As It Should Be

Danielle French vividly recalls the day she became a country girl. When she moved to Pontypool in the Southernmost tip of Kawartha Lakes with her four daughters in 2008 and opened South Pond Farms, she made a meal with fresh eggs, green and red tomatoes, homemade bread and homemade jam. “I felt like I had really arrived in the country — everything on the plate was something we grew.”

French took that mantra, added a little jazz music, sat hungry patrons at long tables inside her barn and opened the doors. That’s how her sought-after farmhouse brunches were born. Those long tables have become the place to be when in cottage country and those lazy mid-morning meals last for hours, but they’re meant to — “brunch should be a time of lingering at the table,” she says.

South Pond started as a small food-delivery business and grew into a popular event space with gardens, fields and a refurbished barn. French’s journey is documented in the Netflix documentary series, Taste of the Country.

But for French — first and foremost — it’s home.

It’s the home she shared many breakfast meals with her daughters after decamping from the hustle and bustle of Toronto. And though a little less grand than her farmhouse brunches, French’s early rituals haven’t changed even as her older daughters moved away. She wakes up at 5:30 a.m., starts the fires in winter or watches the sun rise in summer, then cooks up a breakfast of those fresh farm eggs (soft-boiled) with a slice of toast for dipping before sending her youngest off to school. “That’s my perfect morning.”

South Pond Farms
1020 Gray Rd., Pontypool, Ont.
southpondfarms.ca | 705.277.1649 | @southpondfarms