J Ashley Photography

Fresh off the plane from my NYC trip with Connie, I literally hit the ground running. Instead of heading home, I drove straight to Cherry Hollow Farm to have dinner with the AIR Serenbe National Advisory Council.

From the outside, it might’ve looked like a bunch of people enjoying each other and butternut squash pizza with honey truffle oil from a Charleston, South Carolina food truck. But this was a landmark event: It was the first time advisors from all over the country got together in one place. For some, it was their first visit to Serenbe.

J Ashley Photography

Former AIR Serenbe artist-in-residence Anis Mojgani happened to be on the East Coast and flew in to perform fireside. As soon as I saw Anis, I wrapped my arms around him and said, “Any chance you’re doing my favorite?”

After AIR Serenbe director Brandon Hinman made the introductions and we listened to some live music, Anis did his thing. And what did he start with? My favorite: Come Closer. And there it was. So beautiful.

I slipped out around 9:30 p.m. because I’d invited all 27 people back to my house for brunch the next morning and hadn’t been home in days.

Now you know how I am: I’m so deeply, truly grateful to have this caliber of folks on our AIR advisory board. A non-fiction writer and poet. The senior vice president of brand development and creative services at Garden & Gun. A graduate dean emeritus and founding director of the Center for Race and Culture. A gallery owner. And so much more. They give their time to us so freely. And so I show my appreciation through food. In the South, we open our homes and feed people. That’s just what we do.

It was a team effort. Brenda, my housekeeper and assistant, arrived at 8 a.m. I’d been caramelizing onions for the frittata since 7:30. I also did biscuits and a salad with Serenbe Farms braising greens and a mango vinaigrette. The Blue Eyed Daisy did the sausages, bacon and grits. And The Farmhouse did the breakfast breads, including mother’s cinnamon rolls.

When mother ran Mary Mac’s, they did thousands of cinnamon rolls every day. Shirley, one of the bakers, probably made more than a million of them over the course of her career. The bread basket at lunch had one corn muffin, one yeast roll and one bran muffin. But at dinner, they served all three plus the sweet roll, which was the yeast roll plus lots of butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. I still have dreams about them. You only got one. And if you wanted more than one — and believe me, everyone wanted more than one — you had to pay for it.

Gratitude comes in many forms. Sometimes a thank you will do. When that doesn’t do the trick, lots of bread, butter, brown sugar and cinnamon gets the message across just fine.

Cinnamon Rolls

Preheat oven to 400°

Place in ½ cup warm (not hot) water:

• 1 package active dry yeast
• ½ teaspoon sugar

Let yeast stand 5 minutes, until it bubbles.

Mix in separate bowl:

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 table spoons melted lard
• 1 egg, beaten
• ½ cup evaporated milk, undiluted and warm
• 3 tablespoons mashed potatoes (leftovers or made from dried flakes)

Add activated yeast to flour mixture and beat well with bread hook for at least 5 minutes. If you are not using a mixer, turn this mixture onto a marble slab or floured board and knead it for about 5 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic. Allow dough to rise in warm place, covered with cloth and out of drafts, until double in bulk.

Punch down, cover, and let rise until again double in size, about 1 to 2 hours.

After dough has risen twice, divide it into four portions for easy handling. Roll each portion onto lightly floured board or marble slab. Roll each portion of dough very thin into a long strip about 8 inches wide.

Have prepared:

• ½ cup melted butter
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Brush the rolled-out dough portions with the melted butter, using a pastry brush. Sprinkle heavily with sugar and cinnamon.

Carefully roll dough like jelly roll, beginning with long side, and slice in circles ¼ to ½ inch thick.

Place the cinnamon rolls on buttered baking sheet barely touching each other. Sprinkle with additional cinnamon and sugar and let rise in warm place for 15 to 20 minutes. Bake until they smell too good to wait another minute, about 30 minutes. They store well in the refrigerator for a day or two, a month in the freezer.

Connie is one of my oldest, dearest friends. We’ve been together since we were 12, which makes it a 44-year friendship for those of you keeping track at home.

[Well, except for that one year she didn’t talk to me after I invited a guy to a swim party in eighth grade because she had a crush on him, then proceeded to date him for the next four years.]

