Here is the menu:
Local chevre and Grayson cheese
Tomato Mozzarella Tarts with Garlic Basil Crust
Trio of Soups: Cucumber, Peanut, Crab
Roasted Corn Salad
French Potato Salad
Lamb Kebabs with Mint Pesto
Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce
Trio of Herb Ice Creams: Lavender, Basil, Mint
The Ingredients:
The Cheese
The chevre and Grayson came from Whole Foods. Gotta love that they label what's local. The Mozzarella came from the farmers' market across the street from our house.
Dairy
Our Whole Foods sells dairy products from a local creamery that I love. We always buy their creamline milk, and I was happy to branch out and use their buttermilk (for the cucumber soup) and heavy cream (for the soups and ice cream).
The Vegetables
The tomatoes came from three places: my garden, my friend Crystal's garden, and Mount Vernon's extremely prolific cherry tomato plants. The cucumbers also came from my garden. They were huge! They were as long as my forearm! The peanuts were purchased at Total Wine, but they are Virginia peanuts from the Peanut Shoppe in Williamsburg, VA. The roasted corn salad had corn, of course, as well as yellow squash, red onion, bell peppers, and tomatoes. All of those veggies except for the tomatoes came from the farmers' market. The onions and peppers for the kebabs were also from the market. The potatoes were grown at Mount Vernon. The peaches were from the farmers' market.
The Herbs
The herbs came almost exclusively from my garden. I'm throwing garlic in this category, and that came from the farmers' market.
The Rest
The crabs are from the Chesapeake Bay, and I bought them at Slavin's Fish Market in Arlington, VA. There was honey in the peanut butter that I made for the peanut soup, and that came from a local farmers' market, although I can't remember which one. The flour was ground at Mount Vernon's Grist Mill, and was probably grown in Lancaster, PA. All of the beer and wine we served was from Virginia.
If I can brag for a moment, I think dinner was a hit. We served the soups in shot glasses with demitasse spoons, and that presentation went over very well. I think people were surprised at how much you could do shopping locally, which was the point of the dinner aside from just eating good food.
