Cafe SELMA Irish Themed Breakfast

Cafe SELMA is an iconic place in the times we live in..... it's an amazing volunteer-run community breakfast made from entirely locally-sourced goods held in the beautiful home of Lisa Gottlieb and Jeff McCabe...... I found out about it by word of mouth, in this case, the mouth of my good neighbor Anton and I was eager to find out more and experience it for myself! I was a regular visitor in the summer of 2009 and was eager to volunteer to cook an Irish themed breakfast around St. Patrick's Day... sure enough as the date loomed closer I found myself juggling baking lots of buttermilk scones and soda bread, but only with the best local and home made ingredients of buttermilk, butter ( all made by Jeff McCabe) and wonderful Michigan flour.... these ingredients really made an outstanding difference in taste from regular store bought ingredients and the end result was truly authentic and delicious. In addition, Anton and I prepared Irish potato cakes served with Hoop House greens and rashers plus authentic "porridge" made Irish style and served with home made creme fraiche.
See review here
http://www.repastspresentandfuture.org/rita-conroy-martin-brought-us-a-lovely-taste-of-ireland-with-our-own-local-ingredients/
Apart from the wonderful food, one encounters really interesting and community minded people at Cafe Selma and the volunteers are a blast to work with. All of the proceeds go towards micro lending to local farmers who wish to commence operations or even expand to having a hoop house to enable year round food production. It was a real pleasure to work with someone like Kate Long who is starting up her own farm operations this year and I was so inspired by her work ethic and attitude at the Cafe that I wanted to volunteer at her farm as she gets it set up.

Sure enough the call came to do so a few weeks ago and I introduced my son to the world of community spirit and volunteerism, see picture below of him shovelling compost that would be the foundation of the outdoor vegetable beds. Kate and others like her are the cornerstone of the future of sustainable agriculture in Michigan, armed with academic and practical knowledge through the Michigan State Organic Farming Program, they are sure to succeed!













For more information on Cafe Selma visit http://www.repastspresentandfuture.org
The experience at Cafe Selma inspires me to strive to have a community breakfast or dinner in our own neighborhood!