Local Sourced Dinner

We had a little potluck dinner with some friends, and it was a local and local organic dinner sources most ingredients from within 100 miles of downtown Nashville.  We had an 8 course meal with wine.  Even our wine was local and from Beachaven Winery 60 miles north of Nashville.  Here is our meal.

Noble Spring goat cheese with Provence bread

We started with Noble Springs goat cheese (26 miles) with Provence Bakery bread (o miles).  Tennessee is not a good wheat growing region, but Provence Bakery makes bread and baked goods in Nashville and has done so for 16 years.  Provence in Hillsboro Village donates to charity all its unsold baked goods at the end of each day.

Stewart Orchard Peaches and Hamery Tennshootoe 

The 2nd course was peach slices wrapped in air dried ham. Stewart Orchard now has two orchards, one in Ashland City (20 miles) and one in Bells Bend (13 miles).  They have a variety of peaches, plumcots, blackberries and apples and are available at the West Nashville Farmers Market.  In the coming years, the Bells Bend location will be open for "U-Pick".  The ham is an air cured ham like that of prosciutto with a level of apple and hickory wood smoke, but made at the Hamery in Murfreesboro (26 miles). 

Pickle Me This pickles, Kenny's cheese, Foggy Hollow tomatoes

The 3rd course was pickled root veggies and fruit.  The 4th course was cheese and tomatoes to balance the large flavors of the pickles.  The pickles came from Pickle Me This, a small cottage business in East Nashville (0 miles).  The turnips, carrots, plums and grapes came from the Nashville Farmers Market, and Pickle Me This added spices, vinegar and water and water bathed jarred these yummies to preserve them.  The spices in the plums and grapes created a sweet, sour, and spicy flavor that is like a chutney.

The 4th course was Kenny's Farm House Cheese gouda (75 miles) and fresh sliced Foggy Hollow tomatoes (13 miles).

JD milk and cream, NFM tomatoes and corn

The 5th course was a soup course made with JD milk and cream (54 miles) and corn and tomatoes from the Nashville Farmers Market Smiley's Farm (20 miles).  To top off the soup was basil from the backyard (0 miles).

Barefoot Farmer carrots, squash and lettuce, Foggy Hollow tomatoes

The 6th course was a salad topped with a red wine vinaigrette (0 miles).  The Vinaigrette is made with red wine vinegar that I started last year and keep feeding the vinegar every time we don't finish a bottle of red wine.  The herbs in the vinaigrette are from my garden.  The carrots, squash and lettuce are from the Barefoot Farmer (70 miles) and the tomatoes from Foggy Hollow (13 miles).

Lazzaroli shell pasta, Benton's bacon, Barefoot Farmer butternut squash
Italian parsley and garlic scapes

 The 7th course, which was my favorite course was the pasta course.  The pasta, although the wheat is not grown near Nashville, but was fresh hand made by Tom Lazzaro and his mom-in-law at Lazzaroli Pasta Shop (0 miles).  Topping the pasta was Benton's bacon (not within 100 miles, but made in TN 194 mi), Barefoot Farmer Italian parsley, butternut squash and garlic scapes (70 miles).  The basil is from my yard (0 miles) and the water is from the Cumberland River via Metro Water (0 miles).  I used only 3 diced up pieces of bacon for a huge pot of pasta, and the dish was very smoky and bacony.  The bacon smoke and salt worked very well with sweet butternut squash.

Basil ice cream

Last but not least, our 8th and final course was the basil ice cream made with Jeni's basil ice cream recipe.  The basil was from my pals' garden (0 miles).  This stuff is addicting.

We also had a 9th course, but I forgot it on the kitchen counter and it never made it to the table.  It was Swiss chard and beet greens with gralic scapes from the Barefoot Farmer (70 miles) sauteed in Cumberland River water (0 miles) and Bluegrass Soy Sauce. Bluegrass Soy Sauce is made in Louisville (not within 100 miles but is 175 miles) using KY grown non-gmo soy beans and fermented and aged in old Jack Daniels (73 miles) whiskey barrels to give the soy sauce a nice light smoky flavor.

We did not do a meat course this time because we had so much food already and decided against it.  The next time we will probably do a meat dish and have a 10th course.  There are quite a few local, free range farms, so it will be easy to get any meat product we want.

I love eating local and local organically because it is so dang delicious!