Note: This was originally published on July 10, 2015 and having been reminded by a Facebook post in memories I decided to include it in the Golden Dish again since it’s so terribly apt for today, seven years later showing that fine cooking is timeless and still relevant without all the hoopla that swirls around our culinary scene today.
The food world is under siege with trendiness. Fried chicken has become an artisanal super-star. The rarest tomato, the sustainable fish fillet, the rigors of omikase and Asian panache–even pizza are elevated to otherworldly stardom. Canned food is left in the dust unless you can it yourself at a farm table in the middle of your highfalutin country kitchen. Then there’s the whole wide world of farm-to-table as though it were something really novel when in fact it’s how the world used to eat simply and well: food from the field—unprocessed, unadulterated, fair and fresh.
Then there’s the barn supper, a hot ticket nowadays where we pay up well over $100 per person for a famous chef who’s taken off his gloves and toque to get down and dirty with “real” food sent simply to the table in a setting that looks tailor made for a Ralph Lauren ad.
But last night’s dinner—the barn supper held weekly on summer eves at Turner Farm–the lush 300-acre spread hugging the famed coastline of the Fox Island Thoroughfare, on North Haven Island some 12 miles out to sea–rises from the phoenix as one of Maine’s most beautiful island events.
Except for an hors d’oeuvre of figs from away holding the stuffing of North Haven pork sausage made at the farm, just about everything was locally sourced. This is de facto barn fare produced on a real farm (OK it’s better classed as a gentleman’s spread where the cost of running it has no limit) with diners who did look like they were plucked from central casting to populate a Ralph Lauren ad, a Martha Stewart world of fine dining posh.
I’ve been to these barn suppers several times in the last few years, and I think this one was one of its best. The menu was so simple prepared by cook (she doesn’t like to be referred to as chef) Amanda Hallowell of Nebo Lodge and so perfectly assembled and served that every course was enlightened and fine.
Some 75 diners culled from the affluent, affable summer colony on North Haven as well as visitors from the mainland who take the farm’s boat called the Equinox to the island for dinner, sat around a 100-foot long assemblage of tables to delectate on simplicity. I’ve heard that future dinners are booked solid for the rest of the summer.
Cocktails were served at 5:30 by a staff as good looking as the workforce of star caterers, who were in fact local talent. The drink—not a mixologist’s fantasy– was a perfect blending.
The drink—not a mixologist’s fantasy– was a perfect blending of vodka, rosemary lemonade and sparkling water served in a mix of vintage crystal and jelly jars. With cocktails were trays of those stuffed dates, cumin dusted grilled local chicken marinated in the farm’s yogurt and harissa hummus and a creamy dip next to baskets of homemade pita toasts.
Once at table an hour later, it held platters of pickled carrots with fennel, fresh pita, olive oil and port balsamic. Another set of trays arrived bearing local cucumbers olives and the farm’s goat cheese feta. The final nibble before the main course was slices of broccoli-feta pie with flecks of pine nuts.