The garlic dinner

This last Saturday 35 guests came to the farm for a 6 course meal that celebrated the garlic harvest! We held two dinners this month the one this last Saturday and then two Saturdays prior. Both dinners were a success and went off with out a hitch. The guest were so much fun! It was so wonderful to be able to share the farm and its blessings with such amazing folks.

The dinners always start with a farm tour. I give em my spiel about how I metamorphosed from a Seattle chef to an Oklahoma farmer and what it is exactly we do here at Living Kitchen. I'm always afraid people will see my many imperfections at the farm like the barn that needs cleaning or the field that needs weeding, the random pieces of barbed wire. I definitely make an effort to clean up the hazardous stuff like the razor sharp shards of medal from the barn wall we put up last winter, but if folks see these things they don't say much, I think its pretty obvious were not out here eating bon bons (I want one now). I hope they see a real honest to goodness working farm. I hope they see the beauty of such things as manure and weeds, I hope they see the community we create together by sharing these meals.

I truly look forward to these evenings, I mean as a chef I get to cook with the most amazing food. Vegetables I've started from seed and lamb that I raise and oversaw its health and safety and the grass it grazed on. Cooking like this renews my commitment to the natural world, renews my sense of purpose and care for the soil and the land and the animals I share it with. It brings it all together for me. I would so eat a bon bon right now if I could.