Welcome

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Greetings! We’re getting ready for another delicious season (our 6th) of open-air dinners celebrating Connecticut’s farms, food and community. New for 2012 is the addition of Scott’s Farm & Greenhouses in Essex for eight nights in September. We’re thrilled to be able to extend our season into the fall–one of the most abundant New England seasons with a variety of both late summer and fall crops in the fields at the same time. We’re also happy to be returning to our original host farm White Gate in East Lyme whose owners Pauline Lord and David Harlow have generously hosted us since our inaugural season in 2007 and we’re happy to report that owners Kelly and Kingsley Goddard of Barberry Hill Farm in Madison, will be welcoming us back for a third year. (view photos from last season at Barberry Hill Farm.) Each farm produces a stunning array of locally grown produce allowing us to create a different six course menu every night for 24 nights.

Also new for 2012 is the addition of a fourth beneficiary: Connecticut’s Region 4 School Kitchens. We will be donating $5000 to Region 4 to help support our own Chef Peterlik’s goal of providing freshly cooked, healthy school lunches as part of his day job as Food Service Director for Region 4. Through this initiative we also hope to help promote the importance of healthy school lunches throughout the state and beyond. Plus, we will continue to support our three original beneficiaries: CitySeed, Connecticut Farmland Trust and Working Lands Alliance. We’ve donated more than $30,000 to the group. They have been true partners over the years, not just in helping with the dinners themselves but doing crucial work to further our shared goal of promoting, celebrating and supporting our CT farmers.

We hope you will join us this coming season in raising a glass to the unique men and women who put fresh, locally grown food on our tables. Without YOU after all, they would have no one to grow for and we would have no one to cook for! You are the local food movement. We look forward to seeing you down on the farm!

Jonathan Rapp and the Farm Dinner Team

Welcome to Dinners at the Farm, New England’s original farm dinner benefit series. Renewing and promoting a shared connection to local farming, seasonal cooking and great eating since 2007.

"It was one of those rare dinners that remind you of what food
really is–something sacred, emotional, beautiful, integral."

–Colin McEnroe

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Over the past five seasons, Dinners at the Farm has fed over
7,000 guests at 64 sold-out dinners, donated $79,500 and directly purchased more than $150,000 worth of food and wine from Connecticut producers.