The focus of the multi-course dinner will be five live-fire pits, each of which will be directed by a celebrated guest chef. Favorite area musicians will perform throughout the evening, which will run from 6 to 10 p.m.
Also in the spotlight will be PMCF's new 42 x 148-foot Harnois “high tunnel," which will serve as both an event space and a greenhouse for growing vegetables. With a floor one-tenth the size of a football field, it will accommodate as many as 300 people for this "farm fashionable" sit-down dinner.
“Fire Feast on the Farm will be a signature Saratoga Springs event that speaks uniquely to the values of Pitney Meadows Community Farm and makes a substantial contribution to our important initiatives in sustainable farming, education, and farmer training,” said John Sconzo, a PMCF board member who launched Slow Foods Saratoga in 2008 and now leads culinary tours around the world.
Supporting each lead chef will be a "pit crew" that includes a distinguished local chef and local culinary students. Each pit also will have its own 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
All foods other than seafood will be sourced as locally as possible. Many of the vegetables will be grown on the Pitney Farm.
General admission tickets are $200, with the option of joining the honorary committee at $300, $400, and $500 giving levels.
Guest chefs and bartenders will include:
- Matt Lightner, a 2 Michelin-star chef formerly at Atera in New York City;
- Alex Harrell, whose superb New Orleans restaurant, Angeline, fuses the culinary traditions of New Orleans and Alabama's Gulf Coast;
- Jaime Young, former chef de cuisine at Atera and a master of live-fire cooking who has launched the critically acclaimed Sunday in Brooklyn in Williamsburg, Brooklyn;
- Joel Viehland, the former chef of the highly regarded Community Table in Washington, CT who is now now opening the much-anticipated Ore Hill and Swyft;
- Francis Derby, master of meat and more at such legendary NYC restaurants as WD-50, Tailor, and The Cannibal;
- Daniel Burns, the original pastry chef of Copenhagen's Noma and former head of R&D at The Fat Duck and Momofuku restaurants;
- Eamon Rockey, a cocktail master whose resume includes Eleven Madison Park, Atera, Aska, and Betony;
- Chase White, whose bartending background includes 3 Michelin-star Saison in San Francisco, as well as Mace and Attaboy in New York City.
For more information and to buy tickets, go to the PMCF web site at pitneymeadows.org