LINDEMAN: When Goodness Happens

New Roots Youth Garden pecan pie with Brown Dog coffee ice cream is just the beginning of goodness. Read on!

EDITOR’S NOTE: Last week was hard on Cape Charles, and hard on the WAVE. So thank goodness for more goodness from Lindeman!

By BRUCE LINDEMAN
Cape Charles Wave

December 11, 2012

I had arranged with Tammy Holloway earlier in the week to pick up my pie from her side porch, attached to the magnificently revived Bay Haven Inn on Tazewell.  My wife and I had been watching the renovation of Leon’s old house for months.  Just the simple act of removing most of the overgrown plantings around the place opened it up and provided a sight not seen in years.  To me, one of the prettiest homes in the historic district and well deserving of the love that the Holloways have showered on that place.

When I opened the screen door to their porch, where the pies were awaiting, I could sense even more so the level of detail they had put into this renovation.  Everything looked so bright and shiny I just wanted to stay awhile and take it all in.  But I had my dad in the car and, well, some visiting to get to as he and my mom had just driven into town for the holiday.

The back story of how I had come to even hold that lovely mocha pecan pie in my hands is a story that “only happens in Cape Charles” as we so often say.  I had written about my wife’s and my gathering of pecans a week or so prior in the Wave.  Tammy emailed me later that week and politely asked if I could tell her where said pecans could be found.  As there are numerous and very giving pecan trees in town, I told her where she could find one of the most giving — Big Mamma.  Now, please don’t email me asking where Big Mamma can be found.  That’s between me, my wife, Tammy, and a group of enterprising young kids who assisted her in the gathering.

CONTINUED FROM FIRST PAGE

See, Tammy volunteers her time, as do many others, with the New Roots Youth Garden.  Don’t know what that is? You pass by it every time you roll into town.  Behind the new, white picket fence at the corner lot adjacent to Rayfield’s at Stone Road and Fig Street sits a pretty cool project.  Volunteers from all stripes work with local kids on how to grow a successful garden.  But their efforts are more than just planting bok choy, Swiss chard, leeks, and radishes.  There’s a larger mission at work here.  These kids learn how to work together with other kids and caring adults.  They learn how to grow plants and harvest their crops, but they also learn about economics, fair trade, and the like.  These are skills you can learn from a school book but are much better taught when you actually get dirt under your nails.

So, helping Tammy and the kids locate some nuts for their fundraising pie sale seemed like a no-brainer to me.

Now, how to eat this pie: A pie so special should be paired with something as equally special.  Off to Gull Hummock I go.

We all know the story of Honey and John’s shop.  It’s a diamond in its purest form down on Front Street that has seen its share of shops come and go.  And, in the middle of a deep recession, opens a gourmet wine and cheese shop?  We all loved the idea but didn’t give them a chance in heck.

That was before we actually met Honey.  After multiple seasons, a climb out of the recession, and the gradual addition of other new businesses in town, Gull Hummock has thrived.  When my wife and I were eating ice cream at the Brown Dog one evening before they closed for the season, we were talking to the owner who informed us that Honey would be carrying their ice cream during the off-season.  I think my heart quietly said. “yea!” at that very moment.

Brown Dog Ice Cream is a very special place and exactly what this little town needed.  How can you call yourself a “beach town” without a bona fide ice cream shop?  Problem solved.

So, there we were sitting around the Thanksgiving table, bellies full of the best turkey dinner I’ve ever eaten, thanks to my wife, Sue.  Now, for desert.  My wife’s homemade pumpkin pie was delicious.  But, I had to try the mocha pecan that Chef Amy Brandt and others baked for the Youth Garden pie sale.

What happened next was like that moment in the movies when the sky parts, the heavenly chorus of angels sing and the sun shines down its loving warmth upon the earth.  I scooped some Brown Dog coffee ice cream on top of my slice of mocha pecan pie, and topped it all off with my wife’s homemade whipped cream.

At the point when the folk entered my mouth, I thought of all the goodness that had to come together for that moment to happen:  between Tammy and her Youth Garden kids picking pecans and learning important life lessons, to Chef Amy baking the pies, to gentle kindness of Honey and Gull Hummock and the best handmade ice cream from the Brown Dog Ice Cream shop, and my wife working incredibly hard in the kitchen that day to pull it all together.

It truly doesn’t come together any better than that one forkful of goodness.  Only in Cape Charles.