Learn to live off the land in this 3 day workshop and retreat in a mountain lodge. Experience the beauty of the Laurel Highlands while learning to forage, grow and preserve your own food!
Enjoy meals from wild and homegrown ingredients made by Jordan, Silvan, and chef Samantha Freda
You’ll stay in a spacious lodge nestled in the heart of the Laurel Highlands, a mountain region in Pennsylvania known for its crystal clear streams and waterfalls, dense forests, and cozy valleys.
We’ll discuss how to transform these ingredients into delicious and nourishing meals, or preserve them to enjoy later.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner will be provided.
In between foraging and plant identification walks, cooking demonstrations, and workshops, there will be plenty of downtime for relaxing, yoga, or enjoying the outdoors.
Jordan first began foraging with his parents as a kid, although they didn’t necessarily think of it as foraging at the time. The first wild food he learned to collect was the leaves of grape vines for making warak enab or stuffed grape leaves, a Syrian delicacy. Growing up on the edge of the New Jersey Pine Barrens where the woods are filled with wild blueberries and blackberries, Jordan and his friends would gobble them by the handful over Summer break and cook them into jam with the help of his mom.
Inspired by his love of the natural world, Jordan studied biology with a focus on ecology and environmental science at the University of North Carolina. There he met Silvan while volunteering at a community garden and together they have been foraging, growing food and building a life together for over a decade. One of Jordan’s greatest passions in life is sharing knowledge about living with the land and connecting with folks who aspire to live similarly.
Silvan has loved the outdoors for basically her whole life (as evident by her creating a club as a six-year-old called “Nature Freaks for Free”). She grew up exploring the clay-rich soils of the North Carolina piedmont through hiking, foraging, swimming in creeks, and helping her mom in their vegetable garden. As a high schooler she worked on a small organic farm and became hooked on watching plants grow and helping to harvest them.
At the University of North Carolina she studied Biology and co-led a community garden, where she met Jordan! Since moving to Pittsburgh, she has been a farm manager at an urban agriculture non-profit, where she runs a demonstration farm, low-cost farm stand, and teaches workshops to adults and youth.
Homegrown Handgathered: Jordan and Silvan started Homegrown Handgathered as a way to showcase sustainable living especially through foraging and growing food. We believe that living off the land is a community effort so our goal is not only to connect with our environment, but also with each other.
Sam has been serving people food since she can remember. Toasting baskets of bread at her father’s breakfast restaurant when she could barely reach the counter, and her first “job” at her grandfather’s hot dog cart on the beach. Sam’s fondest memory is those summer mornings as a child, chopping onions on the porch with her grandmother and driving to the Italian bakery with her Pop to pick up rolls.
As a teenager and all through college she served in high-end restaurants affording her over a decade of experience in upscale dining. Despite this love for food, Sam actually majored in Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina, after which she worked as a journalist both domestically and abroad.
She eventually returned to America and helped her father grow a small restaurant into a thriving local chain with eight locations she managed. This is where she really learned how to cook under pressure, so she took that experience and opened her own restaurant– Soma Café. Besides being a daytime bistro, Soma offered monthly supper clubs and wellness events. It was an intentional gathering space for those looking to eat healthy and build community in a small town.
That concept of community, combined with her experience in food service and traveling abroad, evolved into Soma Wellness Retreats. Sam’s very first retreat was actually in Champion, PA where Jordan came out to take guests on a foraging hike! Since relocating to the Pacific Northwest, her offerings have expanded to include yoga, journaling circles, women’s gatherings & more. Soma has thrived and grown into everything Sam imagined and more. Still staying true to it’s original meaning: Simple. Organic. Mindful. Alignment.