Outstanding in the Bleu Mont Field

Edible Madison, September 5, 2016

When Jim Denevan, founder of Outstanding in the Field, first started doing farm-to-table dinners in farm fields in 1999, he invited his friends and family to be his “fake” customers to provide legitimacy for his new business. “I needed people for photo shoots to get it off the ground,” Denevan said. Now his events sell out across the country with people stampeding to get a spot at the stunning long table covered in white cloths set against pastoral landscapes. To date, Outstanding in the Field has planned over 800 events and served over 80,000 guests.

By now most people are familiar with the “farm-to-table” movement, but in the late 1990s when Denevan, a California native whose older brother is an organic farmer, decided that he wanted to connect people to where their food was coming from, this was still a fairly new concept. Now in its twelfth year doing events across the country, Outstanding in the Field is the gold standard for farm-to-table dinners; if you’re lucky enough to place a plate at the table, then you are in for a magical evening. On this August night in southern Wisconsin, my sister and I felt charmed to find ourselves in the field.

Denevan, who bought a 1953 bus in 2004 for $9,000 in order to take his dinners on the road, has landed on a fool-proof formula: find a picturesque farm for the meal and locate a reputable chef and restaurant to cook it. This year’s Madison-area event took place on August 6 at Bleu Mont Dairy in Blue Mounds, with Chef Dan Fox, a 2016 James Beard nominee for Best Chef: Midwest, at the helm, planning and preparing the meal for 180-some guests.