Fun and Festivity Greet CT Farmers

Celebrating Connecticut farms seemed a strange thing to be doing that Sunday in September, the 10th anniversary of 9/11. As we drove along the Merritt on our way to Shelton, where the event was being held, I kept thinking that perhaps we should be commemorating the day in a more special way. We had attended church services earlier where 11 votive candles lined the altar in remembrance of our parishioners who perished in the Twin Towers, but as we later navigated the country lanes leading to the event site, we felt as if we should keep the entire day solemn, not just the morning.

Once at Jones Farm, however, we realized that being on a farm owned by the same family for 150 years was quite an appropriate American place to be for a 9/11 remembrance. This day, at the 11th Celebration of Connecticut Farms, people of different persuasions and professions came to reaffirm a belief in an American way of life. Residents from throughout the state mingled with farmers, restaurant chefs  and caterers, vintners and distillers, bread and pie bakers, milk and cheese producers. Vendors came with their tractors, pizza ovens on wheels, spits to cook pigs, food trucks with creamy cheese sandwiches sizzling on a grill and refrigerator trucks filled with cartons of raspberry-chocolate ice cream.

Gourds and squashes, potatoes and green beans spilled out of baskets under one small tent while out on a vast field, under two enormous white tents, 700 happy, hungry people patiently lined up at cloth-draped stands for some delicious tapas. Vases of field-grown flowers lent a carefree, colorful air to tables crammed with items for the silent auction. Cookbooks by Nutmegger’s Jacques Pèpin vied for space with dining vouchers, paintings of barns and meadows by members of the Connecticut Plein Air Painters, cases of wine and spirits, and certificates to fly fish, make truffles, bird watch, or have your portrait painted. The band Bone Dry had everyone swaying to the beat of rock and the blues —women in long, flowing cotton skirts and men wearing Stetson hats and cowboy boots pulled that morning from the back of their closets. NPR’s popular Food Schmooze Faith Middleton, culinary père Jacques Pépin and actress Christine Baranski were once again on board as cochairmen of the event. As they left the stage, fans quickly surrounded them to say hello and offer compliments.

Fifty Connecticut farmers and 24 restaurant chefs had the throngs jostling plastic plates and wine glasses for snippets of pasta with wild mushrooms, mini burgers, turkey galantine, goat cheese and mozzarella balls, seafood and vegetable mélanges, sushi and pulled pork, crusty breads, white wines, red wines, pear liqueur and vodka brewed from corn. And finally, to cap the feasting, there was intense vanilla ice cream to top off sweet apple pie.

The event is a fundraiser benefiting the Connecticut Farmland Trust whose monumental mission is to permanently protect the state’s working farmland. Established in 2002, the organization holds agricultural conservation easements on more than 2,000 acres of farmland on 26 farms around the state. Currently, there are 4,200 farms in Connecticut, over half of which are under 50 acres in size. The fickleness of nature and the volatility of the business climate contribute to the loss of 8,000 acres, some 142 farm businesses a year, a staggering statistic. By providing expertise to small farmers and by leveraging public funds and private donations to acquire easements, the organization is a leading resource in conserving our state’s working farmland.

Midway through the festivities that Sunday, the band struck up “America the Beautiful,” with Fran Scarpa at the mike singing the national hymn. How better to offer a perfect tribute to our country and to the victims of 9/11, surrounded by hundreds of our countrymen, our voices joined as one chorus, a people united for a good cause.

To learn more about the Connecticut Farmland Trust, visit its website at ctfarmland.org or contact Jim Gooch, executive director at 860-247-0202.