Growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, I have had my share of back-to-the-land experiences, including cooking at the Hog Farm, Wavy Gravy’s New Mexico field of dreams. (The residents were mostly wide-eyed city kids who didn’t know how to bank a woodstove or cook brown rice.)

So, what a surprise that near Brașov in Romania, I met Corina Bozgali and Ioana Gherghel, who had quit the fast lane in midlife to found HOF Hărman, a culinary and eco-­tourist mini-farm where Cat Stevens would make the ideal soundtrack. Gherghel is straight out of central casting—stocky, powerful and charming, with a touch of gray and perfectly at home shredding cabbage on a giant mandoline. Bozgali is the quiet one, a former banker, willowy and well-spoken—and full of the quiet effervescence of a woman who is pursuing her dream.

Properties in this part of Romania are deep and narrow—their backyard runs for 100 yards or more behind the main L-shaped housing complex (orange-tiled roof and solar panels) with greenhouses, geese, ducks and chickens. In the large, modern kitchen, our cooking lesson began with an unusual offering, a meringue-­topped rhubarb cake, prăjitură cu rubarbă.

The cake batter is made by whisking together eggs, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest, oil and milk, then adding flour. Semolina is sprinkled over the batter in the pan, ostensibly to soak up any juices from the fruit, and topped with previously frozen rhubarb. Baked for a half hour and then topped with a pillowy meringue, it goes back into the oven to finish.

Back at Milk Street, our first thought was that rhubarb is highly seasonal and offers little in the way of strong fruit flavor, so we pivoted to 2 cups of pitted cherries, halved and briefly macerated both to sweeten and to draw off excess juices that might turn the cake soggy. A springform pan is easier to unmold than a regular baking pan. The meringue, which is added after the initial cooking, has to be applied gingerly, dolloped in several spots, not just in the center.

This meringue cake is a three-part winner, but so are Bozgali and Gherghel. They have merged the homestead spirit of the 1970s with good business sense and an artful hand in the kitchen. To quote Cat Stevens, “You say you wanna start something new … I hope you make a lot of nice friends out there.”

I can vouch for at least one friend who was well-fed and well-met.

Step-By-StepMeringue-Topped Cake with Cherries

Meringue-Topped Cake with Cherries

Christopher Kimball

Christopher Kimball is founder of Milk Street, which produces Milk Street Magazine, Milk Street Television on PBS, and the weekly public radio show Milk Street Radio. He founded Cook’s Magazine in 1980 and was host and executive producer of America’s Test Kitchen until 2016. Kimball is the author of several books, including "The Yellow Farmhouse" and "Fannie’s Last Supper."