce we use in 5 days of cooking comes from their gardens. So do the hops with which Grant brews gallons and gallons of beer for the event. Everything else we cook with is local – This year, Ron brought a gift from Winona LaDuke – some fresh buffalo meat for us to work with, as well as his family’s Georgia sourwood Honey, (He’s also brought some amazing moonshine back from there over the years, I can tell you!) We had 14 dozen of the most amazingly fresh, local eggs as well, with deep yellow-orange yolks and true substance to them. Grant’s son Jim and his partner Shel made incredible cheddar bratwurst from venison they’d harvested last year, right on the property.

A neighbor contributed a whole bunch of fresh walleye fillets – It being Friday night, they got fried two ways – in cornmeal and tempura. Donna did panfish ceviche that was to die for. Mitch brought his rightfully famous slow cooked, pulled pork with Carolina mustard sauce, and Lis brought amazing puerco pibil, cooked in banana leaves from the tree in Grandt and Christy’s living room. This is pretty typically how it goes.

In the last couple of years, we enjoyed a ridiculous excess of shiitake mushrooms, but the weather didn’t cooperate this year, (fear not – We had all the dried and roasted/frozen we needed, as well as some fresh chicken of the woods Bonnie foraged and brought along, which is good, ’cause we feed a healthy crop of vegetarians too!.

We did, however, have a bumper crop of beautiful poblano chiles, and lots of traditionally harvested wild rice, so we paired those with Winona’s buffalo – They were, of course, a big hit.

We cook three meals a day, but they’re timed and spaced specifically to accommodate the laid-back atmosphere of the gathering. Brunch gets eaten right around noon, the midday meal slides to somewhere around 4 PM, and dinner to between 8 and 9 PM.

The Round Heeled Woman Speakeasy - Its underground, folks! — The Round Heeled Woman Speakeasy – Its underground, folks!

The back door to the Speakeasy - Leads to our room, no less! — The back door to the Speakeasy – Leads to our room, no less!

After that, it’s music on the main stage, and maybe a trip down to the Round Heeled Woman, the underground speakeasy – Yes, there’s and underground speakeasy, and in fact, the back door that establishment is a ladder down from the room we stay in – I told you, this is truly magical – It’s not uncommon for music and even lutherie activities to go in well into the wee hours, (and that’s why brunch is at noon).

Friday Dinner - Fish, of course! — Friday Dinner – Fish, of course!

It's time for grub! — It’s time for grub!

Our work ranges from brunch for a dozen, to lunches and dinners for 50 or more. Folks volunteer to pitch in, and we cheerfully put them to work on prep and cooking as needed. Chris and M and I do some planning, and most years, we more or less follow the gist of that, but as the saying goes, no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy – We’ve planned to do a coffee roasting demo for 2 years now and have yet to get around to it, and we never did salt cure egg yolks, but hey, just wait until next year.

We did two batches of salt potatoes that the crowd went nuts over, paired with fresh chimichurri. And our Yakitori Sauce marinated a couple of wonderful pork tender loins – Hmmm, this was a very pork-centric year, huh? There was amazing fruit, so blueberry, raspberry, kiwi, and mango Pico de Gallo all made a showing, along with mango butter and granita. Biscuits and pie dough were about as deep as the baking got, ’cause it was kinda warm this year.

Blueberry, raspberry, kiwi, and mango Pico de Gallo

We didn’t take enough pictures, but, hey you get the idea, right? It was another fabulous time with friends old and new – The new ones are a gas to watch – John Joyce came up from the twin cities for the first time, arriving on Thursday evening into the middle of our chaos. At first, folks can be a bit intimidated with the craziness, intimate relations, and long running jokes and shtick, but those who get it are quickly drawn in. John brought some beautifully made instruments, number 13 being his newest – She’d only been strung up for 4 days before he arrived, but she sang like an angel. I’m glad to report that JJ is now hooked and is expected back next year.

And that’s how it goes. Interested? Wherever you are, you’re welcome to join us. I guarantee you’ll be blown away in the best sense of the words. Stay tuned for next year’s dates.

Crisp and tart pears at perfect ripeness

Gathering Swing

Gathering Swing – It’s what happens once you get here and get into the rhythm of the place.

