Unstoppable Foodie Cookbook Club – January 2021
Full Moon Suppers at Salt Water Farm, Recipes from Land and Sea – Annemarie Ahearn
Full Moon Suppers at Salt Water Farm
Our featured cookbook for January 2021 is Full Moon Suppers at Salt Water Farm, Recipes from Land and Sea by Annemarie Ahearn. We have been following Annemarie Ahearn and her Salt Water Farm (SWF) for years during our travels to Maine. We have not had the opportunity to attend one of her cooking classes in person, but we are part of her SWF Monthly membership club and love her cookbooks. Her Modern Proper Cooking cookbook released in 2020 is also another beautiful book, surely to be featured during a later month.
Valarie is currently taking part in the SWF Spring 2021 World Cuisine Series offered online. This past week was Catalan Cooking and next week is Chinese Cuisine. If for some reason you are not interested in a cooking class, you can still stop by Salt Water Farm and stay in one of their lodging offerings on Airbnb – barn apartment above garage or oceanfront cottage.
We picked Full Moon Suppers this month for several reasons….
- It features recipes are inspired by coastal Maine, specifically the Salt Water Farm on the shores of Lincolnville, Maine.
- Annmarie is so thoughtful and creative with the use of her ingredients.
- Her mission at SWF is to inspire home cooks to increase their culinary skills while enjoying the art of gathering around great food.
She uses her diverse culinary background to take her communities on culinary adventures in the kitchen.
Back cover of Full Moon Suppers at Salt Water Farm
Book Summary
The book features a succinct four-page introduction where she discusses her five-generation ties to Maine and how her Dad purchased the Salt Water Farm. She talks about her lack of excitement and how she eventually came to cherish this beautiful piece of land and the opportunities it has afforded her. She talks about how her goal for SWF was to establish a cooking school for home cooks and teach people how to grow a kitchen garden.
In the book, Annemarie mentions how she came across the name, Salt Water Farm, from the book “One Man’s Meat by E. B. White. The book was a collection of essays he made by living on a farm in on the coast of Maine. One of those essays was tilted, Salt Water Farm.
She discusses how she started the cooking school in 2009 to run from June through October. One September evening Annemarie and a friend were admiring a full harvest moon when they came up with the idea to host a monthly supper club at Salt Water Farm under the full moon each month.
“Little did I know that this piece of land in Lincolnville, Maine, would change my life forever, that my greatest love affair was yet to come, and that every thought and every feeling I had from that point on would be fundamentally altered by my new place in the world.”
Annemarie Ahearn – Full Moon Suppers
The next section is titled, “How to be a Graceful Host.” It is filled with practical tips from cooking for the weather, portion control, setting the table, timing & organization, and finally a note on drinking. She states, “every meal should begin with a well-made drink, or sun-downer, as the British call it.
Each chapter shares kitchen notes, seasonal inspirations and tips on how to gracefully feed large groups. Although many of her classes were for twenty people, she paired down the menus in the book for a group of eight.
Menus / Recipes
September Menu
The cookbook features twelve menus for each full moon – Wolf, Hunger, Crow, Egg, Flower, Strawberry, Hay, Corn, Hunter’s, Beaver, and Cold. Each menu features a cocktail, a starter (a taste), 1st course, 2nd course, 3rd course and dessert (to finish). They are spread across two hundred and thirty-nine well designed pages.
The twelve menus featured in this book were curated from over one hundred full moon suppers. They feature seasonal ingredients from both the land and the sea.
From the sea…
sea urchin, cod, lobster, periwinkles, halibut, haddock, mackerel, and sea spinach.
From the land…
lamb, beef, rabbit, chickens, beets, spinach, arugula, rhubarb, new potatoes, mushrooms and greens.
Potato Gnocchi with lobster, cream and tarragon
Below are a few amazing recipes from, Full Moon Suppers, that we want to highlight and recommend.
- Potato Gnocchi. (Page 33 – January – Full Wolf Moon)
- Fresh and Smoked Haddock Chowder. (Page 70 – March – Full Crow Moon)
- Braised Beef and Stilton Pie. (Page 73 – March – Full Crow Moon)
- Grilled Asparagus with Farm Eggs and Grated Hard, Salty Cheese. (Page 103, May Full Flower Moon)
Photography / Styling / Publisher
The photography and dinner menus in this book are wonderful. The photographer, Kristin Teig, did a beautiful job capturing the images at SWF. Annmarie has collaborated with Kirstin before on past projects. This past experience together really produced beautiful photos that make you want to just step into the photo and sit down and start eating.
Graphically, this cookbook is clean and bright. The dishes really stand out against the simple food styling.
The book was published in 2017 by Roost Books of Boulder, Colorado.
Recommendation
If you love to cook, gather or give great gifts, we recommend adding this lovely cookbook to your collection or a loved ones’ collection. This cookbook is meant to be pulled out monthly using great seasonal ingredients! Also, if you love Maine like we do, a copy of this book on your shelf is a must and an in-person or virtual trip to a SWF cooking class is a must. If you sign up, tell Annemarie we sent you her way!!
Full Moon Suppers at Salt Water Farm
Unstoppable Foodie Cookbook Club
Valarie and I love cookbooks. No matter where you sit in our house, a book is no more than an arm’s length away. We have multiple copies of digital cookbooks on our devices, but there is nothing like holding a bound cookbook in your hands, especially one filled with amazing stories and recipes. It is no surprise, whenever you open a cookbook of ours, you may see notes in the columns, tabbed pages, and printed out recipes or ingredient lists stuffed between the covers. Cookbooks are meant to be used just like any other tool in the kitchen.
We love the practicality and usefulness of cookbooks, but we are always hooked by the stories behind the recipes in a cookbook. In that spirit, we combined our intellectual curiosity with our passion for great food. “Exploring the World, One Dish at a Time” will always be our passion and the mission behind Unstoppable Foodie and Unstoppable Foodie Cookbook Club!
We would love to eventually roll the book club into an in-person cooking event, but for now we will keep it a virtual activity of sharing recipes from our favorite cookbooks on social media. We are looking to eventually offer an online class where we can cook together real time through a live stream platform.
The goal of the book club is simply to inspire you to cook more by elevating your home cooking skills. It is meant to be fun. Regardless of your current skill level, we look forward to you joining us. We are sure through this experience you will undoubtably increase your skills in the kitchen.
Please share your photos or your dishes with us so we can feature them on our socials and on our blog. The Unstoppable Foodie Cookbook Club is meant to be a social activity and a two-way street for all of us to get better at cooking and spending more time in the kitchen. We hope you join us on this culinary adventure!
In addition to our monthly blog post, we will give away a copy of our favorite cookbooks on Instagram.
Instagram Cookbook Giveaway
The rules are simple; like our page, tag two friends and comment on why you would like this cookbook. One qualified winner will be selected randomly by one of our kids.
- We will give away one copy of the featured “cookbook of the month” through an Instagram Giveaway.
- We will cook 3-4 recipes from the book and invite you to cook it as well and share photos with the #unstoppablefoodie (or #unstoppablefoodiecookbookclub).
- We will share the featured recipes we cook.
- We will share your photos of your cooked dishes on our social media accounts and the Unstoppable Foodie Blog.
Disclaimer: There is an affiliate link in this post that is connected to Amazon Associates. We may make a small commission if you clink the link and make a purchase. Any commission we received would help us offset the endless hours we pour into our foodie blog, Unstoppable Foodie. There are multiple places to purchase this cookbook besides Amazon. We only recommend products we absolutely love, use and giveaway as gifts. We purchased the copy of the book we are giving away in our Instagram Giveaway.