Yard To Table
Hosted by Emmy Award® winners Trevor Crafts and Ellen Scherer Crafts, Yard to Table introduces listeners to the couple's passion for cultivating a delicious life, one yard at a time.
In each episode, Trevor and Ellen offer a delightful blend of practical gardening tips, mouthwatering recipes, and stories from fellow gardeners and food enthusiasts. Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just starting out, Yard to Table is designed to be approachable and inspiring, guiding listeners on how to turn their outdoor spaces into thriving sources of joy.
Tune in for an inspiring mix of practical knowledge and creative energy, sprinkled with expert advice, plenty of laughs, and engaging interviews that celebrate the Yard to Table lifestyle.
Yard To Table
Welcome to the Table
It's the very first episode of Yard to Table! Ellen Scherer Crafts and Trevor Crafts talk about their life changing transition from California to Connecticut and how they ended up on 11 acres in a house with a name - Stonebrook House. They give love to changing seasons and the riches to be found in the local farm and food community. Hear some highlights of their journey from being career-driven to becoming avid "yardists" (yes they made that term up). This is the kick-off to the world of Yard to Table so grab your seat!
And to see what's happening with Ellen and Trevor at Stonebrook House follow @stonebrookhouse on Instagram today!
Well, hello there Ellen.
Ellen :Well, hello there Trevor.
Trevor:This is fun. This is a little something different.
Ellen :We are podcasting.
Trevor:It's our own little podcast. Welcome everybody to yard to table.
Ellen :I'm Ellen Scherer Crafts.
Trevor:I'm Trevor Crafts, and this is a podcast that is about food. It's about gardening. It's about community all in and around the yards of our 11 acre Connecticut homestead called Stonebrook, if you're a seasoned gardener, if you're just coming into it, we like to call it. There's a lot of farm to table movements out there. We like to look at this as yard to table.
Ellen :Why is it yard to table? We're literally making things in our yard and bringing it to our kitchen table every day, and whether that's flowers or vegetables, herbs were so inspired by the things that were growing. And what we have found that our neighbors are growing in their backyards. Who knew when we moved here how incredible the things that were going on right besides people's back doors.
Trevor:Yeah, it's, it's almost like a little quiet revolution of
Ellen :self sustainability, organic growing. It's good stuff, and, by the way, also entertaining and community and bringing people together.
Trevor:That's what we've really, we've really learned to love about this place that we're living in is that there's so many different people that are growing amazing things in their yards and their small farms, and just how much Connecticut agriculture is a very, very local, very personal thing that we've really discovered and really started to fall in love with
Ellen :Totally and I think, you know, we're located in Western Connecticut. We're part of New England.
Trevor:What are we? 7A, we are growing. That's our area. 7A
Ellen :I think that's our new update.
Trevor:We're East Coasters originally. That's right at a little time out in in LA. But then came back the call of the seasons,
Ellen :would you say it's coming back to our roots? No pun intended
Trevor:indeed. This isn't going to be a podcast full of puns about vegetables, but they will happen. They were going to dig in. We're going to we're going to get right down to the root of it. It's funny. A lot of people, I think, said to us, oh gosh, moving to from California back to the East Coast. Oh, the snow, the snow. We like snow. We love snow. We love weather. We love seasons. And I
Ellen :We love it. think one of the things that you can't beat a New England fall, no, you cannot beat a New England fall. And Connecticut falls are gorgeous, and I think that's one of the things that is so interesting about living here in Connecticut is, and on the East Coast again, is that there's a reason to go out every day. Yes, because in LA it's gorgeous and it's beautiful, and the weather is amazing, and the beach is there, and the beach is always there, because it's always the same, and it's gets very sort of static in terms of the time and and your sense of urgency to go and do something. But here, you know, you've got a growing season. There's a time that you can harvest. There are these moments where time to plan, time to plan, time to plant, time to harvest, you know, time to enjoy. And it's these moments that you have to grab on to, which is, I think, so unique about living here again. Yes, I mean, and I think what we hadn't really realized is how much we miss that seasonality, you know, that sense of it's absolutely gorgeous outside. We need to be there. We need to be doing something. And I again, we, we got this property. We did it with our parents. I know that sounds crazy to a lot of people, but we pulled our family, Trevor's parents, my mom, from three different states, and we came together in our family compound.
