Chef Rich returns to Coleman Farms in Carpinteria on June 22 to guest-chef another Outstanding in the Field dinner, creating a Lucullan multi-course menu for a hundred guests who will dine al fresco with the farmers, cheese-makers, ranchers, beekeepers and winemakers responsible for the bounty before them. Coleman Farms grows the kale, arugula, butter lettuce, bok choy and other Asian vegetables on the Sage menus; you just saw Bill Coleman’s son Romeo on the cover of the LA Times Food Section in a (fretful, hand-wringing) article by Russ Parsons on the next generation of farmers’ market growers. Bringing more attention and economic opportunities to these small producers is exactly why Santa Cruz chef-turned-impresario Jim Denevan started the OITF dinners in 1999. As a chef, Denevan invited farmers into his restaurant to talk to diners about their produce. He then brought diners to local farms in Santa Cruz, Marin and Sonoma Counties for a more “direct experience.” He took his idea on the road, hoping to foster “a greater appreciation and understanding of where food comes from,” and thus a more “vibrant and vital food culture.”

That there are still people toiling in obscurity, creating foodstuffs of rare and unusual quality and flavor, is the charm of the event, like visiting the hobbits in their Shire. “It gets people back in touch with the land,” says Romeo. But labors of love don’t last long. His advice to the greenhorn growers of the “next generation” is more market-focused: “Being a small farmer is about diversity. Start out slow. Grow only small amounts so you can sell it all. Change with the customers’ needs and [before you plant] make sure someone will buy it.” Fortunately, the market for the quirkily delicious is, well, growing. This year, the number of OITF dinners scheduled across North America has doubled, and most are already sold out, including Coleman Farms. Blame the arresting piece on CBS Sunday Morning in January (see it here) in which Chef Rich appears, or the fantastic dinner in Tuscany, or the new cookbook/memoir Outstanding in the Field: A Farm to Table Cookbook (Clarkson Potter) which comes out this month. Two new dates have been added in August in Colorado and three in September in New York and Pennsylvania. If you’re lucky enough to have a seat at the table June 22 (or plan on crashing), be sure to wish Romeo a happy birthday.

We crunched our fried soft-shell crabs and tasted the Dr. H. Thanisch Riesling Spätlese brought by Barbara Rundquist-Müller. The lush sweetness of the wine was balanced by the acidity in the accompanying green papaya salad, and the papaya brought out the tropical flavors in the wine. Barbara, even lovelier in person than in her website photos, told us that the slate in her Mosel vineyards absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night, keeping the vines warm and nurturing the grapes even into November, after all the leaves have fallen. Chef Kris was inspired to make a curry sauce for the grilled bratwurst with caramelized onions and braised cabbage, setting off the lychee and honeydew in Alice’s Gewürtztraminer. “It’s a finicky wine. It has to like you, your soil and your cellars,” said Alice, who managed to export a few cases to a Boston wine shop in 1980 just so her mother could buy some for her friends. This was at the start of the fusion cuisine revolution, and it outsold every other German wine in the store combined. After that, Alice’s place in the family business was secured.

Young Frank Heyden, earnest and pony-tailed (he bottled his first vintage at twenty-one), poured two outstanding Dr. Heyden Pinot Noirs with our Scottish salmon and duck confit risotto. Frank showed each table an album of photographs of his beloved Oppenheim, pointing proudly to the nitrogen-fixing shrubs planted between his vines, eliminating the need for fertilizer, and to the mass of intractable fog which he insisted on calling the Rhine. As we marveled at the wild strawberries in pastry chef Robert’s apple-berry galette, we gulped down (couldn’t be helped) Barbara’s Riesling Auslese from the world-famous Berncasteler Doctor vineyard, reviving the dying prince in all of us. Many thanks to our winemakers and to all who attended!