This past Sunday I went to one of the most delightful dinners of my life. It was put on by a group called Outstanding In The Field. The group’s founder is Jim Denevan, who while working as a chef back in 1996, started doing farmer dinners at his restaurant to connect the folks who eat food with the farmers who grow the food. They were so well received, that a few years later he decided to take the dinners out into the field—literally. He has now done 163 dinners with the purpose of “re-connecting diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it.”
Our dinner was at a farm just south of Nashville, called Arugula’s Star Farm, in Columbia TN. After drinks (a lovely prosecco tea), and a tour of the farm, we marched down a path by the stream to a long white table-cloth-draped table. As we proceeded in, we grabbed a plate from a stack of mismatched dinnerware, and sat down.
For me, the meal was lovely not because it was set outside on a farm, or because the food was delicious (I’ve had lots of fabulous meals), or even because the food was local (lots of chefs source local ingredients), but because of the folks I shared it with—a group who not only wanted to be there, but who love food, appreciate the earth where it comes from, and love the community it brings together. The meal was served family-style among the 8 people sitting closest to me. As we passed the serving bowls, we talked about the food, our kids, our jobs, the evening, our pasts, and our futures. As the night wore on, cards and emails were exchanged. Not surprisingly, phones were used for photos of the food, each other, the hosts, the servers, and the table—but surprisingly only for the occasional call home.
You can go to their website, http://www.outstandinginthefield.com/about.html, for a schedule of dinners for the rest of the year. However don’t delay, ours was sold out.
Here’s what we ate, which was prepared by Nashville chef
Martha Stamps.
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