First TT Supper Club a Success!

Thank you to the eight adventurous diners who came out to my first supper club event, and to Emily of Preserving Traditions and Eat Close to Home for her tireless assistance in the kitchen! The event was everything I'd hoped it would be. I got to meet and cook for some really wonderful food lovers, and enjoyed listening in on the lively conversation at the dinner table. We raised over $250 for Preserving Traditions, and learned about the long and storied history of the Grange movement (of which Preserving Traditions is now part) and all the ways it has supported farmers over the years.

Next month's TT Supper Club will be on Saturday, July 25th and will be a benefit for Earthworks Urban Farm and the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit.

Earthworks’ primary activities include running a 1.5 acre farm and apiary, hosting classes for Detroit gardeners, hosting two youth programs for area kids, attending markets with youth during the growing season, and providing support for guests of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen who are interested in gardening and food justice. We are a full program of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen and have our offices and gardens on their grounds. Every day we are striving to be more responsive to our soup kitchen community and neighborhood. Currently, the majority of our produce is incorporated in the meals at the Capuchin Soup Kitchen and we are planning to install a commercial hoop house (similar to a greenhouse but uses only heat from the sun) to provide greens for the soup kitchen and for marketing to the public.

If you'd like to reserve one of the 8 spaces at the July 25 dinner, please email me with your food restrictions and preferences. Early requests will receive priority, but I reserve the right to adjust the guest list in order to manage conflicting food restrictions. I'm happy to accommodate a variety of food restrictions, such as gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegetarian, I just don't necessarily want to do them all at the same time!

Guests at Saturday's dinner were obliging enough to let me do that stereotypical food blogger thing of taking pictures (although I missed a couple of courses), so I'll leave you with a peek at how we celebrated spring.

	Bounty from the Farmer's Market waiting to be turned into dinner.
	The guests gather.
	First up: radishes with raw milk butter and Murray River pink sea salt The butter was made by one of the guests, Ilex who writes the blog Homesteading in a Condo. She'd emailed me to ask if I'd like to use it in the meal. Normally I'd just serve it with bread, but she's gluten-free, so I needed to find another way to highlight it. This was perfect.
	Sauteed beet greens with a bit of 10-yr balsamic vinegar, roasted beets, Zingerman's Creamery Aged Chelsea goat cheese, and freshly ground pepper.
	Chilled potato-sorrel soup garnished with chive flowers
	Pan-seared skate wing with parsley-lemon butter, radish leaf pesto, and steamed asparagus
	Indian spiced roasted leg of lamb, lentils with garlic and onion, pea shoots sauteed with mustard seeds, and mint raita These pea shoots from Gardenworks were the very definition of fresh - they were still back at the farm picking them when I arrived at the Farmer's Market!
	Ig Vella Dry Jack, Idziabal, Zingerman's Creamery Aged Chelsea
	Vanilla bean panna cotta with rhubarb compote