I’m so glad you invited me, Theresa said as she leaned toward me. It wasn’t the first time she’d thanked my buddy Kristin and me for asking her to come along to a summer barbecue on the way-out-of-town Luna Farm of the Iron Chef Jose Garces.
I understood exactly how she felt. We were sitting at a table under a gigantic white tent, a playful breeze cooling us on a day when it was not as nearly needed but welcomed, surrounded by stations of great food and a carpet of beautiful green grass. The sky was clear and blue, and soul music from a band on the deck made us want to move our shoulders and wiggle our hips.
What a way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
But it was not all for pleasure and relaxation. The three of us and more than 200 other people had paid a little cash for all of this – an amount very small considering the why of the barbecue: to raise money to help fund programs for the Garces Foundation. The organization offers community health days with free dental (Garces’ wife Beatriz Mirabal-Garces is a dentist) and other health care services, literacy and related classes for restaurant workers and field trips to the farm for students.
The 40-acre organic Luna Farm in Ottsville, PA, an hour north of Philadelphia, is both the family’s home-away-from-the-city and the supplier of vegetables, fruits, eggs and honey for the chef’s dozen restaurants in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. This was the second year of the barbecue hosted by the foundation and Garces, who in shorts and shirts mingled, welcomed and chatted with the guests.
We had choices of barbecued chicken and pork, goat tacos, roast pork, burgers, hotdogs, Sangria, lemonade (with or without vodka), salads, water and more from nine stations/tables under the tent or on the lawn under the trees. At one table, we infused jars of clear vodka with strawberries, raspberries, cucumbers, rosemary, mint and/or blueberries. It should be drinkable in a few days. Vodka anyone?
We partook of just about everything (except, for me, the pork) two, three and then-we-stopped-counting times. We didn’t pig out, we hogged out.
On the deck, the American Deluxe band with Clay Sears on guitar (he’s played with such folks as Jay-Z, Janet Jackson, Pharrell Williams, Melissa Etheridge and Britney Spears) and its three singers kept the tunes coming, from Prince to Chaka Khan and other soul singers.
I’ll let the photos tell the story.