Trevor:Now, just for everybody that's listening, I have a question, true or not true when I said, let's move here, meaning stone Brook, you said, Absolutely not.
Ellen :Yeah, that's true. That's 100% true. Yeah, that is not.
Trevor:What do we need 11 acres for? That's right? And I said, Well, there's a lot of space to grow. And that was, I think, something that we didn't even 100% realize how much we needed yes in our lives. Yes.
Ellen :I mean, listen, this is a lifestyle choice, right? We brought together our parents, who are older. We have a daughter. She was younger. Yes, she was five at the time that we moved and. You know, this was a this was a decision. We were coming out of COVID, we were still in COVID. We all remember that time, and it was really about what's important. You know, our families were living separately. We didn't have each other to lean on, to support each other, both in hard times and good times, there was a lot of that during COVID. There's a lot of that in life, right? And so it was, let's make a decision that's good for all of us. And we did it. And somehow I got convinced. Somehow we all got convinced. Because once
Trevor:we I'm an incredible salesman. You are. I'm an incredible
Ellen :that is 100% true, yes, but we have and we're here, and we all, you know, have our homes on the property, but we're all contribute to this special place that we live. And I think the inspiration that we've gotten from the land literally has just changed, sort of the trajectory of our life, which is kind of incredible. Yeah, I think about it, we
Trevor:went from being very uh, career driven, uh, entertainment people. And now, although that is still a big part of our lives, we're plant nerds. Now, soil nerds. Soil nerds, that's a good one. Soil flower nerd. Ellen is a huge flower nerd. That is 100% true.
Ellen :By the way, Trevor is, if you look at something, how do you know it's a piece of artwork or a pattern or anything that I like, what's usually on that a flower? Yes, that's right,
Trevor:it's a flower.
Ellen :That's right.
Trevor:It's probably a red flower,
Ellen :usually a red flower. Yeah. In fact, I have to give back to ordering tulips after this. So for next year,
Trevor:it's always something as a plan. But I think that's one of the things when we, when we got here, you know, we came because there was, it was this opportunity for our family to come together and be together in one place. But then in, you know, there's, we inherited some formal gardens which were covered in plastic. There was, they were sort of in disrepair. They had not been used for a couple of seasons. And we go right in. We dug in, by the way, this is not a podcast entirely full of plant puns, although there will be some plant puns in this one, like digging in and things like this.
Ellen :We like puns. They're funny, yeah, and you're full of dad humor.
Trevor:I am. I am a dad. So that's probably why, when we were in California, we realized how much we wanted to pursue local growing.
Ellen :That's 100% true, I think, you know, and it wasn't something that we came to completely out of nowhere. We were both people that really love food and cooking and respected the work of chefs and, you know, organic food and but I don't think we really had a full concept of what that meant from, you know, from the beginning of the cycle to the plate, right? And so in California, you know, we had an amazing Farmer's Market in our town, and we spent every Sunday at the farmer's market shopping, first as a couple and then as a couple with a baby, and we got to know the farmers and the growers and the vendors, and talked about their stories. And, you know, California is got a pretty much an eternal growing season. And it is supplies the country with so much of the things that all of us use it, from vegetables to fruit, you know. So that was a very unique but plentiful experience of really, but, you know, I think our main inspiration in the very beginning, you know, came from our lemon tree.
Trevor:That's right, we had a lemon tree and a rosemary plant on, you know, at our house in California. And I think it was, and first time I had ever had, you know, of course, herbs and like, simple things that were growing, you know, in around, in pots or whatever. But to have something that had an abundance of whatever that thing, that lemon tree, was incredible. That lemon tree, we got so many lemons off that lemon tree, amazing. But I think one of the things that was so surprising to us was that so many people were kind of in awe or amazed or impressed. Yeah, the fact that it came out of our yard.
