I was one of the last three standing–a very stressful position at a party where you are the constant target of Zombies trying to eat your braaaaaaaaaaainz–so I let the determined eight year old Zombie fox “get me.”
Beef tongue… YUM! The verdict is in: delicious. Amazing how one bite can time-travel you. Suddenly I’m in Pretoria, it’s a hot Christmas Day, and I’m mildly annoyed that I have to stop doing somersaults into the pool just to eat. Back then, lunch was cold cuts and mustard, Ma and Pa with their beers, the grownups laughing in the shade while the kids cannonballed and shrieked.
Beef tongue tastes like thick-cut roast beef — meaty, hearty, comforting — but not wild or gamey. If you’ve never had it, I suspect it’s not because it’s unworthy, but because smart chefs make sure they get it first.
Last night, Louis and I lingered into the golden hour with our O.G. Free State crew at Dandelion Forest Farm in Nottingham, NH. Emily from Bardo Farm—whose pork was featured on the menu—sent out the call, and eleven of us answered, carving out time from our busy lives. I hobbled in on crutches for what I’ve dubbed my “old lady footsie.”
Everyone is carrying something hard right now, but that’s precisely why we must create these moments, why we must embody The Good Life in the real world. Why, despite handicaps, we should choose to put our best foot forward, forever.
We feasted on seven courses pulled from the soil under our feet and from farms across the Free State—summer vegetables transformed into works of art, each family style bowl placed before us an invitation, a meditation even, to stop and appreciate what truly nurtures us: community… friends… loyalty… love.
From the dining tent, I watched geese and ducks wander through pastures where amaranth bloomed deep maroon against the rose-tinted sky. The whole scene was bucolic, restorative—a reminder that liberty is as much about the principles we hold as the people we choose to surround ourselves with.
The table talk was just as nourishing. A state rep mused about abolishing the USDA in New Hampshire (!). A younger couple with passports almost as dog-eared as ours swapped stories of street food in India, Vietnam, and Thailand—we laughed as we Googled “zhug” from the menu, because, based on past experiences, we were all expecting it to blow our heads off, only to find it mild. “It’s… New Hampshire ‘spicey,'” I commented, “like pepper on haddock.” We laughed. Across the table, a mother proudly told Louis about her daughter’s soon-to-debut documentary, Fir Traders, about the local Christmas tree industry, premiering in Portsmouth.
Even with the hobbling and the pain, the lesson landed: it’s always worth the effort if it ends in breaking bread—in this case, dock seed cornbread with honey miso corn butter—with people who remind you why you moved to New Hampshire in the first place.
I left satiated, yes, but more than that, nourished in my bones. Reminded that life in the Free State isn’t only lived in clubhouses, courtrooms, or campaign HQs—it’s lived at long, long tables, shoulder-to-shoulder, under late-summer skies.
