“But the forest is queer. Everything in it is very much more alive, more aware of what is going on… I thought all the trees were whispering to each other, passing news and plots along in an unintelligible language…”
Merry’s description of the Old Forest, in JRR Tolkien’s extraordinarily prescient passage from The Lord of the Rings, brilliantly conveys what it feels like to be amongst the trees in Two Green Shoots Garden of Re-Imagination, in deepest West Cork.
The extraordinary Woodland Kitchen, where you sit and cook and eat at Kloe and Adam’s food and culture gatherings, is an inimitable place, a liminal enclave amidst the trees that feels humanly organic.
Two Green Shoots is Kloe and Adam, environmentalists and gardeners and, now, “custodians to a space where extraordinary crafts people like Caitlin (Ruth) can have the freedom to let their imaginations run riot.”
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We were fortunate to share the wild green imaginings of Caitlin Ruth’s culinary expertise over a four-hour session hosted in the Garden of Re-Imagining, that mixed cooking, learning and a rain forest foraging walk with Kloe.
If the space is mind-blowing, so was Caitlin’s food, from dock leaf dolmas to woodland tabbouleh to dandelion hummus. We enjoyed pine oil, goat sorrel, a quite unbelievable burnt pine and honey butter and a jaw-dropping pineappleweed and jalapeño jam as part of the feast we both part-foraged and part-cooked. The food was like no other, the space was like no other.
The real world – the N71 between Glengarriff and Kenmare is only a five minute walk away down the hill – had completely disappeared from our consciousness. We were speaking the language of the rain forest, creatures of the woodland.
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Caitlin’s gig was the first use of the TGS Woodland Kitchen, and future workshops will see the imaginations of some extraordinary craftspeople going wild: fish smoker Sally Barnes of Woodcock Smokery; traditional food artisan Max Jones of Up There The Last and Linda O’Flynn and Ivo Duarte of Cork Market’s Terra Ignis. In addition the house holds foraging and cooking sessions, art sessions, breakfasts and afternoon tea sessions.
The Woodland Kitchen at The Garden of Re-Imagination by Two Green Shoots is a hugely exciting events space for West Cork. Keep an eye on the website for upcoming events www.twogreenshoots.com.
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It is absolutely wonderful