Forget farm-to-table. The first-ever Harvest Dinner at Tower Grove Park will be park-to-table, with Taste chef Heather Stone preparing a multi-course menu from food grown in the park.
There’s plenty of food to fill a menu in the popular 289-acre park, including fresh herbs, radishes, squash, beets, and eggs from the park’s flock of Cochin chickens. Paw Paw trees grow throughout the park, along with persimmons and other edible fruit trees.
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Update: We reached out to the Tower Grove Park folks to ask if this event’s park-to-table menu is vegetarian. (Few would fancy a plate of foraged possum for dinner, after all.) Here’s their response: “It is a mostly vegetarian (though not vegan) menu with the exception of the main course, which will be a bone-in pork loin from a local producer served with a side of greens from the Park. We will be putting our chickens to work, though, as we’ll be serving deviled eggs as a cocktail hors d’oeuvre.” Our original story continues below.
Tickets for the dinner cost $160 and include a walkthrough of the vegetable garden with the park’s horticulture supervisor Steve Hogenmiller. The dinner starts with a cocktail hour at 5:30 p.m. on September 14 and continues with a five-course dinner in an outdoor garden.
“Most people don’t realize that we have a kitchen garden here, located behind the greenhouse,” said the park’s executive director Bill Reininger. “Today, the garden is used for education programs, including a plot reserved for students to plant in early spring.”
Proceeds from the 2016 Harvest Dinner will benefit the operations of Tower Grove Park. Seating is extremely limited and the event is expected to sell out quickly. Tickets may be purchased online or by calling (314) 771-4484.
