By Abigail Worthing
Staff Writer

ARUNDEL – On a cold Sunday afternoon, locals gathered at Frinklepod Farm to learn how to forage in the ever-changing Maine woods.
Frinklepod Farm was established in 2012 by Flora Brown and Noah Wentworth. Located on Campground Road in Arundel, the farm operates a year-round farmers market, housed outside in the summer and inside “The Pod” in the winter months.
The winter farmers market operates Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

This is the second winter that Frinklepod Farm has utilized “The Pod,” a space built to be a storefront and community space.
Walking inside The Pod, the cozy store is stocked with baskets of seasonal fruits and vegetables, as well as other handmade goods displayed on tables and nesting in baskets. Lining the right wall are refrigerators with seasonal offerings, featuring items such as homemade applesauce and pasta sauces.
The items available change with the harvest, and in the summertime they serve up “frinklepops,” popsicles made with the farm-fresh fruit, featuring flavors like blueberry watermelon and strawberry coconut cream.

The Pod also features a coffee and sandwich bar attached to a commercial kitchen, which features coffee, sandwiches and juices made to order. A staircase off the bar leads you to the 600-square-foot community space above, where light streams in from the bank of windows looking out onto the fields of the four-acre farm.
On one end of the space are armchairs and bookshelves, a haven for those enjoying a snack from the downstairs cafe.
Brown has long taught cooking classes in the area, formerly hosting her workshops at The New School in Kennebunk.

With the opening of The Pod, Brown has been able to bring her classes on site, offering a variety of fruit-and-vegetable-forward classes throughout the year. Most classes are vegan or vegetarian, allowing for the star of the dishes to be the vegetables.
“I want people to see that there can be healthy and easy plant-based meals,” said Brown, who has taught these cooking classes for the past eight years.
Between Jan. 20 and April 24 there are 11 cooking classes hosted at The Pod, with themes such as Date Night, Meet Your Mock Meat and Dairy Free Cheese. According to Brown, the classes are very popular and have a tendency to sell out.
“I think it’s important that these classes are filling up, because it shows that there is a need in the community,” Brown said.

On Sunday, Jan. 27, Frinklepod Farm hosted a class titled Foraging Through The Seasons, with Lisa Willey teaching her first class.
Tickets for the class were $30 and 10 students came to learn about foraging in the forests of Maine. The front of the class was set up with foraged items to be sampled by the class, with different types of team, tinctures made of mushrooms and homemade jam made from Queen Anne’s lace.

Willey discussed the different types of mushrooms that were available to be foraged in the Maine woods, as well as what kinds should be left alone. The class listened intently, asking questions about drying and consuming the foraged items and Willey showing her obvious knowledge of the subject.
When discussing seeds, Willey pulled out a jar and shook it, enthusiastically declaring her love for the acorns that cover the forest floors. She prompted the class about their knowledge of acorns, asking if anyone had ever eaten one. When the class admitted they had not, her enthusiasm grew.
“I love that. I love that you’re looking at me like ‘what?’,” Willey said, shaking the jar of acorns for effect. “I eat all kinds of acorns.”

Willey went on to detail how to prepare acorn flour, describing how to boil and roast the acorns before grinding them into powder for the flour. Willey even came equipped with her iron specialty almond cracker, which she proudly boasted she baked and sold whoopie pies to buy.

The class on foraging fits well into the seasonality-focused Frinklepod Farm. The farm runs a farm meal kits program, where $20 will buy you a box with the ingredients to make a heart two-person vegetarian mean. Current options include pasta supremo and Indian lentil dal with garlic spelt flatbread. This allows individuals or families to cook an easy farm-based meal.
The farm accepts SNAP and EBT benefits and is the process of joining the senior farm share program through the USDA to provide fresh produce to seniors.
For more information about Frinklepod Farms and the classes it offers, visit www.frinklepodfarm.com.

Contact Staff Writer Abigail Worthing at news@kennebunkpost.com.

Lisa Willey shows the Foraging Through the Seasons class a jar of acorns, a favorite seed to forage in the fall. Willey went on to describe how to make flour out of the staple seed. (Abigail Worthing photo)