Celebrating (August 1st) Lammas
August First is also know as Lammas or Lughnasadh, which is the first harvest festival of the season. The festival celebrates the abundance of summer and the start of the harvest and the reaping of the grain and baking of the bread. To celebrate this year, a few of my co-workers at the farm and I held a mini (social-distance) harvest festival on Saturday. We all brought a dish and celebrated the summer season on a beautiful evening in Vermont.
For the food, we had...
Iced mango-mint black tea with a beautiful salad with grilled eggplant, spiced chickpeas, olives, tomatoes, and a pesto vinaigrette.
Appetizers with local whole-wheat sourdough bread, corn chips, black bean mango salsa, roasted potato salad, and homemade sauerkraut.
Gluten free buckwheat bread with seeds and a garlic dill aioli. (Featuring a cutting board in the shape of Missouri).
The full plate with a beet-fennel salad (above), roasted corn, and a pesto sauce to top everything off. Yum! We all talked about fond summer memories and things we're grateful for. While August First celebrates the bounty of the fields, you can also use this holiday to reflect on the bounty of things bringing you joy and gratitude in your life. This can be simple things like phone calls with friends, sitting outside and watching all of the beautiful sunsets we've had this year, good food from the garden, sunshine and birds and butterflies in fields of flowers...the Earth gives us much if we take a moment to listen, receive, be grateful for, and give back. Even when things seem to be spiraling out of control, when your luck only seems to be on the negative end of things, when it seems impossible to look on the bright side of things, just try to find one thing you're grateful for and it may just lift your spirits.
For example, today I sprained my ankle, have been having some issues at work, am dealing with some not-great mental health things, and am very paranoid about the fruit fly/pantry moth infestation we've been battling in the house...I took a breath when I got off of work and tried to think of the things I am grateful for.
This mini harvest festival last Saturday with new friends, good food, and a beautiful night came to mind. So did all of the people I am so fortunate to have in my life. The fact that I have a job, a roof over my head, and food on my plate. The sunshine through the trees after an entire day of rain (which the plants really did need). Music, the sound of laughter, the bantering of the chickadees and the squirrels in the backyard. And of course, reflecting on the final piece of the harvest festival: the amazing GF/Vegan blueberry pie with a buckwheat crust we had to celebrate at the end of the night.
It was topped with coconut whipped cream for us lactose-intolerant folks, and those that could have dairy enjoyed homemade raw-milk ice cream seasoned with vanilla, cardamom, and cinnamon. Credits to Bailey for the wonderful photos and most of the delicious food, including the pie featured above. If you want recipes for some of the food from this meal check out her blog Green and Gluten Free for other fun food-related posts as well. It was a sweet way to end a lovely night, and I hope you've been able to find some sweetness in your life as well.