Farm Dinner

October 17 1st Annual Farm Dinner


To celebrate Dish's first birthday we have put together a fun packed, educational and delicious farm extravaganza and are reaching out to everyone to please come and help us celebrate.
So far we have in the line up:
Tudor Hall farm tour and hay rides 1pm-3pm
5 course dinner at Dish 4pm-8pm
Live music and scavenger hunt 8pm-10pm

We are pleased that Bill and Phyllis from Tudor Hall farm have committed to opening up their place for everyone to visit and see first hand their dedication to farming and our community. Tudor Hall has been a Grantham family farm since 1789. They provide seasonal and sustainable produce, eggs and meats.

After the tour and hay rides everyone will come back to the restaurant. We are trying to get Washington street blocked off in front of the restaurant, not sure if the police Chief will go for it. If not it will be on a side street where we will have a giant table and chairs set up.
We ask that everyone brings plates, utensils and cups...think of it as shabby chic picnic style, also saves tons of money in rentals and we can use that money for more food, music, hay rides etc.

The dinner will start with a "End the Recession Soup Line"
Then we will grill our house made pizzas on a 15 foot long grill.
Moving on to family style salad course followed by main course
Dessert will be a Cup Cake Tree

We will have a separate kids menu: Pasta Palooza, translated..kind of a build you own pasta buffet station. We will serve pasta, assorted farm veggies, and choices of sauces, marinara, butter and cream, and anything else we come up with that kids would want to put in their creation.
Also same idea with salad.
Dessert will be the Cup Cake Tree.

The entire seasonal menu will be sourced from all our local farmers.

We are meeting with Bill this week so I will be able to give more specifics as to farm tour/hay rides
During the live music, to be announced, and bar service we will have our neighborhood scavenger hunt. It will be open for kids and adults. Once everyone gathers that want to participate we will split into teams and start the hunt. I love scavenger hunts so this one will be a blast!!! Plus we have a trophy for the winning team.

Menu
1st course Autumn Squash and Pumpkin Soup

2nd course Outdoor grilled house made Pizza hot & sweet sausage, mushrooms, onions, roasted marinara & mozzarella

3rd course Harvest salad wax beans, red onion, roasted beets and mixed field greens with roasted pear balsamic vinaigrette

4th course Outdoor grilled fall herb and lemon scented chicken
Vegetable lasagna
Garlic and rosemary focaccia

5th course Cup cakes

Pumpkin white chocolate
Date spice
Apple cinnamon
Chocolate espresso
Carrot
Cranberry walnut

Ticket Prices:
Adult $42.00
Child $11.00

Please call, come in or email us and order your tickets
Cash, check or charge accepted
Our goal is to sell 400!!!!!
Call or email me with any questions or ideas
We also need volunteers to help with all sorts of things, let us know if you would be interested

Have a glorious day

Kitchen Talk

I have to discuss bread salads, yum. We have a bread salad paired with our local J&D Meats roasted Cornish Hen on the menu now. It is a taste sensation, simple, hot, cold, crunchy and juicy. We use fresh picked heirlooms from Zephyrs End Farm in Shepherdstown and our bread is from Cardinal Bakery in Sterling Maryland.
I first read about bread salads in Zuni Cafe cookbook, a must have, with their famous roasted chicken. For home chefs it is a great way to showcase the abundance of summer tomatoes. I am going to put together a cooking demonstration at our Charles Town Farmers Market August 29 and will feature bread salad. Come on down and visit us there.








Charles Town garden sightings

Wow it has been hot in the kitchen! The gardens around town are looking a bit dry and wilted. A break from the heat and some rain would be so nice. I found this sweet gesture while dog walking, brought a smile to my face.
Have a great day

Saturday August 21 outdoor free movie

Our movie nights seems to catching on. Please spread the word and come join in the fun outside on the patio under the stars.

