By now most of you have heard about the Pitney Meadows Community Farm, preserving 166 acres of farmland within the city of Saratoga Springs. It will now be home to community gardens, year-round produce, and agricultural education for all ages.
To help raise funds for this project, they’re hosting a pretty cool and unique event on August 1st called ‘Fire Feast on the Farm.’
This fundraiser aims to spotlight top chefs who will be preparing striped bass, pork, lamb, and beef for guests. The chefs highlighted include:
- Jaime Young, the former chef de cuisine at Atera who in 2016 launched the critically acclaimed Sunday in Brooklyn;
- Francis Derby, master of meat and more at such legendary NYC restaurants as WD-50, Tailor, Momofuku Ssam Bar, and The Cannibal;
- Joel Vielhand, former chef of the highly regarded Community Table in Connecticut and now opening the anticipated Ore Hill and Swyft;
- Matt Lightner, a 2 Michelin-star chef formerly at 2 Michelin-star Atera in New York City.
To learn more about the event, please see the press release below for complete details! I hope to see some of you on Tuesday at the event!
For more information and to buy tickets, go to the PMCF web site at PitneyMeadows.org or call 518-290-0008.
‘FIRE FEAST ON THE FARM’ TO SPOTLIGHT TOP CHEFS
Pitney Meadows Community Farm Will Hold August 1st Fundraiser
In Its Massive New Greenhouse
A big tent is the usual solution for nonprofit organizations holding big summer fundraisers. That’s the approach Pitney Meadows Community Farm took last year when it was just beginning its effort to preserve and acquire the Pitney Farm on West Avenue in Saratoga Springs with the goal of becoming a major regional hub for sustainable farming and education in agriculture.
This year, Pitney Meadows is creating an entirely different experience. When guests arrive at its “Fire Feast on the Farm” on Tuesday, August 1st, they’ll be welcomed to the nonprofit’s new greenhouse, a “high tunnel” one-tenth the size of a football field. Flowers, herbs, and vegetables will be growing in newly planted beds that run along the structure’s two sides, stretching 148 feet.
“You can’t get any more ‘farm-to-table’ than this,” smiles event organizer John Sconzo, the Pitney Meadows board member and founder of Slow Food Saratoga who has assembled an all-star team of chefs and bartenders to provide devotees of fine food a meal unlike any they’ve ever had. “This will be a signature Saratoga Springs event.”
All proceeds from the Fire Feast on the Farm will further Pitney Meadows’ educational mission, supporting the high tunnel, establishment of a Children’s Garden and Greenhouse, and development of trails on the 166-acre property, which PMCF acquired last December from the Pitney family with a $1.13 million contribution from the City of Saratoga Springs’ Open Space Fund.
“We’re off to a very fast start,” said Katie Petronis, Pitney Meadows president and chair of the board of directors, noting that construction of 55 plots in the Pitney Meadows Community Gardens is being completed on virtually the same schedule as the greenhouse. “We couldn’t have done any of this without the tireless efforts of our volunteers and the generosity of our donors.”
The focus of the August 1st event, which will run from 6 to 10 p.m., will be five live-fire pits directed by celebrated guest chefs whom Sconzo has enlisted from around the country to prepare an unforgettable multi-course meal.
Supporting each lead chef will be a “pit crew” that includes a distinguished local chef and local culinary students. Each pit also will have an open bar directed by a mix of prominent national and local bartenders pairing a cocktail with the dish from that pit. Each station also will prepare a vegetarian/vegan dish.
The dinner will start with Gulf shrimp and oysters prepared by Alex Harrell, who fuses the culinary traditions of New Orleans and Alabama’s Gulf Coast at his superb New Orleans restaurant, Angeline.
Guests then will be treated to striped bass, pork, lamb, and beef prepared by:
- Jaime Young, the former chef de cuisine at Atera who in 2016 launched the critically acclaimed Sunday in Brooklyn;
- Francis Derby, master of meat and more at such legendary NYC restaurants as WD-50, Tailor, Momofuku Ssam Bar, and The Cannibal;
- Joel Vielhand, former chef of the highly regarded Community Table in Connecticut and now opening the anticipated Ore Hill and Swyft;
- Matt Lightner, a 2 Michelin-star chef formerly at 2 Michelin-star Atera in New York City.
Dessert will be a blueberry gelato prepared by Daniel Burns, chef/owner of Burns Gelato of Brooklyn.
Bartenders from New York City include Eamon Rockey, general manager of Betony NYC; Chase White who, after three years with Saison in San Francisco, is preparing to open his own New York City venue; Will Wyatt, bartender at The NoMad Hotel, and L.J. Sconzo, bartender at Eleven Madison Park, named Number 1 Restaurant in the World for 2017 by the prestigious World’s 50 Best Restaurants List. Bartenders from Saratoga Springs include Brendan Dillon, owner and bartender of Hamlet & Ghost, and Drew Janik, bartender at Henry Street Taproom.
Local artists performing at the event will include world jazz group Elizabeth Woodbury Kasius & Heard; acoustic Americana act Cradle Switch; award-winning jazz pianist and composer Nick Hetko, and The North & South Dakotas with their blend of blue grass, mountain folk, honky tonk and rock and roll.
Items offered at the silent auction will range from tickets to a Red Sox/Yankees game at Fenway Park to a hot air balloon ride over the southern Adirondacks.
The new greenhouse will be equipped with an immense sensor-controlled polyethylene sheet that — on a night in early August — will roll up automatically to allow heat to escape. “Dress will be ‘farmhouse fashionable’,” says Sconzo.
Seating is limited. For more information and to buy tickets, go to the PMCF web site at PitneyMeadows.org or call 518-290-0008.
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