Garden Tour Series: Cooking Up Some Gratitude

When it came time to decide the duration and location of our stay in the Katonah area, many of us decided to pool resources and share an Airbnb. We knew we wanted a kitchen to make dinners and breakfasts, and we thought it would be so much fun to get to know one another a little bit better by sharing a space where we could share memories about our experiences on the tour.

Many of us stayed a full four nights, arriving on Tuesday, June 3^rd, and departing on Saturday, June 7^th. Others had a shorter stay.

I arrived on the Tuesday and was picked up at Newark airport by Nathan Schmidt and Justin Guzianno who had been on the road from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our Airbnb was located about an hour and half away from the airport in New Fairfield, Connecticut, but only 40 minutes from Martha’s farm. The house where we stayed was in a very beautiful, mountainous and heavily forested region of the state.

The house was a three-story modern abode set on several acres of wooded land. It was nearly 5000 square feet with five bedrooms and multiple beds that could accommodate up to 11 people. It had large windows, skylights and plenty of space to spread out. Best of all, it had a very large kitchen and dining area, which is where we spent most of our time. People came and went as their travel plans allowed, but at the peak, we were ten people sleeping under one roof (Thursday night), which was so much fun.

A special welcome gift for each of the residents of Chez Martha Moments. Bernie had collected old issues of Martha Stewart Living on his drive to Connecticut - one for each of the guests staying with us.

One of our projects the first night was preparing welcome care packages for each of the attendees. Bernie and Dennis worked tirelessly before departing from Wisconsin making jams, mustards, scones, peanut butters and many other treats to use in these care packages. Their truck was filled to the brim with baking supplies, mixers, food processors, tissue papers, gift boxes, gift bags, cheeses, foods and luggage. 

Each attendee received a goodie box containing homemade scones, homemade jam, homemade peanut butter and homemade sweet-spicy mustard with breadsticks.

Five of us stayed up until nearly 4 a.m. to complete these packages, continuing to bake supplemental scones for yet another batch of thank-you gifts that we had planned to give to each member of Martha’s staff at her home for working so hard to make the grounds and experience there so beautiful. Dennis was the baker and made ten new batches of scones (three different flavours) for the care packages. These were put into gift boxes and then into gift bags and transported the following day to Martha’s farm.

We also wanted to embellish our beautiful straw hats, which Bernie and Dennis got from an Amish store in Pennsylvania. We had planned to wear them on the tour, but they needed some attractive ribbon to set them off, so we sewed them on by hand! (We’re a crafty lot!) They turned out beautifully!

Prior to departing for the trip, Bernie and Dennis had organized a gift basket for Martha: a large galvanized tub that we would fill with the gifts from the attendees of the tour. One of the attendees, Jennifer Butler-Zimmerman, organized the collection of these gifts and the arranging of them in the tub. She was staying at the Hotel Mount Kisco in Katonah where many of the other attendees were staying. This large container of gifts was later presented to Martha at her farm. People contributed books, baked goods, preserves, syrups, spirits and handmade crafts:

On Wednesday morning, many attendees who were not staying at the Airbnb ventured out to the house we had rented for a casual breakfast cooked by Bernie and Dennis. We so enjoyed everyone’s company! After breakfast, we all set to work filling the gift boxes and gift bags for the staff, like an assembly line of gratitude! It was so much fun to see all the hustle and bustle getting ready for the big day!

Eggs Benedict with homemade hollandaise sauce. Bernie recording it all for posterity.

Bernie and myself mixing up some Mimosas

Dennis getting our attention: "Breakfast is served!"

Ari and Robert 

Rachel and Justin

William, Robert, Bernie, Matt, Nathan and Justin

Time to start the assembly line! Michelle, Robert and William get started.

Making progress!

A delicious assortment of cheeses, jams, mustards, scones, breadsticks, and craft beer filled each bag, which were later given to Martha's staff at the farm.

A very, very special thank you to Bernie and Dennis for organizing and distributing all of these gift bags, and for contributing so much to this amazing day. Everyone was so pleased by the thoughtfulness and care that went into these. A big thank you to Jennifer Butler-Zimmerman, as well, who corralled all of these gifts and helped to transport them. She also took many of the photographs here in this blog.