'Outstanding in the Field' roving outdoor meals return to Wine Country

When Outstanding in the Field rolls into Sonoma County for its 2017 supper tour later this month, there will be an extra-special guest of honor at the long, communal table.

A plate. A dinner guest's personal plate that came from a kitchen cupboard in Sebastopol, lost its way at an Outstanding in the Field dinner in Capay (Yolo County) last June, and has now traveled with the OITF team to 18 destinations across California including the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, plus 29 other U.S. states and into British Columbia and Quebec.

For the May 20 Northern California kick-off dinner in Occidental, the plate, a pretty pottery piece hand-painted with a cluster of green parsley and a gold ribbon, will be laden with just-harvested food from West Sonoma Coast Vintners co-founder, farmer and Peay Vineyards co-owner Andy Peay. Those ingredients will have been crafted into an array of elaborate, modern kaiseki dishes by guest chef Hiroo Nagahara of Nomica in San Francisco.

The following evening, the plate will grace the table at Front Porch Farm in Healdsburg, where the property's farmers, Johnny and Ali Wilson, will work with guest chef Meghan Clark of San Francisco's Michelin-starred Kin Khao to prepare a Thai-theme feast.

And then the plate will continue on throughout the year, stopping at family-owned farms, remote beaches, wilderness mountaintops, century-old olive orchards, boutique creameries and tiny production wineries for more al fresco dinners.

For those not familiar with the roving field meals that were first dreamed up by founder Jim Denevan in Santa Cruz in 1998, the concept is like a rock ‘n' roll tour, complete with a 66-year-old bright red and white bus hauling equipment and crew.

Except the stars are farmers, ranchers, chefs and vintners, and the venues are food producers' lands.

The message is simple: to re-connect diners with the earth and the origins of their food, while honoring the independent farmers and food artisans who do the hard work.

Community table

Up to 200 guests gather for each supper, sitting at a single, long, linen-draped community table set between the soil and the sky.

They tour the property, savor a multi-course, family-style meal prepared in a pop-up kitchen by a local, top-name chef, and over what can often stretch to a five-hour event, make new friends with their fellow diners.

Guests are asked to bring their own favorite plates, to add an eclectic, down-home element to the gathering, and for sharing stories about each plate's meaningfulness.

At the end of the suppers, OITF staff wash and dry each plate, then place them on a table for guests to retrieve on their way out.

Forgotten plates, such as the wayward parsley pottery from Sebastopol, are kept for future guests to use if needed.

For frequent OITF guests Lulu and KT of San Francisco, the plates are an important part of the experience. The couple, who go by their first names only, have attended more than a dozen dinners so far, at locations like McEvoy Ranch in Petaluma, Front Porch Farm, Devil's Gulch Ranch in Nicasio, Jacobs Farm in Pescadero, the privately owned Secret Sea Cove beach in Santa Cruz, Pie Ranch in Pescadero and another secret spot in Big Sur.

They bring antique enamel-covered tin plates inherited from KT's grandmother. Partitioned into three separate compartments like old school lunch trays, they're much lovelier than standard issue, in green, yellow, blue and orange retro checkerboard patterns.

“They're really quite special,” LuLu said. “And we love the idea of having a lavish dinner on funky old family plates more suited to campouts.”

Perfect marriage

The plates salute the earthy aspect of the meals, too.

“The meals are a perfect marriage of two things that are so dear to me - nature and food,” LuLu said.

“Going out for dinner in the city has become such an ordeal that I hardly do it anymore, unless it's to my local Vietnamese or Thai restaurant. If I do want a nice meal, I love the idea of hiking to it, or being served with my toes in the sand and the waves lapping at the table legs.”

Indeed, this past year, the parsley plate rode a ferry to Catalina, and to an abalone farm in Cayucos. It visited a beach alongside oyster beds in Lilliwaup, Washington, settled on a grass-fed cattle ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, saw an urban farm on a reclaimed city lot in Chicago, admired golden fields of heritage wheat in Long Island, New York, and relaxed in a peach orchard in Queen Creek, Arizona.

These days, most of the OITF dinners sell out quickly year-round, even at $215 to $320 a pop.

Waiting lists are common, and sometimes, additional dates are added at the last minute for particularly popular spots.

800 dinners

Yet still, with a total of 800-plus dinners now staged across the U.S. and around the world, it's all a success that's not lost on the group's founder.

“In the early years, OITF was considered very adventurous and unusual; almost a lark, something so novel that it likely had no staying power,” said Denevan.

“But for our guests, an OITF dinner is a statement of values and meaning. They consider the events central to who they are, and many attend year after year.

“Sitting together at a long communal table and celebrating the farmer is a statement of belief that people can join together and recognize connection and the meaning of place.”

The parsley plate, meanwhile, nearly had some traveling buddies this past summer.

“We left an event without remembering to retrieve our plates,” LuLu said.

“When I emailed OITF to see if they had them, they were happy to report that they did, but that a number of the staff were going to be disappointed someone had claimed them. They were all taking dibs on who would get to keep them.”