Is it Spring yet?

Lewisburg.

My plate has been rather full of late. And everything, it seems, is food-related these days.

It's been about two months' worth of shuffling things about, but we now have a local Slow Food convivium - Slow Food Susquehanna River Valleys. It's a long and clumsy name, I know, but it's the best compromise we could reach with the head office in New York.¹ This, of course, means lots of paperwork to get it all set up, from the Employer Identification Number to the 501(c)3 non-profit status. It's not hard, really. It's just a lot of IRS fine print and more work for our little printer than it's seen since we moved here.

The major upside of this, as far as I'm concerned, is that I get to do neat food-related stuff that I wouldn't get to all by myself. Example: a tour of the Selin's Grove Brewing Company. It's a very small brewery, which means it was pretty much like touring the world's most amazing homebrew setup. Sure, all of the equipment was enormous, but it was all set up inside a renovated garage, and I knew exactly how each step worked. Plus, Steve has to do just about all of it by hand, which sounds rather familiar.

The tour finished up with a tasting of seven of the beers on tap. I can't remember all of them now, but even in those little glasses it was a hell of lot of beer for a Sunday lunch. I'm not saying I'd want to do it very weekend, but it was a grand time.

Then there's the baking class, which I've already mentioned. And the garden planning, which is going full-tilt in preparation for the first seeds to hit soil in just over a week. Or maybe this afternoon, since I forgot to add the herbs into the spreadsheet. Granted, I'm still scratching my head a bit over the last little bits - particularly the lettuce and other greens - but I'm sure it'll work out. I'm sure I'll be giving away and/or composting a wide variety of excess produce, and hopefully taking enough notes to fine-tune it all a bit for next year.

And, coming up soon, I'll be managing our local growers' market. At least that doesn't start until May...

* * * * *

¹This after I had to make an impassioned plea to keep the word "Susquehanna" in our name. Lose that geographic descriptor, and folks 'round here won't claim to have anything else in common.