Farm to Table Fundraiser

Out in the fields

My environmental committee, locally known as the Green Team, recently hosted the only local farm to table event in our bucolic corner of the White Mountains.






Village Trolley takes visitors from farm to farm.

This annual event, our second, was designed to highlight the importance of eating locally grown food, a concept originally championed on the West Coast by Alice Waters. Per person tickets were $125 including an optional four farm tour, pre-dinner cocktails made with locally distilled Cold River Vodka, a four course menu prepared exclusively with locally produced vegetables, fruit, farm raised meat, poultry and dairy products. Local wines were served with each course; after dinner local cheeses and port completed the meal.

The family farm tours were of great interest. Each family highlighted their special crops, their particular sustainable farming methods, rotational planting, water saving methods, animal husbandry, etc. People could buy product, play with animals, view sheep dogs at worki, get up close and personal with animals, learn more about how food can be grown in a healthy, sustainable and chemically free manner and why it's important to buy local.




We hosted 100 happy diners in a huge tented dining area out on the farm fields enhanced by music, dancing and great food prepared by four local chefs.





Individually designed adirondack chairs were auctioned off for charity in our "Art A Ron Dack" auction. Chairs were purchased by sponsors and designs were done by local artists who donated their talent.












Three of the forty artistically designed Adirondacks

The jolly wait staff made everything special

Through Their Eyes

We have just spent an incredible week with a pair of friends we've known since high school. They flew from the warmth of Southern Cal to the frigid cold of New Hampshire to visit. Actually, they lucked out. The weather, hitherto in the single digits, had hit the high twenties/low thirties by the time they arrived and stayed that way their entire visit. My friend from high school is an avid skiier, as is my husband. I no longer ski because I need a knee replacement and his wife doesn't either. Soooo, the menfolk went skiing almost every day and we shopped, read our books, went out to eat, etc. Every night we'd have bottles of nice wine and laugh and feel like we did when we were sixteen, except for our aches and pains. The wine did much to kill the aches and pains however. The most interesting part of their trip came when we'd take a drive and listen to their comments about our part of the world. They loved the cozy quaint towns, the "charming" architecture, the unspoiled beauty of the White Mountains, the lovely old churches, the cool shoppes, etc. My husband and I saw our own world through our friends and it was a, pardon the pun, eye-opener.

We all take for granted the things we have and the beauty we see when we see it every day. I remember when I was young, single and living in San Diego near Mission Bay, I would drive to work each morning along the water and think "I am the luckiest person in the world!" I remember thinking that when I lived in Richmond, Va. and would travel to D.C. on business and pass all the great monuments, federal buildings, memorials, etc. I remember thinking that when my children were small. I remember thinking that when I moved here. I remember telling myself I would never take it for granted. But I do.

I woke up this morning and the sun was shining on the snow and the temperature, though frigid, seemed less daunting and I felt energy I hadn't felt in a long while. I think the visit my friends paid us did that for me. And, boy, am I grateful.

Early Morning on the Wildcat

photo by SKI 9