Field

Tis month, Artizen stumbled up a phenomenon that summarizes so much of what the magazine is about. Outstanding in the Field, a “happening” of food, farm and community, is the expanding brainchild of artist, chef and surfer, Jim Denevan. In 10 years, Outstanding has grown into a world-wide celebration of local artisan food, run by a core team from 6 US cities and occasional folks from the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. Short and sweet version - if you love food and a little adventure - click to get a ticket to one of these events near you right now.

But my enthusiasm gets ahead of the story ... O utstanding in the Field started in 1998 at Gabriella Cafe

in Santa Cruz, California, where Jim was cooking at the time. Having grown up visiting his older brother, Bill Denevan’s, organic farm, Jim felt that the cafe’s guests might enjoy knowing more about where their food was coming from. So he invited the farmers, Bill being one of them, to come to a series of dinners where the guests could meet them face to face, engage in conversation and the farmers could talk more in depth about the ingredients they were supplying for the meals. Te whole idea went over beautifully. After a few of these, understanding farmers pretty well, Jim thought perhaps they might be even more at ease talking about things while on their own farms. So he started to undertake bringing the dinners to them. Soon long, family-style dining tables were being set up right in the fields with often incredible surroundings. A tradition started up, which made things easier, of having each guest bring their own plate to the party. Te dinners became social community adventures and local

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