Thursday, September 25, 2014

The Farmers Dinner

Sunday night I had the fabulous opportunity to attend the Farmers Dinner in Nashua, NH.  The Farmers Dinner is a great organization that features farm to table dinners at various restaurants in NH.  This dinner was unique because the City of Nashua closed Main St so the dinner was in the middle of the street!  The local restaurants took local ingredients from farmers and prepared a delicious six course dinner.  There was live music and wonderful fall decorations.  



This dinner featured local food from Kimballs Farm and Brookdale Farm.  The restaurants included Estabrook Grill, Peddler's Daughter, Riverside Barbecue, Stella Blu, MT Local, Andrew Thistle, and Villa Banca.  Each meal was carefully paired with a beer or wine.  The wine was from Fulchino Vineyard and the beer included 603 Brewery, Peak Organic, and beer from Martha's Exchange.  The restaurant staff and volunteers worked so hard to make this dinner great.  I heard they began roasting pigs in the street at 2am!



Take a look at these apps!  Caprese salad from Kimballs Farm with handmade ricotta and an herb pistou.  I like the twist with the ricotta instead of the traditional mozzarella.  The second course was a potato frittata with onion jam and romesco sauce topped with a pork rind.  It was crazy to think that pork rind was part of a pig early that morning.  I really enjoyed the onion jam because of the nutmeg, a lovely fall flavor.  And next was harvest ratatouille with zucchini cakes and warm parmesan foam.  I can't wait to make this next dish because the recipe was in our gift bags!  At this point, I was stuffed, however the next dish was a cleansing course.  Watermelon and heirloom tomato gazpacho with pine needle tzatziki.  Such interesting flavors with sweetness of watermelon.

The main course, roasted pig from Brookdale Farm with charred onions and apple sauce, grilled polenta, peppers, and collard greens.  I loved getting the apple sauce flavor with the pork and the collard greens were probably my most favorite part of the meal.  They were spicy which I love, but went great with the pork.



And finally the dessert.  I am not sure how I physically ate all of this, but I did.  Apple bread pudding with Jake's Local Ice Cream.  The pudding went great paired with the caramel sauce and there was even a hard piece of caramel on top of the ice cream.  A great way to end a great dinner.



I don't live close enough to New Hampshire to frequent these events, but they are worth going to if you get the opportunity.  And if you live near or in New Hampshire, check out the website and get tickets to the next dinner.  You won't be disappointed!

    

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