Cultivating Community's 20 Mile Meal

Last Sunday, I attended the 3rd Annual 20 Mile Meal at Turkey Hill Farm in Cape Elizabeth. The event was put on by Cultivating Community, a nonprofit that does a lot of great things with kids, refugees, and farming. This event showcased local chefs preparing dishes using ingredients grown, harvested, or landed within 20 miles of the farm. Most of the produce came from Turkey Hill Farm.

Here you can see watermelon with herbs, panna cotta, and bacon and a wheat biscuit topped with pickled slaw and pork loin, drizzled with a foie gras puree. The second dish was prepared by Stella Hernandez of Bar Lola.

After my plate got pretty full, I kinda lost track of who served what... I know the Mexican corn was from El Rayo and was the highlight of the meal. The little cup of vegetable stew was from Local Sprouts, the orange mussel and gnocchi dish was made by Vignola, and the plate of mussels below was caught by Ocean Approved.

The dessert seen here hanging out with the mussels was a pumpkin pie tart with basil whipped cream and was prepared (and served) by the Cultivating Community Culinary Crew.

Here's M. dutifully running the cider press- he cranked that baby for a good three hours! There was also great bluegrass music and local beer (Peaks Organic Pale Ale & IPA) and wine. The rain held off and everyone ate their fill; the food ran out around 3:30!

I had a great time at this event and even decided that it was worth missing the Ravens/Pats game for.