The Summer Kitchen
At the end of Leighton Neck in Pembroke, Smithereen Farm’s gorgeous acreage sits atop a clutch of rolling hills that yawn their way down to the ocean. Smithereen has so much going on at once—agrotourism, foraging wild foods, drying herbs for teas, aquaculture, mushroom cultivation, grazing animals—it’s kind of hard to pin down what they do. But if you ask the owners, Terran and Severine, they think it’s pretty simple: Smithereen is about land management and community development that leverages underutilized and wild-growing species in sustainable and innovative ways. While shooting an editorial assignment during Maine Open Farm Day, their Summer Kitchen left an outsized impact on me. Completely open on two sides, the outdoor kitchen takes a week or more to set up every year in the late spring as pots, pans, ranges, and mason jars of preserved foods are moved back outside after a winter of hibernation in the attic that’s otherwise used for hanging garlic. A pungent stock pot of lobster and crab broth was bubbling away—leftovers from a communal dinner the night before—and the farm’s three dogs were lounging in the shade trading back and forth a well-chewed length of bone. Dried flowers and half-used notebooks fluttered in the salty air tossed off of Cobscook Bay, keeping the flies away until sundown.
