VI 

Only the pure in heart can make a good soup.

                                                —Ludwig van Beethoven

You could argue that the best way to enjoy a tomato—or a carrot, or an ear of corn—at its peak is uncooked and practically unadorned. And you’d be right. What is better than that August tomato, warmed by the sun, picked from its vine and showered with a few flakes of salt? The ear of corn that’s snapped from its stalk tastes best right there among the rows—raw and as juicy as a peach. The carrot? Even the carrot is sweetest when it first emerges from underground, never mind those flecks of dirt. 

Indeed, this is how we like to start any dinner at our Meadow...

An excerpt from the email sent to our July 18 guest list:

We’re looking forward to returning to Cure Organic Farm this Saturday! Our menu will reflect the season, featuring the summer’s last peas and favas alongside the first zucchini and squash blossoms, and maybe even a cherry tomato! We’ll also be preparing Frank Silva’s Scottish Highland hanger steak on our wood fire.

A reply from a guest:

To whom it may concern,

We received an email yesterday with the menu on what we are going to be served for dinner and to be honest we are very disappointed. For the price we are paying we assumed we are getting something better than peas and a flank steak. We would like to cancel our reservation for two reasons. First, my fiance doesn't eat red meat and it doesn't look like there is another option an...

Every April, I sit down with four blank pieces of paper. I draw a five-by-seven grid, and number the cells. Then, in the square that represents the first Saturday in June, I write: CURE. I feel good about this one. Our first dinner of the season is usually a mild and sunny affair. It may have snowed only a week ago, but by June, we are well into our first solid stretch of warm summer evenings, and the monsoons of July are still on the distant horizon.

As soon as I am on to the next weekend, I begin to feel more uncertain. The second weekend in June—this is when the winds of May make one more burst. Terrible things might happen on this Thursday or Saturday, I’m convinced. With an unsteady hand, I pencil in MUNSON and RED WAGON.

Of course, there’s no telling what weather will blow in during...

We have two baby chicks on our kitchen counter. Their day-old fluff almost entirely disguises their frail, reptilian bodies. They peep and hop and watch us with dark, inquisitive eyes. Then they collapse, unexpectedly. For a few moments, they fall onto their bellies and into an overwhelming sleep. Their downy paddle-shaped wings slowly release, settling alongside their outstretched bodies. With a start, they are up again, chirping, pecking, hopping.

I didn't know about chicken narcolepsy until we we raised our first flock of four on our kitchen counter. Now this pair follows the same endearing pattern, but every time I glance at them, my impulse to lean over their box and coo is tempered by a great sadness. The reason these two are here, this spring, is to replace the two birds we lost on...

There is something very endearing about a grown man tiptoeing along, arms outstretched for balance. This is what Bob Munson is doing when I pull up beside his truck. The tilled, empty field is his stage, and he carefully places one white sneaker in front of the other, moving gingerly across, featherweight. If you've ever watched a sand hill crane dance—stretching its wings, lifting into the air, bowing to the ground—this is what Bob looks like. I remain in my car to watch him dance. I know what he is doing, of course: he's checking his seeds. Bob always plants his fields early. He sows spinach and lettuce in February, in between snows. Then he leaves for Hawaii.

When the cottonwood's leaves begin to unfurl and the April sun shines brightly, Bob is back on the farm, looking for sprouts. "Oh...

We each planted the seeds in the still-dark months of late winter. Almost a powder, so fine—it seemed improbable that anything would sprout; that any particles would find their way into the soil, to just the right depth; that they would not be washed away with even a gentle watering; that the growing lights we suspended above them could coax a green thread from those dark depths. But they did. Tentatively, the tendrils emerged, reaching for the light. Their first leaves unfurled, serrated and covered in a fur of silvery hairs, too delicate still to inflict a painful sting.

This was when our big yellow bus was parked outside the house on Rosehill Drive. We had driven her home through a Midwestern snow storm, and named her Bella. This was the beginning of Meadow Lark Farm Dinners. 

When the...