Ellen :A lot of moments like that. You need this
Trevor:It's from your lemon, a lemon from your tree. And it was so interesting. It was very clear memory of people being very interested by this sort of mysterious object called a lemon that came from a tree,
Ellen :because they're everywhere in California, you know, but this whole idea that you actually could pick it, squeeze it and use it and cut the rosemary from the bush in your backyard. That was just, it was, it
Trevor:It was almost like we would say, Hey, can you go out and get some? I'll go out and get some. We'd say to friends, you know, I'll go out and get some. Oh, I'd love to how many do you need? Should I take two? I don't want to take too many. I'll take one. Should I take two? One or two, three, whatever. Just.
Ellen :Get them take some home. You know,
Trevor:That was always the thing, too. Oh, I get to take lemons home, yeah, but it was, for us, it was such a fun experience to share that
Ellen :yes and the and the amazing connection that you have when you're sharing a meal with people. You know, one of the greatest things that we love to do is have our friends and family over and and share a meal. We love to cook for our friends. We love to cook for our family, because those are the moments. Those are the moments of laughter, sometimes tears, great conversation, and that is what builds the bonds for us with, you know, our community, with ourselves. And, yeah, it was so it's so special to be able to say that this came, you know, from right outside, right
Trevor:outside, from your yard, your back door, yeah. And I think, for for me, moving here to Connecticut and being here our yard, I think, is so much bigger than anything that we've ever managed before. 11 acres is not a small amount of space.
Ellen :Is why I said no,
Trevor:but then you said yes, and here, and you're so happy now you are so
Ellen :I think it comes back to I think it was the thing I didn't know that I really wanted you know it isn't. It was intimidating. This is not a choice for all. I would say the 11 acres of it all,
Trevor:everybody should be gardening in their yard.
Ellen :Everybody should be gardening in your yard. And that comes from, I mean, it doesn't matter how that's happening.
Trevor:You don't have to be clinically insane like us and have 11 acres.
Ellen :Allow us to tell you the clinically insane stories so that you don't have to do
Trevor:what this is for. That's what yard to table is for.
Ellen :Yeah, no. I mean, yes, yard to tables for everybody. Because if you have a if you have a back deck, if you have a patch of land, if you have a window sill there, if you have a countertop, there's so many ways that you can be growing things in your home that you can use, and it's such an incredible feeling.
Trevor:And even thing that you don't think, Oh, I'll be able to use this. There's a lot of fun things that we're going to talk about. So much fun to find out, like making Allium vinegar. Take these. You take, you know, your chives, and they have these beautiful purple flowers, and you cut those off, and the those are your Allium flowers, and you just take some white wine vinegar and stick them in there. And two weeks later, you've got this beautiful purple, floral, fragrant vinegar, spicy that you can use. And it's amazing. And you think, Oh, that was surprisingly easy to do this. You know, plant chives are the easiest thing on earth to plant. They grow in pretty much any possible configuration. They're incredible.
Ellen :And I just saw this thing that I'm excited to try, because we are bursting with herbs in the garden right now, Herb bombs, where you just take all of these fresh herbs that you chop up, and you make ice cubes with olive oil, and you put them in the freezer. They're there for the whole year. I mean, it's incredible. The things that you can do and make good idea, right? I'm going to be doing that after this, after I order my tulips, I'm gonna make some herb bombs.