Before Steve, before the girls, it was Connie and I. When we were 21, we drove from Atlanta to California and back over the course of five weeks in my1976 maroon BMW 2002. We took Road Food by Jane and Michael Stern — I have the first edition; Mary Mac’s was in it — our paper map and plotted our journey with our minds and mouths.

We discovered blue corn on a Hopi indian reservation in New Mexico. We had a Southern feast at Mrs. Bromley’s in Clarendon, Texas. This is before roadside coffee, so we took a percolator in the car and brewed coffee in our hotel rooms. We made cassette tapes for the road. I still have them somewhere.

We loved California so much that we waited until the very last minute and drove from San Diego, where we were visiting my sister, to Atlanta in 2 days. We only stopped once for an hour in Texas. And why? Because we were determined to get back in time to watch the wedding of Charles and Diana.

Speaking of weddings, Connie got married in my backyard. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding. I’m godmother to her daughter, Charlotte, and she’s godmother to Quinn.

Connie and I have a mutual Belgian friend who told me about the tradition of getting a piece of silver for your godchild every year as a birthday and Christmas gift to build a collection for their wedding. I called Connie 13 years ago and said, Let’s do this for Charlotte and Quinn. 

If you’re going to do silver, you have to go to Tiffany’s. And if you’re going to go to Tiffany’s, why not make a weekend out of it in New York City?

Quinn and I flew up, Connie and Charlotte took the bus up from Bethesda, Maryland, and each girl picked out a silver pattern. Just so happened that there was a Diane Arbusexhibit in town that weekend. Connie and I share a mutual love of her bizarre photographs, so we headed to Washington Square Park after having dim sum in Chinatown.

Connie had worked at a law firm in NYC and knew it well, but we walked all around Washington Square Park and couldn’t find the show. We finally gave up and went on, then later realized we’d missed it by 2 or 3 storefronts.

Two months ago, I read a piece in The New York Times arts section that the Met Breuerwas hosting an exhibit of Diane Arbus’ work. I texted Connie immediately:

Me: Diane’s back. Want to go?

Connie: Oh yes.

Two weeks later, I saw that the Morgan, my favorite museum in the city, had an exhibit up on Charlotte Brontë. I texted Connie again:

Me: Guess what?

Connie: What?

Me: Double whammy. Brontë at the Morgan.

Besides road food and road trips, Connie and I are very much on the same page when it comes to art. In 1981, when we did the cross-country trip, the Phillips Collection was touring America and we saw it at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco. She and I are the same type of museum go-er: We read everything on the wall. I’ll call across the hall to her, she’ll come over and we’ll discuss shading and symbolism. We lose all track of time.

We got to the hotel at the same time on Thursday, threw our bags in the room, bought some Belgian fries from a street vendor and ate them as we walked to the Morgan. Phenomenal exhibit. Charlotte’s original handwriting. The whole story of the sisters and their brother. Afterwards, we recharged with a latte then saw an exhibit of Jean Dubuffet’s drawings. I had no idea the guts of that man’s artistry.

We had an amazing dinner at Estela, one of New York City’s best restaurants. Still thinking about that salad of celery, meyer lemon and mint. The next morning we slept in a bit and lounged around the hotel room, watching Michael Moore talking about the election on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Neither of us ever get to lie around, so we reveled in it a bit.

After grabbing a slice of pizza in Times Square at Patzeria Pizza, one of Connie’s favorite places, we got on a bus — I’d never ridden a bus in NYC before — and headed to the Met Breuer. Thirteen years after just missing a Diane Arbus show, we finally made it to another. We took our time, got lattes, a cookie and sticky bun right out of the oven at a place called Flora. At the counter, I saw a business card for Estela and asked the barista about it. She said they’re Estela’s sister restaurant. Small, delicious world.

Having been re-caffeinated, we went upstairs to the Arbus exhibit. It focused on her earlier works, which weren’t our favorite. As we headed up to the Klee exhibit, we decided to pop our heads into the Kerry James Marshall exhibit. Whoa. I don’t know how I’ve missed any information about his man, but I’m going to get books and drink him in. I was so blown away, I’m headed straight back there when I’m in NYC next month. With a stop at Flora, of course.

We saw the Klee as well, and there were some pieces we loved, but we were cooked. Done. It was like having the best meal of your life and there weren’t enough superlatives to describe it.