This Saturday we will be showing Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The 80's masterpiece that captured the culture of the period directed by Cameron Crowe.
Movie starts at 9:15
Hot dogs on the grill $2.50 cupcakes $2.00.....seen above
All menu items available till 10pm
Bar service

Footloose will be playing the following Saturday.

We will keep going till the nights stay comfortable.

Kitchen Adventures

Well a bit late but here is a recap of our culinary adventure to the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. We left Charles Town around 8am and I think we arrived back home around 2am. It was a long, hot and muggy trip but we had a blast. We started at the Reading Terminal Market, http://www.readingterminalmarket.org/ ,
which was an overwhelming taste bud sensation with all the various food vendors.The place was packed with lunch business so the lines where long. We decided on pizza, Philly cheese steak, chicken sandwich, brownie, chocolate espresso cupcake, raspberry jam bar, coffee and beer. We chowed down, listened to some folk music and even had a Micheal Jackson sighting. Then we piled into my hot, no air conditioning, Jeep and drove cross town to the Italian Market. The foodie pictures above are taken there. The top pic is in front of Bistro 7 with Amy, Josh and my best friend Lee. Lee is an outrageous cook, food connoisseur, and a very fun gal. We took our time and went from store to deli gazing at so many food ingredients.

Next on our list was Old City, off we went.....oh yeah a quarter gets you 7 minutes on the parking meter, Ken was in charge of feeding the meter. We walked around my old hood checking out all the different restaurants and bars. We visited Buddakon, http://www.stevenstarrrestaurant.com/ , one of many Starr restaurants. He is a restaurant concept genius. We then went and had afternoon cocktails at Postiano Coast. We sat on the second floor in an all white lounge where they slide open all the doors so you feel like your in heaven, but really hot. Anyway it was very enjoyable and I sipped on a refreshing Thyme martini and was thinking how hard it must be to keep everything clean!

Onward...we arrived at Fork restaurant for our 6pm dinner reservation. Sadly we had missed our kitchen tour earlier in the morning but ended up getting one with the owner, Ellen Yin. She was gracious and explained all the different aspects of their operation. Fork has been promoting farm to table for many years and has had success. Ms. Yin was interested in what we our doing with our restaurant and gave us encouraging words. The kitchen staff where busy getting ready for the night but took time to talk with us and show us around. I talked with their Sous Chef and plan on keeping in touch with him. Recently Fork has brought on a new Chef, Terence Feury, whom we didn't get to meet, he was on vacation. He comes with a great resume and will bring his abilities to Fork. Hopefully Amy is going to go on her days off and work in the kitchen for experience of working with Chef Feury and his staff.

Dinner was hours long with drinks, laughter and beautiful food. I was sad to leave Philadelphia, my old faithful tasty home, but I was excited to get back to Dish and share with our staff the adventures of the day. Ken drove and we all dozed with our bellies full and contented minds.

All in all....mission accomplished. We will be heading off soon for more dining!

http://www.forkrestaurant.com/ well worth the drive!

Charles Town garden sightings

I have two active crazy dogs, LuLu and Scout, I try to walk almost everyday. I love to check out every one's yard as I walk or with LuLu pulled along. I finally got my new camera out of the box from last Christmas and decided to start photographing all the amazing backyard gardens through out town. No two are the same. Maybe you will recognize yours or be inspired for next years planting sesason.

Saturday August 8 first outdoor free movie

Please come join us for our first of many to come outdoor free movie featuring our most beloved alien ET. Movie starts at 9:15, come earlier and have dinner or bring your lawn chair, settle in and enjoy hot dogs on the outdoor grill and a fresh squeezed lemonade followed with ET's favorite, Reese's Pieces.

Hot Dog $2.50 J&D Meats Pennsylvania Dutch Market, Hagerstown Md.
Cool Lemonade $2.00 on site squeezing by dedicated dish kitchen staff
Reese's Pieces $1.00

Rain or shine

Dish Bistro 213 West Washington Charles Town 304-728-8464

August 15 Ferris Bueller's Day Off

August 22 Fast Times At Ridgemont High

August 29 People's Choice