Cooking and Farming (specializing in stout brews and special leaf crossbreeds, and pie, of course.

Sarsaparila Stoutheart affectionately known by family and friends as Sass,(short for Sassafras), hails from South Farthing His parents, Shandy and Stella Stoutheart, like many good-hearted hobbits believe in the comforts of home and the joy of good food, strong drink, and even better friends. The Stouthearts, being long time crop-tenders and cooks are well-known for their generosity: always ready for company with a hearty meal, fine drink, flavorful leaf and welcoming words.

Sarsaparila’s life was simple: hard work, followed by good drink, even better food, and the best company, and for awhile it was enough. Most hobbits, in his circumstances, would be content joyfully gardening, listening to stories of wine and leaf and dancing nightly, but Sarsaparila was not most hobbits. Though he could bake a tart and brew a bold stout beer that would delight and satisfy the hungriest of guests and loved to see the warmth on their faces when he proffered them the greenest pipeweed leaf, he found himself eventually eavesdropping more than harvesting, and longing to hear tales of dragons and battles in far-away lands, the ones he thought to be like those of “Mad Baggins.” He desired nothing more than to be a gardener of the land, but an unfamiliar land, beyond South Farthing.

One day, quite unexpectedly and against the advice of his parents and cousins, with a pack of lembas and a spiced apple pie baked just that morning, a skin of Old Winyards, and a few small, but possibly necessary items, Sarsaparila left South Farthing by way of an unnamed road to Sarn Ford seeking with an open heart whatever adventure would find him, though admittedly, he mostly expected those adventurers to be gardening, mixing herbs and harvesting leaf in new lands. As he shouldered his pack, Sarsaparila was excited and anxious but mostly grateful: grateful for the stories that incited the passion for adventure within him, grateful for the possibility of new discoveries beyond the fields he knew, and grateful that his parents had taught him that home is wherever there is love. --a hobbit with a stout heart indeed.