Courtesy Visit Shipshewana
Table to farm
In a twist on the farm-to-table movement, destinations are taking the table to the farm.
In Shipshewana, Ind., four to 120 diners can get a peek at Amish culture during dinner at a farmstead. As Amish family gatherings can be large, guests often dine at long, hand-crafted tables spread with crisp, snowy tablecloths in a dining room filled with Amish-made furnishings. The home’s white walls and wood floors are scrubbed shiny clean.
In those well-kept, white frame homes, Amish women serve family-style in steaming bowls heaped with in-season fruits and vegetables. A typical “threshers dinner” consists of platters of roast beef, baked chicken and meatloaf with accompanying butter noodles, mashed potatoes, salad, home-baked bread with Amish church peanut butter and apple butter, followed by hefty slices of pie — often cherry, blueberry or peach — with feather-light homemade crust.
“Our Amish residents are open to having visitors, which is not always the case in these communities,” said Beth Thornburg, executive director of the Shipshewana/LaGrange County Convention and Visitors Bureau. “Though the overall experience of an in-home Amish meal is similar, each cook tries to make hers a bit different for her guests. She might add homemade ice cream to the pie. You can’t get any fresher pie than Amish.”
The CVB can also help planners arrange cooking demonstrations, farm and garden tours, and a buggy ride to a meal.
Amish cooks man the kitchen at an Amish-owned, 150,000-square-foot event center in Shipshewana.
800-254-8090
www.visitshipshewana.org
On an island in the Delaware River, Great Shawna Island Farm grows produce for both restaurants at the Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort from April to October. Set on the edge of the 70,000-acre Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, the resort has 99 rooms, 14,587 square feet of function space, and a 100-year-old championship golf course, designed by noted American course architect A.W. Tillinghast, where the legendary Sam Snead once served as touring pro. Great Shawna Island Farm shares its island with 24 of the course’s 27 holes. A golf outing can be followed by a farm-grown meal in the midst of nature’s finest.
A 300-foot-long bridge, open seasonally, connects the farm with the Pennsylvania resort’s main property. Groups can meet there, tour the garden and farm, pick produce for dinner and eat at a long outdoor table. Entrees include beef, pork, pheasant and veal. The farm makes its own honey and taps its trees for maple syrup.
Another option brings in four or five local farmers, who supply produce and chat about farming, for a dinner on the inn’s lawn by the river. Nature provides the backdrop.
“From the inn’s expansive veranda, you can see the Delaware River, part of the Appalachian Trail in Worthington State Forest and a breathtaking view of Mount Kitatinny,” said Robert Howell, general manager. “With all of this splendor, we’re only 75 miles west of New York City.”
800-742-9633
www.shawneeinn.com
Pair it up
In addition to its table-to-farm offerings, the Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort pairs its farm suppers with craft beers made at its on-property ShawneeCraft Brewing Co. Available throughout the resort and in several nearby states, its beers are nearly 100 percent organic.
“Generally, we match the flavors of beer to foods they compliment,” said Jeremy Wo, the resort’s public relations manager. “Because a darker beer has more body, we’d serve it with a bolder food. So we’d pair a porter with beef or something spicy. In contrast, we’d pair a honey stock ale with chicken, and a raspberry blanche with a summer salad or a dessert.”
800-742-9633
www.shawneeinn.com
Food is front and center at the home of Colorado’s second-largest craft beer maker.
Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont, Colo., has three restaurants and another one the way, a food truck, a bike company and a farm, not to mention the brewery.
Oskar Blues’ Longwood restaurant, Home Made Liquids and Solids, has 44 beers on tap, and many are made in Colorado. In the summertime, the eatery can arrange farm-to-table dinners that pair area produce with craft beers. Smoked meats, including a smoked meatloaf, are a specialty.
“Not only do we pair our beers with our daily specials, but we cook with them as well,” said Garret Frase, general manager. “We use our Old Chub Scotch Ale in our barbecue and beer in our hot sauces for wings. We cook with beer and serve with beer.”
Down the road is Oskar Blues’ 50-acre Hops and Heifers Farm, home to a Black Angus cattle herd and two acres of hop vines. Here, cows happily munch on spent grain left over from the brewing process, while peanut shells from the brewery’s Tasty Weasel Tap Room serve as compost for the fields where grains for beer production grow.
Groups can get close to the cows and crops on the farm, and tour the brewery and restaurant, all in a trolley or in a 1966 bus.
303-776-1914
www.oskarblues.com