So we window shopped down Madison Avenue and caught a bus downtown to Italienne, a new restaurant I’d just read about in Time Out New York. It’s from two alum of Frasca, a Boulder restaurant we visited the week it opened when we dropped Kara off at college.

[Technically we walked into a restaurant, ordered a drink and didn’t realize we were in the wrong place until the bartender handed us an Indian menu.

The next morning, we hit the Union Square Greenmarket, bought apples and cheese, then went downtown and had dim sum in one of those massive halls which seats 1,000 people. It was good, not great.

We walked back up Broadway and over to Washington Square Park, where we’d first tried to see the Arbus exhibit 13 years ago. Full circle.

My return flight touched down at 5:30 p.m. and by 6:15 I was eating wood-fired pizza out of a food truck at the first ever in-person meeting of the AIR Serenbe advisory board.

But that is a story for another day. Circle back next week for it and my mother’s sweet roll recipe.

Four hours before a very important event at Serenbe Stables, I was doing some last-minute décor tweaks with Kristin Genet, Serenbe resident and former set designer. The whole place was beautiful. Breathtaking, really. And then we walked into the bathroom.

We hadn’t even thought about the bathroom. Our minds were filled with flowers and fabric. It was, after all, a bathroom in the stables and didn’t match the ambience we’d created for the guests. I immediately started a plan to beautify on the fly.

I walked over to the Blue Eyed Daisy and there was Grace, the operator of the stables, and said, “Do you mind if I bring a few things to the bathroom at the stables to make it pretty?” And she said, “I would love it.”

I reported the go-ahead to Kristin, who met me at the garage where I keep the good stuff: bolts of fabric, rugs, mirrors, lamps and various odds and ends I’ve used to stage spaces at Serenbe.

Then we ran into my friend, Karen, who reminded me about the yellow wicker table I’d lent her for her front porch.

I called my curtain maker at noon and said, “Anne, I need a favor. Can you make me a skirt for a bathroom sink in a couple hours?” And she said, “Marie, get me the fabric and I’ll get it done.”

Such is the beauty of life in a small town.

We whipped that bathroom into shape in a matter of minutes. When it was done, I had just enough time to go home and transform myself into a party guest — an act that required a lot less hauling and sweating.

After

Before

Years ago, I saw a movie called Ladies in Lavender directed by Charles Dance. Starring Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, it’s the story of a gifted Polish violinist, a ship, a shipwreck and the two women who nurse him back to health when he washes up near their Cornwall home.

It is one of my favorite movies of all time, but not just because of the story. The soundtrack was so exquisite that I sat through the credits, found the name of the violinist, went straight to Barnes & Noble and said to the man behind the counter, “What do you have by Joshua Bell?”

The man looked at me and said, “You’ve just seen Ladies in Lavender, haven’t you?”

I have followed Joshua ever since. Like I wrote last week about Robert Spano, I am in awe of the depth and breadth of Joshua’s talent. There’s something so beautiful and pure about what he does and how he does it. I see him every time he comes to Atlanta, including his performance at the pre-season opening concert last month with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

It was an all-Tchaikovsky performance: Robert did six pieces from The Nutcracker, plus Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy. After the intermission the symphony returned to the stage, Robert came in and welcomed Joshua.

His performance was Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto No. 1 — and it was breathtaking. Everyone was on their feet with bravos and applause.

When he returned for his encore, Joshua said, “It’s been an all-Tchaikovsky evening and I think we need a little break.”

This is one of the many things I love about him. He understands how to play serious but also how to play and have fun.

Then he said, “Years ago, I did the soundtrack for a film and no, it wasn’t The Red Violin. I had the honor of playing music by one of England’s greatest composers, Nigel Hess.”

My friends Phyllis and Lynn, who knew the whole history of Ladies in Lavender, reached for me. They knew. And I thought, oh my God, he’s going to play it again.  

Over the summer, on the Atlanta stop of his national tour with jazz trumpeter Chris Bodie, Joshua said, “I want to play a song now from the soundtrack to a movie a lot of people have never seen.”

“I saw it!” I yelled out.

But now, during this performance with the symphony, I gasped (because one does not yell out during an ASO performance). I’ve listened to that CD weekly since 2004. It is my soul song — I know it note by note. And to see him perform it live? Not once but twice? And with one of the greatest maestros and greatest symphonies in the world?

