2nd Annual Farm to Table Dinner

This past Saturday we had our 2nd Annual Farm to Table Dinner Fundraiser for the market. It was a beautiful way to kick off fall and we couldn't have asked for better weather. After all of the heat of the summer it was refreshing to have a crisp sunny fall day to have our dinner. You may be wondering where all of the pictures are from the night.....well I am going to have to gather some from other members of the market because I did not stop to take a single picture. So I will have to rely on my words to describe this beautiful night.

As you drove up the long drive to Nitty Gritty Dirt Farm you first saw beautiful aprons blowing in the breeze along the fence of the party area. Then as you got a little closer the tables were gorgeous with white linens and antlers, hedge apples, and mason jars full of flowers or with candles in them as center pieces. Each plate had a menu for the dinner and a colorful wrapped bar of soap as their favor to take home. It smelled wonderful! There were fires set up in case you got a little cool. You could help yourself to drinks of all varieties and some yummy appetizers to start!

The appetizers included:

• Honey Muffins
• Sesame Crackers
• Variety of Goatcheese
• Tortilla chips and salsa
• Arugula Pesto with Toasted French Bread
• Sliced Vegetables

Is your mouth watering, yet! YUM! These were fantastic and as I was greeting people as they came in I couldn't ever actually see the appetizer table because it was always surrounded with people. I think they all enjoyed these tasty starters! 

I have to take a minute to talk about the kids at the dinner. JA and Cathy had a zipline up for the kids to play on and talk about fun! Our kids started playing on it at about 3 and it was in constant use until the dinner was over around 8:30. So the background music for our dinner was the zip of the zipline and the laughter of the kids. It just doesn't get any better than that in my book! 

We had a fabulous solo musician/singer for our dinner. Noah Earle played delightful music and everyone enjoyed the easy listening songs all night long. He had quite a few songs that he whistled in and that was amazing. Noah's wife and two boys joined us for the dinner! We are so grateful that they took time to join us for the dinner. 

After everyone had some time to enjoy the appetizers and drinks we asked everyone to take their seats and the dinner began. We started dinner with a roasted butternut squash soup served by all of our wonderful vendors to the guests! 

Then it was time for the main course and it went a little like this: 

• Smoked Beef Roast
• Grilled Lamb Kabobs
• Grilled Vegetables
• Green Beans
• Corn Casserole
• Scalloped Potatoes
• Baked Potatoes
• Three Seed and Honey Oat Bread with homemade butter and jelly 

Amazing! That is the only way to describe the main course! After all of that goodness you have to finish it off with dessert. Nothing says fall like apple crumb pie and that is what was for dessert along with cheesecake drizzled with honey! YUM! 

It was a beautiful night and I am so glad that we got to share it with all of you that came to the dinner! I promise to add some pictures on here of the event when I get them. For now check out our facebook page to see a few. 

I have few special thank yous to send out. 

• Thank you to all of the vendors....you all work so hard all year long to make our market amazing and then donate, cook, bake, and so much more for the dinner annually. There would not be an event without each of you!
• Thank you to JA and Cathy Johnmeyer for hosting this year! It was a beautiful setting!  
• Joseph did all of the decorations and worked for weeks putting it all together and it looked spectacular. He isn't much for crowds so he didn't stick around long enough for me to thank him in one of my speeches. 
• We also had some volunteer cooks that worked their magic on the meats. Jim smoked all of the roast and it was delicious! James was the grill master for the night and the kabobs and vegetables were perfect! 
• Thank you to Noah Earle for coming out and providing the music for this years event. 
• Thank you to John for letting us borrow your hotbox and serving sets! We couldn't do it without all of those pieces. 
• A special thanks to Les Bourgeois Winery and Bushwhacker Bend Winery for donating wine to our event and for Anheuser Busch for donating the beer for the event. 

A little rain goes a long way....

I remember opening day of the market this year we were worried that we were going to get rained out and I remember praying that it would stop raining by 3 so we could have market and all of our fun activities! If we had known then that we wouldn't get another good rain until September our prayers would have been a little different. This summer season has been hot and it seemed like Tuesday, our market day was consistently the hottest day of the week. The heat was relentless, but despite the weather our amazing farmers have had a bountiful crop of veggies and fruits this year along with filling their table with homemade goodies, meats and cheeses! The heat and dryness made the grasses brown and flowers have died, but thanks to good irrigation systems the farmers have maintained their crops. As I was driving into work today I was looking around and everywhere you look it is green. Three months of no rain is washed away with a good weekend of rain. Plants are amazing to sustain in the dry and then thrive in times of rain. Thank you to each vendor at the market that has worked so hard this year to keep their plants alive and have come out each week in the heat to make our market a great place to be on Tuesdays! As the summer season moves into fall I hope you all come out these last few weeks to support our local farmers because they work really hard to bring you the very best of their farms each week!