Trevor:See, this is the thing. When you do yard to table gardening and cooking it, there's always another thing
Ellen :The list is long, and I think that's the thing that I that you get to do. didn't realize. You think, Oh, I'm so intimidated. I don't really know what I'm doing. I don't know how to operate. But once you get into it, there's you're gonna make mistakes, you're you're gonna, you know, but you're gonna make so many successes, and you're gonna have so much fun, and it's so renewing to really be so connected to the land and to the things that are growing, and to understand where your food comes from and how healthy that is for you and for your Family. And what we hope from this podcast is that in sharing the stories, and we have some incredible guests that are going to be coming onto the podcast that are from our local food, culinary, entertaining community here in Connecticut, New England, they're going to share really wonderful stories and backgrounds around yard to table, and their view on this. We just want you to feel inspired and to enjoy it and to have some fun, because we have a lot of fun, an enormous amount of fun. So what we have found is it's been so inspiring. It's been incredible to meet the people that care so deeply about where their food comes from, in to see what they're doing, to learn from them, to to supplement, because we all can't do everything in our yards. So, you know, I don't want to grow mushrooms, but I'm really glad that my our friend and neighbor does, you know, and so and we support each other in this community. People say, Hey, listen, I got a dozen eggs. I'm going to drop them. Off, or I left a bunch of basil on a jar and your back door, it's incredible.
Trevor:And I think that's for us what yard to table is all about. It's about connecting all of us in our own communities, through food, through the produce that we grow, through the things that we grow in our own yards.
Ellen :And it's also about the things that we're not growing, the things that are growing naturally. It's about understanding the natural world around us and and really being inspired by that. You know, Violets growing in the spring time in your yard that you can turn into violet syrup, which we've done. And it's amazing. It's amazing. Our neighbor told us, oh, have you ever tried violet syrup? I was like, No, I have never tried violet syrup. She's like, Oh, go out. Go out with your daughter, and go pick some and you're gonna put them in hot water, and you're gonna let it sit overnight, and then you're gonna add a little sugar, and it's gonna make a beautiful syrup that you can use in cocktails, or you can make pink lemonade. And we did it, and it was incredible.
Trevor:Yeah it was awesome. And I think the next year we were like, waiting for the waiting for the violet. Are they up yet? Are they up yet? Are they up yet? And you know, we said we're not going to mow that area at all. That's right, you got to keep the violets, protect the patch, protect it and and we did, yeah, and I think that's one of the fun things, is that for us, yard isn't just the area that we have, our main growing garden, our main kitchen garden and our growing That's exactly right. Yard for us is really the whole property. Yeah, you know, we have maple trees. We have a lot of sugar maple trees. We have a lot of Norway maple we have a lot of sugar maple as well. So we tap our own maple trees, and we get this amazing, beautiful, wonderful maple sap that comes out of them, and then I boil that down into this lovely, luscious maple syrup, or
Ellen :big maple syrup loving family over here?
Trevor:Yeah, generations of maple loving family members. That's
Ellen :true for sure. Pop up is a is has been known to drink directly from a bottle
Trevor:that is 100% true, maybe not untrue. 100% true a bottle of maple syrup.
Ellen :I just want to clarify that, but I think it's a really important point, because it's like it is about the fact that, yes, we're talking about intentional planting and growing, but it's also maximizing the things that are in your immediate area, foraging, utilizing plants, vegetables and trees that grow naturally in ways that you never thought about we certainly hadn't thought about it.
Trevor:No, not at all. I mean, obviously we have to say, like we say sometimes to our daughter, don't eat it if you don't know what it is, very important. But if you do, I think generally that's a rule for life. Yeah, true on like an airplane or the street corner or your backyard, you don't know what it is, really, don't put it in your mouth. Yeah, that good choice, agreed. But there's a lot to be said for when you do know what something is, even acorns, which I know sounds this is not a foraging podcast, by the way, but you know, we do plan to have a forager. Come on, that is true. We will have a foraging guest a little later on in the season. But I think that that's one thing that is very unique, is that if you look at things from a different perspective, if you find a way to get some open space and look around, there's a lot that's there. There's a lot that you don't that you don't think about, even the simple and very humble dandelion, which most people will 100% eradicate with vengeance, with a deep vengeance and visceral hatred. You can take the flowers of a dandelion and you can make dandelion ice cream, which has a very honey floral flavor. You can make dandelion jam. Same. It has this very surprising floral nature.
Ellen :And the greens are a, you know, a classic for salad, classic staple for salad. You can make it dandelion tea. And by the way, they're the first sign in spring for a lot of our pollinators, right? You know, for them to be able to feed themselves and to start the process that we all need to happen for all of our gardens to grow.
