At Millstone Meadows Daylily Farm in Morganton, a couple found a home and a place to grow their passions — his for flowers, hers for food.
On a warm evening in Morganton, people sit around a long dinner table in Mark and Sara Hord’s backyard. The sun begins to set behind the mountains that surround the 35 acres known as Millstone Meadows Daylily Farm, where Mark and Sara work as a team. He grows the flowers; she cooks the food.
Tonight, 80 guests share in their place and their passions. Mark mingles, pointing out his daylilies blooming all around. Sara finishes preparing the meal over an open fire. These farm-to-fork dinners connect people to this land with Sara’s homegrown ingredients and Mark’s flowers, but they also transport them to different areas of the world. Tonight’s theme: Tuscany.
Mark and Sara load the table — savory sausages seasoned with fennel and garlic, pizza with fresh tomato sauce on a hand-tossed crust, and lots and lots of pasta. A wine distributor pours a fine selection of reds and whites from southern Italy to round out the palate.
“I like to share,” Sara says. “And this is a great way for Mark and me to share, through fabulous dinners with good people.”
(Story continues below the recipes.)
Spring-Inspired Deviled Eggs
A southern favorite with a early spring twist, shared by Mark and Sara Hord at Millstone Meadows Daylily Farm.
Eggs
- 1 dozen organic eggs
- Large pot for boiling eggs in 2 quarts of well-salted water
Place eggs in water and bring to a rolling boil cook for 10-12 minutes depending on size of eggs. Remove from pot and run cool water over. Chill for 1 hour or more for easy peeling.
Deviled Egg Mixture
- 2 cups of fresh early peas (frozen peas work as well)
- 3 tablespoons of olive oil
- ½ cup of shredded parmesan cheese or pecorino cheese
- 12 boiled egg yolks
- ½ cup of good mayonnaise
- 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
- 1 shallot, finely minced
- 1 clove of garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons of chopped chives and fresh thyme
- Sea salt and black pepper to taste
Blanche peas in salted, boiling water for 2-3 minutes. Shock in cold water to preserve color and stop cooking. Peel and cut boiled eggs lengthwise scoop out yolks. Place yolks in bowl and add mayo mustard, season with salt and pepper. Mash with a fork until smooth and creamy. Set aside. In small saute pan, heat 3 tablespoons of good olive oil. Add shallot. Cook until soft. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add peas and saute together briefly. Remove from heat place in bowl add ½ cup of shredded parmesan or pecorino cheese. Add chives and thyme and smash with fork until smooth or place in a food processor and pulse until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Take whites of boiled egg and fill half with yolk mixture and half with pea mixture. Garnish with more chopped chive or thyme.
Spring Lamb
Served with early green garlic, mint and lavender pistou, aromatic vegetables and baby potatoes, this dish is the quintessential Easter dinner. Recipe is for a full roast. If you use a smaller portion, you may cut ingredient quantities.
Ingredients:
- 1 shoulder roast of lamb (You may use leg of lamb, allowing leg cook for 20 minutes or so per pound.)
- 1 bottle of decent red wine
- 1 head of garlic, peeled and crushed
- 1 bunch of green garlic (green garlic is young garlic, almost like a leek. You may use leeks or small bunching onions if not available.)
- 2 to 3 tablespoons of each mint, thyme, oregano, rosemary, Italian parsley, and fresh or dried lavender buds and leaves. Chopped rough.
- 4 lbs of small potatoes, washed
- An assortment of aromatic vegetables such as carrots, celery, onions, turnips, zucchini, or early peas.
- ⅓ cup of good olive oil
- Water and/or vegetable stock up to 4 cups
- ¼ cup of all purpose flour
Preparation:
Place flour and 1 teaspoon of salt and pepper in a bowl large enough for your lamb. Coat lamb with this flour mixture. Heat 4 tablespoons of oil in a roasting pan or pot large enough for your lamb. Brown lamb on all sides. Remove lamb and add aromatic vegetables in order of carrots, celery, onions, and garlic last (so as not to burn).
Add larger veggies in first, cook for 8 to 10 minutes, then add lamb back to your pan. Deglaze with ½ bottle of red wine. Cook for 5 minutes. Add potatoes and season with salt and pepper. Cover or wrap with foil. Check every 15 minutes and add water or stock as needed to keep a broth in the pan. Cook shoulder for 2.5 hours add moisture when needed.
For pistou:
Add fresh herbs and crushed garlic to a bowl. Add ¼ cup of your good olive oil and
salt and pepper to taste. Use a fork to muddle these things together, smashing and crushing all the ingredients. After lamb is cooked, place on platter and spoon pistou over the top of lamb and vegetables.
Anything for her
Mark — tall, sandy-haired, and handsome — is a romantic. As a young flower enthusiast, Mark often visited Charles Henson, who owned the farm Mark now calls home. He bought daylilies from Henson and took them back to his garden at his home in town.
