On Thursday, July 15, Seattle Met photographer Lindsay Borden and I had the chance to head out of town on a blazing hot summer afternoon and check out a dinner produced by Outstanding in the Field. It all went down at Full Circle Farm, an organic veggie farm in Carnation. (You’ve no doubt perused Full Circle greens at the farmers market.) The 150-odd guests were treated to a full farm tour by farmer Andrew Stout, wine from Woodinville winery Chatter Creek, and a four-course feast that stretched over several sunburn-inducing hours.
The deal with Outstanding in the Field is that a bunch of high-energy hippie types bus around the country, stopping at farms and other scenic sites to set up multicourse dinners prepared by local chefs. Sounds fun, I know, but they worked hard. From prepping the table to hand-washing the dishes at a makeshift station, the crew never really stopped moving. Or smiling. And the work paid off: They pulled off a pretty much perfect event, and you get the feeling it happens like that every time. I would highly recommend checking out one of the dinners when the bus swings through town next summer.
Laurie Riedeman of Elemental@Gasworks was the chef at Full Circle. She grilled up salmon and pork alongside fresh-picked organic veggies grown on the premises. It was a hot day and Riedeman only had a few grills to cook on, but if the chef was stressed she hid it well behind her witness-protection-program sunglasses. Truly she was the picture of calm, and the meal she presented was a perfect triumph of simple summer fare―carrots still crunchy but exquisitely sweet, juicy cuts of pork, technicolor pink sockeye that slid of the fork and seemed to (pardon the cliche) melt in your mouth. All in all, it was a pretty delicious evening down on the farm.
Enjoy the show.
Published: August 2010
Love the pics! Now I’m starving, I doubt Whole Foods will do justice