DRINK IN HARVEST TABLE
This year’s event includes Farmers’ Market mocktails
You may have heard about The Stop, Toronto’s innovative new community food centre that took a cramped, dreary, dispiriting food bank and turned it into lively community centre with gardens, a kitchen, a greenhouse and a farmers’ market. Nick Saul’s book The Stop has been making news since it came out in March and he’s been on the speakers’ circuit.
But did you know that the first spinoff of The Stop opened in Perth a year-and-a-half ago? Perth’s The Table Community Food Centre has been the model for other centres (such as The Local in Stratford) and its delicious free dinners, children’s cooking groups, community gardens and emphasis on local food has set such an inspiring example, some of its ideas have been adopted by the original group at The Stop.
Over the last year, 1,741 people have benefited from programs at Perth’s The Table — a huge effect in a population of just 6,000. While funding comes from a variety of sources, the big fundraiser of the year is an event called Barns, Farms & Wicked Chefs, which was held for the first time last August.
“It was just a brilliant evening,” says Judy Dempsey, the talented chef who ran Perth’s acclaimed The Hungry Planet restaurant for a dozen years. “It was one of those perfect summer evenings with golden light, and the live music and all the wonderful food.”
Dempsey is now Community Chef at The Table and she will be one of eight or nine chefs (up from seven last year) serving their creations at food stations at this year’s event. Other chefs this year will include Kyle Woods, who just opened a Perth restaurant called The Masonry, Andrew Chatham of Whalesbone and Jesse Denton of Santé. Ingredients will come from such outstanding local producers as Seed to Sausage, Clarmell on the Rideau, Milkhouse Farm and Ludwig Fine Chocolate.
I’d expect all the eating to be excellent (as will be the live jazz, folk and roots music), but I wouldn’t miss Dempsey’s station, where she will be serving tiny versions of the local lamb burgers that were in such demand at The Hungry Planet. And now she’s shared her fabulous recipe with us.
Find sources for local lamb, Clarmell chèvre, Milkhouse feta and Kricklewood sunflower oil at ottawacitizen.com/ottawadish