Ok, let’s explain myself and show you where I was and what I was doing during this blog silence.
First stop: Slovakia, Permaculture Design Course in Sekier, August/September
I knew from February last year that I am going to take a part in that event. Course was dedicated to people who are interested in natural ways of using environment and like to live in natural way. Participants got a knowledge how make environmental conscious projects, how to use nature and its natural sources but also how to support and protect Mother Nature. Course duration: two weeks. First week was theoretical – many hours of lectures, from the early morning till late night. Second week was more practical- participants had a task to design surroundings in Sekier using knowledge they got at the first week.
How to get to Sekier- sign
I wasn’t a participant, but volunteer and I was cooking for the course group. Why was it so special? At first permaculture ideology is very significant itself. At the second I had an opportunity to go back in time – tools, techniques and kitchen equipment was pretty traditional for this part of Europe, very popular in XIX/XX century, even till 50s, 60s of XX c. in some regions of Central and East Europe. So there was a lot of fermentation work (e.g. Dough – a teacher, presented how to prepare a kimchi using huge clay pot), drying herbs, making a fire every single day in wooden stove and oven. At third I’ve meet wonderful people who can listen nature and others very carefully.
Wicker lamp. Photo taken by Stefa.
I had also wonderful team of helpers. Without them I couldn’t do anything. Everyday we were doing breakfast, lunch and dinner and also we were preparing some snack for water and coffee/tea breaks. For breakfast there was usually porridge or granola with fresh goat’s milk or yoghurt. In Sekier live few goats 🙂 I milked them few times – it’s not so easy, if you are asking ;). Sometimes somebody from our kitchen team was doing cheese from that milk. Few times per week I was baking sourdough bread or if bread starter wasn’t ready I’ve been preparing wholemeal flat bread – in Poland it’s called podpłomyk – baked on stove’s surface. For lunch there were some grains and stew with selection of salads. Dinner: mainly soup with bread, home made cheese and other goodies from the barn.
Milking the goat. Not so easy job at all 🙂
Cheese from neighbour’s farm. Made from cows milk. Big almost as my head.
There was a lot of challenges to me. I’ve been baking in that kind of oven before, so bread baking wasn’t so difficult. But my brownie attempt has finished with fail. Although participants agreed that they want more failures like that – we used screwed brownie as a chocolate mousse with crunchy nut for granola the next morning. However the biggest challenge was making a peanutbutter. We had unpeeled peanuts and small coffee grinder to do that. Just imagine how many work it was 😉
Frementation workshops. From left: kimchi preparation, sourdough bread starter, ingredients for starter
Bread baked in wooden oven
Wooden stove and oven
Drying: apples and herbs
I’m really grateful that I could take a part in that project and also I could share with food that I love to cook. I’m grateful that I ‘ve met wonderful people over there, who have changed my point of view for my life. Their positive energy was like a virus. Moreover Sekier was a place where I picked up a decision that I’m leaving my job in London and going spontaneously to Greece and then for a while to Poland. Yeah, being in Slovakia was a trigger to do that.
Thank you! Lovely Sekier’s group and people!
❤
P.S. More pictures below 🙂
From left: kind of vegs pantry, part of the kitchen, greenhouse
Shots of food we were making: above from left- 1)watermelon water with mint, 2) potatoe mincing, 3) home made granola, 4) corn polenta with fresh fruits, mint and honey, 5) somebody is cuting parsley, 6)salad (pic No 2,3,6 were taken by lovely Stefa)
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