Thanks to Hidden Stream Farm's mailing letter, I just got wind of Tour de Farm, which is the new way I'm thinking of organizing my summer. My mouth is already watering from the simple idea of heading out the local area farms 4 Sunday afternoons this summer (from June 7 - October 4, as far from the Twin Cities as Sanigaw, MN (near Duluth) and as close as Glencoe), to be served the freshest possible food made by some of the Twin Cities' best chefs from the Craftsman, The Strip Club, Heartland, and New Scenic Cafe (in Duluth).
The menu will be custom designed (based on the best ingredients from the farm, natch), paired with wine, and served outside on the farm. Total price for the 4-5 course meals is $85 per person, and you can sign up for any of them individually at Tour de Farm. It's Minnesota's ultimate local, sustainable, delicious meal. Tour de Farm is the brainchild of Corner Table's Scott Pampuch, whose Tour de Farm blog describes how it came to be (this is just a short excerpt):
I can’t express how excited I am about this summer. We are going to be visiting four different farms and celebrating all the hard work that they do year round... It all started in having family meal in a field at 1am [...] There is a restaurant tradition of family meal. Some restaurants do pre-shift, others do post-shift. This was about the most amazing family meal ever. We were all cleaning after a long night, and then there were two tables left standing in the field and we put together some food and wine and just sat under the stars are talked food, politics, craft vs. art, etc…
This is where I think the inspiration started. I remember Dave Minar, of Cedar Summit, asking to me at the dinner, if I would be interested in helping do something like this locally. “Sure.” I said. That night sitting at the restaurant after this long and beautiful day, sitting on the front steps of Corner Table, the staff and I joked about having a dinner right in the middle of Nicollet Avenue and shutting down traffic. Then about two weeks after the event, Eric and Lisa Klein came to me and asked, “How did Outstanding in the Field go? Do you think something like this could happen locally?"
