STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
It’s a pop-up dinner. And its mission is to bring the table to the farm to enable people to get closer to where their food comes from.
The Local Food Alliance calls it “The Elevated Table” and it will take place on Friday, Sept. 15, in a picturesque field south of Bellevue. It’s the inaugural fundraiser dinner for Local Food Alliance, which seeks to connect people with their food growers.
“Unlike so many fundraising dinners where you use food to benefit causes like the animal shelter or YMCA, this dinner has everything to with food,” said Ali Long, LFA founder. “We want to connect people with their food and where it comes from. And the money we raise will be used to create a resilient local and regional food system in the Wood River Valley.”
The event starts at 5 p.m. at Kraay’s Market & Garden. Attendees will be offered appetizers prepared by Al McCord and the Wood River Sustainability Center, music by acoustic singer/songwriter Kevin Ware and a short farm tour offered by Sherry and Larry Kraay.
Christina Giordani of RoadBars will serve up cocktails made with spirits distilled at Ketchum’s Warfield Distillery and fresh fruits and herbs from local farms.
“For instance, she plans to prepare a cocktail shrub using sour cherries from Squash Blossom Farm and preserved the old fashioned way with a tiny bit of vinegar,” said Long.
Following a short farm tour, attendees will walk to a long table tucked away in the field. The concept is modeled after Outstanding in the Field, which holds pop-up dinners at farms and urban gardens--even the New York City pier where a thousand people took their seats at a long table.
A four-course meal will be prepared by Sean Temple, the chef at the Warfield Distillery & Brewery; Brian Janego, chef at Town Square Tavern, and Sarah Lipton, the pastry maven at Hank & Sylvie’s.
Ketchum’s Matt Luck and his Pride of Bristol Bay has donated salmon and Agrarian Harvest, a small family farm on the Snake River Plain near Buhl, has donated pork. Local producers, such as Kraay’s, Waterwheel Gardens, Kings’ Crown Organic Farm and Squash Blossom Farm have also donated freshly harvested, 100 percent locally and regionally grown ingredients.
The evening will be capped by pastry chef Sarah Lipton’s desserts utilizing fresh berries from local farms.
Founded in 2013, The Local Food Alliance works hand in hand with the Sun Valley Institute, which instigated campaigns to put solar panels on local houses and electric cars in local garages. But it operates independently from the Institute with its own DBA and budget.
The LFA, under direction of Long and Stacy Whitman, has initiated healthy school lunch programs at Syringa Mountain School, Sage School and Community School in partnership with the Wood River Sustainability Center.
And it has been working with the Blaine County School District to change the school lunch menu and create school gardens to teach students about growing, harvesting and preparing sustainable foods.
To that end, Miles Teitge, Syringa Mountain School’s farm and garden teacher joined Long and Jody Moss, a Community School parent who’s studying nutritional therapy, attended the Edible Schoolyard Academy founded by Chef Ann Cooper this summer.
“We also sit on the Blaine County Food Council, which came out of The Hunger Coalition’s food assessment survey,” said Long.
Tickets to The Elevated Table are $200, available at www.LocalFoodAlliance.org.