At a previous year’s FarmStand to Fork dinner, diners enjoy their meals at Dogpatch Urban Gardens. This year, instead of a communal table, there will be six-top tables spread out to ensure safe social distancing. Photo: Dogpatch Urban Gardens
By Karla Walsh
Spring begins in less than three weeks, and almost exactly two months later, Dogpatch Urban Gardens will launch their fourth season of the FarmStand to Fork Dinner Series.
After a quick tour of the farm where Jenny Quiner, owner of Dogpatch Urban Gardens, and her team grow produce that supplies their FarmStand, farmers market table and several local restaurants, guests will be invited to dine under the stars—and dive into a feast prepared by an area restaurant chef using as many local ingredients as possible.
Quiner taps restaurant chefs who “have a great reputation in the area, support our farm and are excited about local food” to create a multicourse feast using products sold at the Dogpatch Urban Gardens FarmStand.
Diego Rodriguez, Proof restaurant’s executive chef, will kick off the first of four dinners in the 2022 series. This will be the third year he and Proof pastry chef Megan Snyder have participated. “I love a good challenge, and this event is definitely cooking out of the norm—no ovens, no heat lamps, just pure instinctive cooking,” Rodriguez says.
He offers a sneak peek of his late-May menu: “I plan on using as much Dogpatch Urban Gardens produce as possible, but you can expect Grade A Gardens produce [grown in Johnston] and maybe some pork from [Knoxville’s] Crooked Gap Farms, too.” (Read more about Rodriguez in this 2020 dsm story on local culinary young guns and this dsmWeekly pieceon his sold-out 2021 pop-up dinner with his mother, Laura.)
Tickets, which are $125 per person and sold by the table, are available online now:
Each table seats six people; tables will be spread out to allow for social distancing. Don’t wait too long to get tickets; previous years’ dinners have sold out well in advance.
“I love being able to host people at the farm and enjoy the community our farm has created,” Quiner says. “So often, farming is a grind. Being able to take some time to reflect, host, and serve people is so much fun.”
