The
weather was picture perfect for this year’s Field to Fork Dinner. Our guests
thoroughly enjoyed the open space, green grass, brown cows, delicious food and
a sense of community. We can take
our farm for granted now and then so we love having a chance to share what we
have and to gain a new perspective.
When
we open registration, we immediately save places for the apprentices at
Colchester Farm CSA. This year all three
apprentices, Taylor, Emily and Keifer, joined us. I asked them to write about their impressions
of the dinner and how they felt knowing they grew and harvested much of the
food served. Taylor shared the following
and Emily took many of the photos.
Our days are spent out in the fields of our small-scale, local farm operation, where we use organic practices (our hands mostly) to tend a great diversity of crops that change throughout the year with the seasons. We all came to work at Colchester out of a desire to better learn where our food comes from and to better understand the benefits and challenges that locally based farmers experience. One very important benefit we see from small-scale, local agricultural productions is the opportunity for an actual relationship between the farmer and the consumer, between the person growing the food and the one eating it.
Thanks to everyone for their support in making this year's dinner a huge success!
There are so many people in a great diversity of professions that contribute to the food system today, and the Field to Fork dinner was a great place to see that diversity. Farmers, politicians, restaurant owners, educators and more all came together to celebrate the food we all have made a profession out of creating and supporting. For us specifically, it was exciting to see people enjoying the vegetables we've grown this year, with tender love and care, like the arugula and sweet potatoes. Only through local connections within our food economy do we have the opportunity to see the full journey of our produce, from the planting of seeds to the eating of delicious crops. For us this was truly a field to fork dinner. We’re grateful for the opportunity to be a part of the dinner and to enjoy our food in a setting that brought so many people together in a sense of celebration and comradery that only happens best when people share good food.
