I was lucky to attend a pre­view of The Singhampton Project—an intrigu­ing food, art and gar­den extrav­a­ganza planned for August at Michael Stadtländer’s Eigensinn Farm out­side of Toronto. (Eigensinn in German means ”single-mindedness” or ”obsti­nacy’) The farm is a com­pletely sur­pris­ing mix of the rus­tic, slightly odd, enchant­ing and prac­ti­cal. The rus­tic is a col­lec­tion of seat­ing and din­ing areas dot­ted through­out the prop­erty made entirely of reclaimed wood and pal­lets, the slightly odd is a mas­sive bar­beque sprout­ing antlers, and a grassy laneway fes­tooned with long bor­ders of count­less wine bot­tles on either side. That’s a lot of wine. The enchant­ing is the mix of reclaimed pot­tery and rusted farm imple­ments mak­ing up the sculp­tures, and out­door cook­ing devices.  The prac­ti­cal is the tossed oys­ter shells on the roof of the dubbed Oyster Temple of Love, fat tree trunk stools in a wooded glen, a com­pletely func­tion­ing kitchen with a wood fire in the mid­dle of a for­est, and sim­ple boards and shells as serv­ing dishes.

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