Swing on through. What you’ve come for will be here in spades, be it playing a bunch of hand made instruments, or working on or talking the technical and artistic aspects of building them.

If none of that is for you, there will be plenty of non-builders here to discuss art, history, philosophy, archeology, geology, and a dozen other things. And if that don’t float your boat, there’s more great food and beer and music than you can shake a stick at.

Whatever your bailiwick, you can immerse yourself in it, or do as I do, and drift in and out of things as you see fit. Of course, since I’m the Chef, I spend more time on food than anyone else, and that’s exactly how I like things.

Chef swing – A Chef working a thing like this has to do a lot of planning, but probably not as you might think it’ll go – we plan main courses, sides, and deserts, to some degree – But any given meal may need to feed 12 or 60, and everything in between.

On top of that, folks will bring stuff – some will tell you they’re bringing it, and some won’t, and their level of concern over how and when the dish gets used will vary as well. Blending all that, making enough food, and having ample contingency plans for leftovers is par for the course, and requires diplomacy, humor, and quick thinking.

Never leave home without 'em. — Never leave home without ’em.

Take the chickens that became the main dish for Saturday night. Somewhere around 20 folks who’d said they were coming didn’t, and all of a sudden, we’ve got a bunch of left overs – No problem… They found their way into frittatas the next morning, or tarts for brunch after that, and finally into incredible chicken pot pies Sunday night, (if I do say so myself – and I do…)

Chimayo, Turkish, Garlic-Lime-Dill, Lemon & Sage

Here’s some eye candy from the weekend – If anything floats your boat, drop me a line and I’ll give up the recipe for ya.

And we can’t forget the vegetarian crowd, either…

Brunch Tarts - Fruit, Mushroom, Bacon & Eggs — Brunch Tarts – Fruit, Mushroom, Bacon & Eggs

Cooking at the Gathering

So, a couple weeks ago, I didn’t post, because, as luck and joy would have it, I was 1600 miles from home, at my other home for a few precious days. Formally known as The Luthier Community Gathering, this is an annual event held in the north woods of Minnesota. Hosted by Grant Goltz and Christy Hohman at their incredibly eclectic and homey spread, this is several days of companionship, renewed and new friendships, music, incredible house made beer and ale, and of course, food.

Over the years, I’ve become the official Chef de Gathering, and it is a joy of joys to do. Over the three days of the main event, we feed somewhere around 30 to 40 folks for dinner, and maybe 12 to 20 for breakfasts and lunches. While some folks bring a little of this and a little of that, Chris and I provide the mainstays, (and usually Monica, who couldn’t make the trip this year due to a new job). And rank has its privilege – I get my own incredibly cozy Chef apartment, and an incredible kitchen to work from.

For such a big crowd, the process is incredibly easy. At some point, we’ll touch base and decide on theme, main ingredients, etc – it rarely takes more than a couple minutes. I say, “Hey Chris, what are we gonna build?” She fires off some options, inspiration takes hold, and off we go.

The real joy comes not only from feeding good friends in a great kitchen, but in the gathering of ingredients. Grant and Christy run a Community Supported Agriculture, (CSA), operation on their spread, so the variety and scope of produce is truly stunning, as you can see. So, picking ingredients means just that; heading out on the trail with basket in hand, and coming back with the bounty.

This year marked the first truly amazing mushroom harvest, from logs inoculated and set up last season – Shiitakes, an almost embarrassing wealth of gorgeous, just picked beauties – I put them in everything I could think of, (and I did say ‘almost’).

Our mutual friends, John and Lissa Sumption, have a working CSA close by, (King’s Gardens), so literally anything we don’t have right on hand can be had with a phone call. During my visit, Mark, the very talented local butcher, stopped by and dropped off some goodies, for which he took produce in barter. The results speak for themselves.

Our recent piece on apples contains several of the recipes we did this year. Here’s the recipe for smoked Guacamole – It’s become a must-do for the event ever since we debuted it seven or eight years ago.

The Annual Gathering is open to any and all who love music, good friends, and good food. Here’s a video and a song that pretty well sums up the vibe. It’s held in August every year. This year, a dear friend from my wildfire fighting days, Nancy Swenson, made the trip out – First time we’d seen each other in thirty four years!