SEQUIM — The work is hard, but gratitude is easy once you sit down to this supper.
Make that feast: the 100-Mile Harvest Dinner, a celebration of the sweetness that overwhelms the region at this time of year.
The dinner, this Sunday at the Guy Cole Convention Center in Sequim, stars the fruits of the earth and waters within a 100-mile radius.
Among them: scallops from the Vancouver Island shore, donated by Taylor Shellfish of Shelton; cheeses from Mount Townsend Creamery; breads from Bell Street Bakery and Pane D’Amore made with wheat from Nash’s Organic Produce in Dungeness; spit-roasted pork from Nash’s; wines from three local vintners, beet borscht soup and salad fresh from dozens of local farmers.
More sweetness: fruit compote with apples from Lazy J near Port Angeles and pears from the Rainbow Farm in Dungeness, plus sorbet made by Elevated Ice Cream of Port Townsend with berries from Graysmarsh near Sequim.
To season the season’s bounty, there will honey from the Elwha Apiary and Sailing S Orchard, and herbs donated by the Cedarbrook Lavender and Herb Farm of Sequim, and after dinner, coffee roasted locally by Princess Valiant.
Patty McManus-Huber, the co-orchestrator of all this, salutes the farmers who give their lives to the land, and to growing food for the North Olympic Peninsula.
Take Steve Johnson, owner of the Lazy J Tree Farm.
“That man is so generous. He just said: Tell me what you need,” McManus-Huber said Wednesday during a break from preparations for the dinner.
“So many farmers have contributed,” she added. “They’ve just opened up their arms.”
Local businesses also have helped. First Federal, Sequim Valley Orthodontics’ Carol A. Knaup, the Best Friend Nutrition health-food store for pets, and Behavioral Health Consultants of Port Angeles are sponsors.
The 100-Mile Harvest Dinner is the signature fundraiser for Friends of the Fields, Clallam County’s farmland preservation coalition.
Tickets are $100 each, with proceeds to benefit Friends’ effort to protect the Finn Hall Farm, a 50-acre spread in Agnew.
The coalition hopes to raise $1.6 million to purchase the development rights to that farm, as it did with the Dungeness Valley Creamery, the Brown family’s 38-acre dairy farm in Dungeness.
Sequim native and ardent local-food advocate Julie Grattan will take command of the kitchen on Sunday — but don’t call her a chef.
‘Great cook’
“I’m a great cook,” she said, “from years of experience running a restaurant,” the Bushwhacker in Port Angeles, “and raising a family. And I’ll have a lot of great chefs working with me,” including Dave Long, Gabriel Schuenemann, Dave Rogers and Steve McCabe.
The dinner “is an opportunity to taste the abundance of this area,” Grattan said, adding it’s also a chance to meet local farmers.
One of them, Kia Armstrong of Nash’s, will help provide music during the social hour preceding dinner. She’ll play upright bass along with Linda Dowdell, who will play a piano provided by Paul Creech.
Putting all of this together — and washing the dishes afterward — is plenty of work, McManus-Huber said. The key is “to keep my eyes on the prize: saving farmland.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@ peninsuladailynews.com.
