Featured Product 
2011 Autumn Featured Product 
 This is Kenyon's signature item!  Johnny Cakes are a Rhode Island tradition.  Yet, visitors and displaced Rhode Islanders have helped increase their notoriety far beyond our tiny state.   

Johnny Cakes are a mix of Stone Ground White Corn Meal & a dash sugar and salt, combined with milk or water and cooked on a griddle.  When the Native American Indians taught the settlers how to grow corn, harvest it, and save the seed, they also taught them how to make Johnny Cakes.

The Johnny Cake Festival was created around this historically sustaining food.  Because of the information shared by the Native Americans, the colonists were able to survive. 

For details on how to get this season's featured product for FREE, click here

     

 
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2011 Autumn Newsletter

2011 Harvest/Johnny Cake Festival, Oct. 22 & 23   


October 22 & 23: Saturday & Sunday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Experience the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of autumn during this authentic, New England Harvest Celebration!  The original Johnny Cake Festival from the 1970s and '80s is on its way back.  Look below for more details!

2011 Harvest/Johnny Cake Festival, Oct. 22 & 23

 

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Enjoy a "cornucopia" of seasonal food, art and specialty products from over 75 participants, including area farms, artisans, restaurants, and businesses!  Delight in an abundance of free samples of local food, beverages, wine, sweets, and of course... Johnny Cakes!  Take a tour of the grist mill and grinding process, dance to live music, visit with the alpacas, watch a variety of demonstrations including blacksmithing, chair caning, spinning, broom making, stone carving, mosaic making, oil painting, leathersmithing, basket weaving, and pottery wheel demonstrations.  Enjoy flute playing, book signing, and watch 17th century reenactors cook Johnny Cakes the old-fashioned way... over an open fire.

Enjoy Clam Cakes, New England Clam Chowder, Roasted Corn Shrimp Chowder, chicken sandwiches with all local ingredients, wood-fired pizza, fresh baked bread, homestyle soups, pancakes, pumpkin seeds, kettle corn popcorn, corn on the cob, locally roasted coffee, local milk, chai tea lattes, apple cider, candy apples, pies with local whipped cream, creamy fudge, biscotti, cookies, cupcakes, nuts, jams, sauces, stuffed cherry peppers, pumpkins, apples, autumn veggies, and more... as well as items from over 30 artisans.  

This year, there will be an additional main stage with 6 additional musicians and a brand new event area that will expand the festival.  Enjoy wines by the glass and get a chair massage along the Queen's River and waterfall.  New food items include barbecued pulled pork, smoked apricot braised beef brisket, maple baked beans, and apple dumpling cake from Amalfi Fine Catering.  Matunuck Oyster Bar will be serving lobster rolls, oysters, shrimp, littlenecks, and Rhode Island Clam Chowder. 

Voluntary food and clothing donations will be collected to benefit the Jonnycake Center.  For more information, participant listing, featured local products, music/tour schedules, directions/parking details, and historic photos, visit
www.JohnnyCakeFestival.com

     

Johnny Cake Festival ~ Mission & History

The original Johnny Cake Festival was founded in 1973 by Paul Drumm Jr., owner of Kenyon's Grist Mill.  The event continued until 1985.  It started out as a small village fair and expanded into a nationally known festival.  Yet, even in its growth, it still remained a simple country event, run by country people, for the enjoyment of visitors from around southern New England and afar.  Click
here for older photos of the event

 

In 2009, Kenyon's Grist Mill began hosting a series of events again. These small "open house" style events grew larger in only one year.  The Harvest Festival in October was naturally the largest of them all.  Now on its third year, the Harvest/Johnny Cake Festival will merge the past with the present and take on the tradition and the name of the original Johnny Cake Festival.  


As the oldest manufacturing business in Rhode Island and the second oldest continuously operating business in the state, Kenyon's Grist Mill feels a responsibility and a passion to do business the right way and hold true to the old value of working together for a positive outcome.
  When the community helps the community, businesses help businesses and the community helps businesses, and vice versa, we are all supporting one another for a greater and stronger economy.  If you are interested in joining our efforts by volunteering, sponsoring, providing photography or any other service that will help reach the goals, please click here

     

The Big E/Eastern States Exposition

September 16 - October 2: The Eastern States Exposition, the largest fair in the northeast is going on now!  Be sure to visit Kenyon's Grist Mill in the back of the Rhode Island Building on the Avenue of States.  For over 50 years, we have been serving our famous Clam Cakes made with our Stone Ground Yellow Corn Meal, Johnny Cakes made with our Stone Ground White Corn Meal, and various chowders. Enjoy New England Clam Chowder, Rhode Island Chowder, and Roasted Corn & Shrimp Chowder in a Bread Bowl made with our very own Stone Ground Whole Wheat Flour!  To learn more about the Big E and all that it offers, click here

     

Miller's Tale ~ Sharpening the Millstones

As the weather gets colder, a miller's thoughts are consumed with maintaining the mill and sharpening the millstones.  Sharpening is a very laborious job that requires many hours and close attention.  This necessary task allows us to achieve a superb grind for our meals and flours.

In the years gone by, millers used a wide variety of hand tools, such as a mill peck, mill bill, or a hammer and chisel.  Thanks to modern invention, we now use an electric jack hammer with a tool that was designed by my father and built by my grandfather.  Though sharpening is still a time consuming project, I think back and consider what an arduous task the old way must have been.

Even in our daily lives, advancements are sometimes taken for granted.  During this recent hurricane, we were reminded to appreciate the little things.  Many people lost power, water, hot showers... and the simple pleasure of a morning cup of coffee. 

I am very thankful for all of the tools and equipment that make my job so much easier.  When the millstones have been freshly sharpened and the mill is reassembled, the grain can then pour into the hopper.  The damsel starts to click, and the runner stone spins its familiar din.  I feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when the ground meal begins to fill the barrel.  This continues the tradition and the quality that Kenyon's is known for.

In this hard economic time, it is easy to get lost in struggles, trials, and the task at hand, but perhaps we should be more thankful for what we have.  This is what the harvest season is all about - it reminds us to celebrate our bounty, large or small.
   


Sincerely,
Paul Drumm III