A few months back I was lucky enough to take a couple day seminars over on Whidbey Island with the great guys of “Farmstead Meatsmith” www.farmsteadmeatsmith.com , Brandon & Andrew. We learned and participated, from snout to tail, in the honorable harvesting of beautiful apple and grain fed free-living pigs. It was truly a spiritual process, and the setting was divine (no pun intended).

The classes took place at Glendale Farms, where some of the best cheese in America is made by Stan, Lynn & Erik Swanson, from the sheep’s milk of their sheep grazing on the farm. www.glendaleshepard.com

Lunch each day in Stan & Lynn’s kitchen was the best part, though, as they graciously pulled out some of their awesome cheese and hand pickled condiments & veggies! (And thank you for sharing your specialty, Stan, parting with some of your home-made elixir of god’s greatest apples…)

You can pick up their cheese at The Calf & Kid cheese shop inside the Melrose Market up on Capitol Hill, or try it at Sitka & Spruce restaurant, also in Melrose Market. (I’ll be topping some salads at Lowell’s with it in the near future, probably in spring when the best local produce starts coming back around. Maybe before, greenhouses work too!) Savor the flavor of real, honest to goodness artisanal cheese made from the purest of ingredients in the purest of places, Stan & Lynn’s farm, on Whidbey Island, in our Pacific Northwest.

I took a bunch of pictures while visiting, but I like the “root cellar greenhouse shack whatever you call it” best, since it seems to sum up what growing your own is all about. Form follows function, and it’s just a beautiful little reminder of how simple the real things in life make you happy.

(Unfortunately, I just realized the pictures size is too large to upload to my blog, so you should probably just go to the farm tour web site and see it, while eating their cheese!)

~Mark @ Lowell’s