Traveling Dinner Series, Outstanding in the Field, Makes Multiple Stops Throughout California and the U.S. for 2017

Fiona Chandra

With warmer seasons on the horizon, it’s time to plan for the ultimate farm-to-table dinner series, Outstanding in the Field. Since 1999, Outstanding in the Field has traveled the country and the globe with their retrofitted bus to set up long tables at farms for a communal feast. The dinner series brings together the best of local purveyors and chefs for a night of great food, wine, and community.

This year’s series will start in California on May 6, with a dinner at Markegard Family’s ranch in Half Moon Bay. The table will be perched on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and dinner featuring the ranch’s grass-fed beef and lamb will be prepared by the founder of Outstanding in the Field, Jim Denevan himself. The tour will stop in Los Angeles on June 11, setting up their table in the middle of Grand Central Market. The L.A. dinner will be prepared by Chef Mark Peel (Bombo) and will feature products from the market’s purveyors. Learn about abalones first-hand during a dinner at The Abalone Farm in Cayucos on June 28. Dip your toes into the sand as they set up tables on the beach at a secret sea cove in Santa Cruz on June 24 and 25.

From California, the bus will move to the Pacific Northwest and up to Canada in July. After two stops in the Portland area, the tour visits three small islands in the Pacific Northwest, including Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. Then, the bus traverses through The Rockies with stops in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado before making its way to the Midwest. In Chicago, two dinners will take place one of the farms from City Farm, which moves around the city, converting vacant lots into urban farms. The dinner on August 9 will showcase Chef Abe Conlon from Fat Rice.

August 18 marks the start of the Northeast portion of the tour, with a dinner in Ontario, followed by a stop in Quebec. Dine on the sandspit of Island Creek Oysters farm in Duxbury, MA with Top Chef contestant Tiffani Faison on September 8 and Alden and Harlow’s Michael Scelfo on September 9. The tour also returns for two nights to the rooftop farm of Brooklyn Grange at the Navy Yard in New York.

There will also be a special stop across the pond with a vineyard dinner in Burgundy, France on August 27. California gets a second visit in the fall with stops at Temecula Olive Oil Company, Wattles Farm in Los Angeles, and Ampelos Cellars in Lompoc. The bus then goes up to Northern California for five stops in Sonoma County and San Francisco Bay Area.

Outstanding in the Field‘s  2017 spring, summer and fall dinner series’ go on sale on March 20. Tickets to the dinners can be purchased here.