The Plot Thickens
Outstanding in the Field stays fresh in its fourth visit to Bartlett Farm
The table had been set for hours—all white linen, clean glass, and crisp menus—but dinner began, in earnest, with broken bread.
“Can we eat this?” asked the man across from me as a waiter passed, filling wine glasses. He tapped the large, oblong loaf between us, its top copper and emblazoned with a pale trumpet. We’d sat down to sliced bread, too, but that was marched away quickly in sacrifice to the cheese and pâté. The man wanted more, he was hinting to the waiter. My husband and I both sat up, as we didn’t disagree.
No one was in danger of starving. Our arrival at the Northshore's Bartlett Farm, two hours before, had been met with platter after appetizing platter of Two Run Farm meatballs balancing flakes of sheep’s milk cheese; gulf fish crudo on a Bartlett Farm turnip; and chilled Bon Vivant Produce tomato soup (with a laudable hint of Meyer lemon from Covey Rise Farms). One booth poured beer, a farmhouse saison from nearby Chappapeela Farms; the other offered wine, a Grenache Blanc from Coterie Cellars in San Jose, California. Those of us expecting babies in late April enjoyed a very short line to the chilled water on tap.
For that first hour we made conversation, we refilled our drinks, we snagged hors-d’oeuvres—mostly, though, we stood under the sun. After all, this was Outstanding in the Field. And that was about all the direction my husband and I had before making our way from Baton Rouge to Folsom that afternoon.
But naifs will be happiest at Outstanding in the Field, a long-running dinner series that collaborates with farms around the country (and now the world, with recent events in Chile and Argentina bringing the total to twelve countries) for pop-up meals put on by an area chef using a pantry of fresh, local ingredients, many stemming from the host farm. OITF treats each of its farms not as a simple setting but a story to be told throughout the evening—in sights, tastes, and other piqued senses. From the countryside drive up to a farmer-led tour of the grounds to a dessert eaten by the candlelight, you’ll know the land a bit better as you make your way back through the dark to the car, dazedly en route to your real life.
Odd then that at least half the crowd in Folsom seemed to be enthusiastic veterans, or “fieldheads,” of the series’ many outings—Jim Denevan launched OITF in 1999; eighteen years later, the company visits over a hundred farms annually—with most of our fellow guests traveling not just from New Orleans but Tampa, Houston, and Austin as well. Hadn’t they heard it all before?
But even the diners who’d been to last year’s Bartlett Farm supper (also prepared by Chef Martha Wiggins of New Orleans’ Sylvain), or the two installments before that, saw the January 2017 edition as another adventure entirely. (“I’m not even much of a foodie,” confided Jenny Carey, a Tampa-based arts writer. “I’m an experience junkie.”)
Odd then that at least half the crowd in Folsom seemed to be enthusiastic veterans, or “fieldheads,” of the series’ many outings ... with most of our fellow guests traveling not just from New Orleans but Tampa, Houston, and Austin as well. Hadn’t they heard it all before?
New guests, new dinner courses … just a year had altered Bartlett Farm too, with historic flooding on the Northshore last March making the fields more prime for seafood than radishes that spring. John Bartlett, who co-owns the farm with his mother Nancy, relayed the hardship with good humor. “I mean, you could have water skied through here,” he told our tour group, waving across a dry, now budding field as we circled the property before dinner.
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By the time we sat, the pristine table had been saturated with trays of turmeric eggs; fat, juicy beets; and pickles that caught the falling sun and gleamed. Even the centerpieces were local: strewn corn kernels … and those aforementioned loaves of bread.
When we pressed him, the bemused waiter allowed that while the loaf in question was intended as decoration, it had also come from Bellegarde Bakery in New Orleans, same as the sliced and fanned bread. And yes, we could eat it.
We took a moment, before tearing into the prized loaf from either end, to shake hands with our tablemates and exchange names. As the main courses came out, family-style, we passed bowls and plates and egged each other on for seconds. By the time the grilled yardbird over pommes Anna, baby lettuce, and Bartlett Farm’s own roasted carrots (in plenty this time of year) was being parceled out around our circle, we were steeped in homestate pride and joined a group from Crowley in shocking our new Houston and Austin friends with tales of the upcoming Courir de Mardi Gras festivities in Acadiana. (“Chasing what? On horseback?!”)
If I were a betting woman, I’d say Outstanding in the Field will pay another visit to Bartlett Farm, bearing the near-twenty years of reputation that deepen its punny name. Chef Martha Wiggins could travel again from Sylvain to style and send out bowls of Southeast Louisiana bounty. I know I’ll be back, and I expect to see more than a few of this year’s faces. But as to how all those ingredients marinate in 2018? (Or whether we'll see fit to dismantle another centerpiece?) That’s still to be defined.