He played it again. And I cried.

Music transforms us. It re-alters the vibrations in our body and the best musicians know that. Robert knows it. Joshua knows it. And they play in hopes that someone else gets it, too. By the grace of God, I got to sit there and listen to it live. To say that it was a life moment is an understatement.

If it ended there, right there, that’s all I needed. But there was more.

Because Lynn is a Symphony board member, the three of us were invited to a party in the Robert Shaw room, named for the man who made the ASO what it is. I went in and positioned myself and thought, I’m just going to stand here. I don’t have to talk to him. I’m not going to bother him.

That’s about me, of course. Joshua is so accessible: During intermissions he goes out and signs CDs in the foyer. It’s unbelievable and says a lot about his character. He knows he’s an instrument for divine music and he’s unbelievably gracious about it.

Joshua came in with his Stradivarius strapped across his chest, probably because it’s worth millions of dollars.

“You’re going to talk to him,” Phyllis said to me.

“No, I don’t do that,” I replied.

“Marie, if you don’t do this, you will regret it for the rest of your life,” she said.

So she and Lynn took me by the arms, put me in line and stood on either said of me. When it was my turn, I said, “Hi. I want to thank you for playing Ladies in Lavender.”

And he said, “You know, when I hit the first few notes, I remembered I played that same song here this summer.”

He was expressing regret for choosing it again.

“Trust me,” I told him, “this is a completely different audience. Thank you for playing one of my favorite songs of all time. It was just as beautiful tonight as it was when you played it this summer. It’s the song that made me fall in love with your work.

And the next thing I knew, someone came up and asked if they could get a photo of all of us together. And there I was, taking a photo with Joshua Bell. And when it was over I thanked him again, then turned to Lynn and Phyllis and thanked my spirit sisters for opening doors, pushing me through them and helping my dreams become reality.

For years, I’ve had a not-so-secret crush on Robert Spano — the six-time Grammy Award winning music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. The music director of the Aspen Music Festival.  One of the top five maestros in the world. One of only two classical musicians inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.

It’s not like I want to make out with him in a parked car. I’ve admired him from afar for a very long time for his incredible talent, what he’s done for the ASO, his passion for music and devotion to mentoring young artists. He humbles and inspires me.

Atlanta is silly with celebrities and I couldn’t care less. But for years I’ve asked people, Do you know Robert Spano? And if so, can I meet him? 

Nothing ever came of it, but I have faith in timing. I knew the universe would send me what I was supposed to have, when I was supposed to have it. And recently it sent me spirit sisters who’ve been showing up and shaking things up in a big way.

It all started with Lauri Stallings, my friend and the founding artist of glo — the movement group that defies description. What that woman creates is not of this world. She is not of this world. Lauri read Kierkegaard when she was 11. She wears these big, clunky shoes that I’m convinced keep her on this earth and not floating above it.

Turns out, Lauri and Robert Spano are two peas in a pod. Robert commissioned her to do a collaboration between glo and the ASO. And Lauri, in her infinite magic, had honest-to-God sod brought in and laid on the stage of symphony hall. Instead of walking in from the usual entrance, patrons had to enter from backstage and walk across the sod to their seats. After everyone was settled in, the symphony sat down and played on the grass.

Their latest collaboration, cloth field, was set to open September 7. One day, Lauri called and said, “Hey Marie. I’d like to do a fundraiser for glo and thought I’d bring Robert Spano to do a preview of cloth field at Serenbe.”

To say that my jaw dropped is an understatement. You want to bring Robert Spano to Serenbe? Really? 

And so it was that the Sunday before the debut, Robert Spano played a Steinway. In a skirt. On the grass. At Serenbe.

Robert arrived early; he’d heard of Serenbe but had never been. We had dinner. Oh my.

Afterwards, he went out into the meadow and played a Steinway. In a skirt. On the grass. At Serenbe. I thought I was going to levitate.

We were sitting where, exactly one year before, Micah and Kara had their wedding dinner. Twelve months later, Micah held my grandson, Amos, and sat right beside the piano. Later, Micah said Amos went into a dream state while Robert was playing. He must’ve been remembering when he was in utero and Kara played classical music to him every day.