Sara — petite, strawberry blonde, and a former Cosmopolitan magazine model — became the focus of Mark’s romance in 2003. When they met in June of that year, Mark took her out to the farm on a date.
“Being a simple-minded guy, I thought I would take this pretty girl out to a place where there were pretty flowers,” Mark says. “I said to myself, ‘I’ll impress her with my knowledge of these pretty flowers.’” Little did he know how much he would impress her. After their trip to the farm, he continued to charm her.
Sara spent her early years working as a culinary chef in Chicago, Illinois, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then settled in Morganton. She continued cooking and planted her own vegetable garden filled with carrots, cucumbers, celery, okra, and tomatoes.
“Every year, I get crazy and plant thousands of [plants],” Sara says. “The same year Mark and I started dating, I had the worst time with the tomatoes. My garden was so big, and I just didn’t have time to stake all of the tomato plants. We went out for dinner one night, and I asked him, ‘What did you do today?’ And you know what he says to me? ‘I staked all your tomato plants.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God!’”
“Instant love,” Mark says, beaming.
“I remember it was 95 degrees out that day, so I said to myself, ‘If I can get him to do something like that for my tomatoes, I can get him to do anything,’” Sara says.
“And I’ve been staking them ever since,” Mark replies.
Making it their own
After that first trip to the farm, Sara, like Mark, fell in love with the place and its quiet, serene surroundings. The couple got married and moved to the farm just one year after they visited on their date. Together, they renovated the 150-year-old log cabin and incorporated a mixed style that reflects their backgrounds; it’s both Southern and Southwestern. While Sara equipped the kitchen with wide countertops and an industrial stove, Mark turned his attention outside.
Before Henson sold the farm, he made certain Mark knew how to care for the 1,200 cultivars of daylilies scattered around the property.
“Charles mentored me initially on splitting them and taking care of the plants, simple fertilizing and how he transplanted them up here to sell them,” Mark says. “I got to researching daylilies and seeing what I liked.”
Mark now has almost 1,000 flowerbeds. He’s creative in his design. In the cross-shaped bed, the ‘Canopy of Heaven’ daylily stands almost 40 inches tall with a curly, yellow, spidery bloom. Mark is partial to those tall, spidery ones. In the bed shaped like an ice cream cone, the ‘Raspberry Candy’ daylily presents a bloom that looks like a pool of white chocolate with a raspberry-red center.
“When Sara and I got married, that first summer we moved here, we decided that we didn’t have enough daylilies,” Mark says. “So we stopped at a huge farm down in the eastern part of the state and bought 70 more and planted them behind the house. We call that the honeymoon bed, since all of the daylilies planted there were purchased on our drive home from our honeymoon.”
Wonders of the farm
Every June, the peak month in daylily season, Mark and Sara hold The Daylily Festival for people who want to come experience the farm’s beauty and Sara’s cooking.
“We bring in bluegrass music and have a neat day for the public to come out and enjoy,” Mark says. “If it’s not 95 degrees, we usually have up to a couple hundred people come to the farm that day.”
Mark parades visitors between the beds of daylilies. He introduces them to Honky the goose and Charlie the peacock; the animals came with the farm. He lets them pause and listen to the water running in the three creeks that border the property. Visitors pick out daylilies to purchase — most go for about $5, depending on the variety. They also take home Sara’s homegrown fruits and vegetables.
“While I don’t know as much, or am as crazy about, the flowers, I do know about food, so I like to educate as much as I can,” Sara says. “When people come to visit the farm, Mark educates them about the wonders of the daylilies, and I like to have them leave here a bit more sensible about where their food comes from and what they are eating.”
Mark and Sara love to share — whether it’s a Tuscan-style dinner in their backyard or a festive summer afternoon among the daylilies. Mark shares his flowers, and Sara shares her food. And together, they share their love.
Go
Millstone Meadows Daylily Farm
2595 Henderson Mill Road
Morganton, N.C. 28655
(828) 433-7126
millstonemeadowsfarm.com
Upcoming farm-to-fork dinners: April 23 and May 21.
Sarah Fauser was an editorial intern at Our State magazine in fall 2010.
Mark Hord, from the above article, is a cousin of mine. I would like very much to buy a copy of the April 2011 issue of your magazine.
Can you mail me a copy?
Address: 54 Greenleaf Terrace, Stafford, VA 22556
How much?
Sue Lawson
Hi Sue,
We do have individual issues of the magazine for sale for $7 each (that includes the cover price and shipping/handling). You can order by calling our Circulation Department at (800) 948-1409 and they’ll be happy to help you!
Thank you!
Millstone Meadows is a magical place to have a meal. The atmosphere is a perfect combination of old mountain and luxury dining.