Harvest Dinner
The bounty of the garden has been taken from the ground and put onto plates. A whole lot of plates. Our third annual harvest dinner was served up last Tuesday to 120 hungry guests at the Roadhouse. Tomatoes had the largest presence, but our heirloom peppers and potatoes represented themselves pretty well. We oven roasted San Marzano romas at a low temperature for a long time to make the perfect sweet and colorful roasted tomato, and made it even better by stuffing it with blackfin tuna from Tobago. We hollowed out squash and made room for house made lamb sausage, and sliced cucumbers thin for a creamy fresh salad. We actually took three different types of our potatoes (german butter balls, kennebecs, and pontiac reds) and hand cut them for french fries. We then challenged our guests to decide which one was the favorite, and that one will be grown in massive quantities for the restaurant next year. We also steamed the taters for an amazing potato salad… The pepper were all over in different dishes, but I was most excited by the heirloom pimento cheese. Pimento cheese is a southern specialty already on our menu (cheddar, mayo, roasted red peppers, cayenne), but we took it a step further by making it with our hot hungarian wax peppers, red and yellow hinkelhotz, and an appropriately named amish cheese pepper. The flavors blew me away! The heat was definitely at the front, but continued to linger on the tongue. We did not even need to use cayenne to add spice! At the end of the huge buffet was our raw bar of heirloom tomatoes (and me). We had ten different varieties that I sliced to order so that you could sample varietals side by side to compare flavor profiles. We also had house made fresh mozzarella, basil from the garden, a vast selection of American olive oils, and plenty of Portugese sea salad to make fantastic caprese salads, just the way you like them. There were, of course, much more- a gigantic sundae bar, peach cobbler, blueberry grunt, bean salads, sweet carrots…… I will post the menu as incentive to make your reservation now for next year!!
Christine Darragh said,
August 29, 2007 @ 12:27 pm
We got two guest comments about the dinner, which now seems like a month ago, but was only one week. They raved, really raved, about the dinner. Here are their comments:
“We are so pleased to be a part of a community that not only promotes an exceptional dining experience, but also one that is forward thinking and concerned about the local and global footprint we leave on this earth. We have always enjoyed the many Zingerman’s businesses and experiences, but this one was particularly outstanding. Thank you for the care and passion that you bring to your creations and for sharing it with all of us.”
Another guest raved,
“Tuesday was a very special night. For all of us who strongly believe in what you are doing, it was very heartening that your philosophy, your skill, your passion and you personally have such a strong following in the community….The dinner proved what I had been suspecting for a while: your own carbon footprint must be very high because your passion is burning at much more than 40,000 BTU’s. It was a great privilege for me to share your hospitality and extraordinary work both on the farm and in the kitchen. Thank you.”