Rink DaVee and Jenny Bonde’s Shooting Star Farm will host an Outstanding in the Field event Sunday, August 4th. If you have never heard of Outstanding in the Field, first imagine a dinner party for 150. Then bring in six courses of local food prepared on-site by a celebrated chef. (In this case Tory Miller of L’Etoile and Graze, where Shooting Star Farms’ heirloom tomatoes are often featured on the menu.) Finally, add wine, and a really long table placed right in the field.

Outstanding in the Field founder Jim Denevan has been crisscrossing the country for 10 years in a funky red and white bus, with the mission “to re-connect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it.”

Scenes from Shooting Star Farm.

With Outstanding in the Field, “you have the whole farm-to-fork cycle in front of you,” says Rink DaVee, who, in addition to running Shooting Star Farm with wife Jenny and son Charlie, manages Green Square, an online marketplace that sells food and other local products from Southwestern Wisconsin.

What will be on the menu for the lucky diners who managed to get tickets? (The event sold out in just two weeks.) “Tomatoes will have a central place for sure,” says Rink. “We are also growing several special varieties of lettuces, herbs and greens for the occasion.”

And the preparation for this massive dinner party?

“Every weed gets pulled twice.”

– Contributed by Susan Webb