Trevor:And as we watch our pollinators, scooch around, you know a lot of bees that we have around our tomato plants and our zucchini flowers and all the things that we have that grow, you start seeing because it is your yard, because you're there every day, you start seeing the interconnected nature of how all of these different parts come together from the right kind of soil, which we'll talk about, the right kind of chemical balance that you have in your soil.
Ellen :And how to manage that, all organically, without chemicals, pesticides. Sides, you know, is a lot of bug picking and crushing, which is not my favorite, by the way, you can get help for that,
Trevor:but you do do it. I do. You do. You do crush them as you need to, as I need to. You keep the good ones and you crush the bad.
Ellen :That's right, and recognizing what that is, what's the good? Where were the good guys? And here are the bad guys? Yeah, unfortunately, some of the ones that I thought were the bad guys were the good guys.
Trevor:That was very early on, though, yeah, we're good now, yeah, but have but understanding that all of these different parts coming together is what creates this ecosystem. Of the things that we eat, yeah, you have all of these different elements that transfer from the soil to the plant, to the fruit, back to us again, back to the soil. It's this very unique and interesting thing that because it's in your yard, it's coming from your yard to your table, you get to really experience that and see that in a way that a lot of other people don't get to have that opportunity?
Ellen :Well, I think it's, it's because we're so we have been so taken far away from the chain of where the food is coming from to where it comes to us, in grocery stores, right in our and that is not something that even maybe our parents, or parents, parents had people grew gardens. That was a very important thing, and and there's lots of people who continue to do it, but there's a lot of us that got have gotten away from it. And when you don't really understand that cycle of of food and growing and the impact on the environment, it it really, once you do understand it really changes your, you know, your perception of of food. And you know, we have some very old apple trees in our property that we were very lucky to inherit. But I remember the first season that we were here, and no one even knows the varietal of it, because it's so old, we think it's probably from 1930 or earlier, we're unsure, but
Trevor:it's a French green apple, but does not taste like a Granny Smith, no.
Ellen :And it is ugly.
Trevor:Yeah, The fruit is not pretty. No,
Ellen :it is not pretty. It's not pretty, but that's what organic fruit looks like.
Trevor:But it's delicious. It's delicious. My mother makes a mean apple pie with that and apple sauce and apple jelly and Apple, you know, butter, and that's delicious,
Ellen :yeah, but you look at it and you go, I'm not going to eat that, but we do, but you do, and, yeah, and that's, and that's, again, what we see in our stores are things that have been engineered and created and because
Trevor:I tried to grow a plastic bag tree, and it did not take it's weird. There are no it just didn't work, because most fruit comes in a plastic bag. So that's kind of you thought that was, that was the original story. Origin of it comes in plastic bags. So obviously you start with the plastic bag tree, but that does not work, so that's what the podcast is going to be. So every single week, we're going to come out with another little bit of information. We'll have guests on every other week, we'll have stories, we'll have recipes, we'll have information for you about all of our local Connecticut growers. I think a lot of the things that you can take away from what we're going to give you is it's not just Connecticut based. You know, that's right, you can use these principles pretty much anywhere, possibly not Antarctica. I'm not sure what the growing season is there, but I think that pretty much everywhere else. Yeah,
Ellen :it'll work.
Trevor:I think it's gonna
Ellen :work. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think that's the important part. There's nothing you know. It's all stuff that you can take and use however you want, or you can just listen and have fun.
Trevor:Yeah? Because we're fun people,
Ellen :we are fun people. Well, we think we're fun people, we
Trevor:know we're fun people. We actually are fun people. People. Have told us that we're fun people.
Ellen :So come take a seat at the table with us. And if you want to see what's going on every day at Stone Brook, then you can follow us on Instagram@stonebrookhouse I like that. Me too. I'm excited.
Trevor:This is going to be great. Yard To Table is a production of macrocosm entertainment. Don't forget to rate us and subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts and for tips and more information, follow us on Instagram at Stonebrook house you.