While glo was moving, fireflies appeared and danced with them. When the performance was over, Lauri opened it up to questions. John Graham, executive director of the Serenbe Institute and, in his former life, the executive director of the Florida Philharmonic and the Boca Pops, asked Robert if the music he was playing was Debussy. Robert replied that it was his own original composition.

I audibly gasped. Robert Spano played a piece he’d written himself. On a Steinway. In a skirt. On the grass. At Serenbe.

What Robert and Lauri did was church. Magic and beauty was there, all in one. And my heart overflowed because Robert Spano was there, all my children and my grandson were there and it was a gift beyond words.

After they finished, I hugged both Lauri and Robert and cried over the exquisite beauty I’d witnessed in my former backyard. It was breathtaking and in my top five best things that have ever happened at Serenbe.

I invited everyone in attendance back to my house for libations, savories and sweets. I had wine and Robert’s favorite vodka, Tito’s, served cold. And there was Robert Spano. In my house. Talking to me. Blowing my mind.

Photo by J Ashley Photography

Some people call it coincidence. Some people call it fate. But when one door closes and another opens around here, I call it a Serenbe Moment.

Over the years, Serenbe Moments have resulted in new neighbors, new businesses, new relationships and so much more. The most recent one resulted in our new farmers, the husband-wife team of Matt and Kali Clayton.

“We’d been following Serenbe for quite some time from our living room at our old farm in Wisconsin,” says Matt, who’s a fourth generation vegetable farmer. “Then, when we landed one road over from the community, it felt like fate — or as Marie calls it, a Serenbe Moment.”

Kali’s family lives in Georgia and, with two children under the age of two, she was eager to be closer to her mother. They leased some farmland near Serenbe but had a challenging relationship with their landlord. So Matt called Alice Rolls, the executive director of Georgia Organics, for help. And Alice called Steve.

One week before that, Ashley, Serenbe Farms’ manager, gave her notice.

“As farmers, getting to have a fully established brand behind your produce is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Matt says. “Farming is a business and building a client base can be one of the hardest parts. Farming can also be very isolating as you are often out on a large piece of land. So for our family, getting to plug into a community that celebrates and supports our farming goals and personal philosophies was a dream come true. We get to work on a farm, then play in the woods with our kids in a safe community — the best of both worlds.”

Matt and Kali’s farming philosophy is to work smarter, not harder — one I took to heart while turning the intern house into the farmer house and vice versa. While I cleaned out years worth of stuff, they made plans to implement water wheel transplanters and beautify the look of the farm.

So this season, in addition to the radishes and rutabaga, we’ll have a new crop of farmers in the fields. I wish Ashley well at her new farm and, with Matt and Kali’s plans for a Serenbe orchard already taking shape, I’m excited to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

When Michael Taylor, my bonus child and family Jewish expert, heard I was hosting a bris for my grandson Amos, he said, “Oh Mama Marie, I am so excited to have some whitefish salad.”

I was like, whitefish what?

I was raised Catholic and Kara converted to Judaism before she married Micah, so these traditions — and the foods that go with them — are unfamiliar to me at best.

Turns out, Costco has a section dedicated solely to Jewish foods. I texted a picture of their whitefish salad to Michael and said, “Is this good?” He replied that it was and I was so relieved. I could make an arugula and herb salad or shrimp and pasta salad with my eyes closed. But whitefish salad? No clue and — because I’m not a fan of smoked fish — no desire.

So I bought that, along with smoked salmon, bagels, cream cheese, capers, red onion, tomato and the whole bit. Then I asked Michael, “Can I include a salad? Eggs?” He said I could, so I did a green salad and a fruit salad. Micah’s mother, Kristen, made a vegetable frittata and Uncle Matt made challah so good it stopped the rabbi and mohel — a professional trained in circumcision — in their tracks.

I offered Steve’s mother’s silver challis to hold the wine used in the ceremony and some of Steve’s ancestors’ silver platters for the food. We broke the bread together, drank wine together and though the ritual itself was new, some parts felt very familiar. I love that we’ve added a new layer of tradition to the family.

In the Jewish religion, the bris has to happen 8 days after the birth of the son. Amos was born two weeks early on June 27, so his bris fell on July 4^th. Micah’s father, brother Bo and his family had planned to celebrate the fourth at Serenbe, so they were all in town for the bris. It worked out beautifully.

That morning, we attended Serenbe’s annual Fourth of July parade, then the family came to our house for the bris and brunch. After that, everyone went swimming in the new swimming hole created for Kara’s summer camp. We had it all to ourselves and, now that I think back on it, it was like the Nygren family version of a baptism.

In the months following Serenbe’s first charette back in 2000, sculptor Marty Dawes of Cherrylion Sculpture Studios brought back a maquette, or small-scale model of an unfinished sculpture. It showed a man and woman dancing — each had one leg kicked out behind them and the other legs combined into one on the ground.

Steve and I were completely taken with it because Marty had honed in on the essence of Serenbe and how it’s a dance between masculine and feminine energies. And there it was in 3D form. We knew that one day we’d have him create it for Serenbe.

Last April, a full 15 years later, Steve mentioned he wanted to stop by Marty’s studio before our dinner at Bacchanalia to celebrate our 32^nd wedding anniversary. When we walked in, there was a bigger maquette of the original sculpture — about three feet tall and on a stand. “Happy anniversary,” Steve said.

The sculpture, named The Dance, arrived and was installed one year later, just in time for our 33^rd anniversary. The day coincided with the Serenbe Playhouse gala, so we asked all the kids to be at our house beforehand. We toasted our anniversary with Champagne and walked deep into the wildflower meadow to see the statue as a family. I asked everyone to save the last sip of Champagne and we all poured it around the statue to christen it.

In creating the piece, Marty, who was just commissioned to do the new MLK statue at the state capitol, was also inspired by Kahlil Gibran’s passage on marriage in his book, The Prophet:

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: 

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. 

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. 

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. 

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, 

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.  

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. 

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. 

And stand together yet not too near together: 

For the pillars of the temple stand apart, 

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow. 

What I love most about the sculpture, besides its rotating base that makes it look like it’s dancing, is that it’s textured, like Marty put the clay on piece by piece. It’s not smooth. It’s all the cracks and crevices that we bring to our relationships and make us human.

If you peeked into my kitchen during the kids cooking camps I held this summer, you would’ve seen 10 kids, 20 adoring eyes watching me and 10 little mouths responding, “Yes, Miss Marie” to my questions.

Well, most of them, anyway. On Tuesday, when we made salad and vinaigrette from scratch, I asked if everyone had tasted romaine lettuce. One hadn’t, which just blew my mind. This leads me to rule No. 1 of Ms. Marie’s cooking camp:

You have to at least taste it. The kids garden in the morning, either at the farm or Inn garden, then bring me what they’ve harvested. While we wash and chop — knife safety is part of the instruction — we talk about what I call the vital necessity of fresh. Why buy salad dressing when you can make your own?

It’s fun to watch them taste different lettuces and vinegars and learn the difference between oils. Most of them have never had kohlrabi, which I can understand, but they have to taste every ingredient before they pass judgment. I assure them I’m not going to give them cow brain.

Mothers ask me, “How did you get him to taste kale? He won’t try it with me.” I say, “Because I told him to. It’s not a negotiation.”

Just like the past two years I’ve hosted this camp, we do a set menu. Monday was pasta, Tuesday was salad and Thursday was blueberry cobbler. Everything is super simple and can be easily replicated at home.

On Thursday I did a frittata, which is a baked egg pie with no crust. In Spain, they use it for tapas and it can be served at room temperature. It’s one of my mainstays for a brunch or lunch buffet party. With a well-oiled cast-iron skillet, some eggs, meats, vegetables and cheeses, a child can make it and feel like they’ve made dinner.

Frittata

This is my favorite frittata recipe. The beauty of a frittata is that you can do any ingredients you so desire as the kids did for camp. We had 10 different combinations!

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup minced onions
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 cups chopped kale leaves
• 1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese
• 1 teaspoon Tabasco
• 8 large eggs
• Kosher salt

Preheat oven to 375.

In a 10 inch cast iron skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Stir in onions to coat and turn heat to low. Cook for 30 minutes until golden.

Meanwhile, crack eggs into large bowl and whisk. Add desired amount of salt and Tabasco.

Add garlic to onions. Cook one minute. Then add kale, turn up heat and sauté until bright green and tender.

Add eggs and cheese. Stir to combine.

Place in oven and cook 20-25 minutes until puffed and golden.