Certainly the Turner Farm barn dinners held on Thursdays throughout the summer are a heavily attended event.  Diners come by boat from the Mainland on a special transport and summer residents and visitors reserve their spots early where the barn can accommodate nearly 100 enthusiastic diners.

The farm table is set for some 60 diners at Turner Farm

Over the years I’ve been to many of them, and this one being held in the first week of July was somewhat different from past experiences. Besides the brisk weather, with requisite Maine fog and temperatures never rising above the 50s, the barn remained cozy and inviting.

Fog and chilly temps held steady all day

The menu offered cocktails, wines, small bites and a rotation of successive courses that are all distinctive. It starts with a Lavender Gin Fizz, an addictive drink, both sweet and potent.  The creamery’s new spruce aged luxuriously fine Camembert was offered on an hors d’oeuvre table, with housemade fennel crackers.

One of the best dishes was the spring pea shooters, so vividly green with deep fresh pea flavor; it was a terribly good example of a velvety soup, served cold.

Wine and cocktails served to the waiting throng; Lower right and left, the farm’s Camembert cheese and the wonderful starter of pea shooters

The table was set with an array of mismatched china, and it worked! Little bowls of pickled Romanesco cauliflower was a nice little tidbit to savor with wine or cocktails.

A collection of mismatched china that was charming

The meal began with the farm’s hand-picked kale dressed with walnuts, lemon vinaigrette and Parmesan.  I’m not a kale fan, but these leaves were some of the freshest and tastiest I’ve had making me an easy convert when the quality like this is so good.

A salad of the freshest leaves of hand-picked kale

The grilled Hakurei turnips showed the skill at which the kitchen (all Nebo Lodge staff) handles this wonderfully tasty vegetable. There was another greens course—perhaps one too many in a menu heavy with various salads—that had freshly picked butter lettuce from the farm’s growing patch.  It was lightly dressed with a Champagne vinaigrette.  A second salad of early tomatoes—surprisingly sweet and textural—was bathed in the farm’s wonderful feta cheese and basil in a Cabernet vinaigrette.  This was a wondrous salad of such good flavors, especially those tomatoes which were as fresh as an August variety.  They’re grown in soil in the farm’s hoop houses and it’s a method that truly works well.

The tomato salad was enjoyed by all

The main course was a lasagna bathed in a Bolognese sauce mixed into freshly made pasta sheets and moistened with an herbed béchamel.  This course, though luscious, had mixed reviews.  I liked it because of the strong taste of the farm’s bacon in the sauce.  I was disappointed that the dinner, however, didn’t have local meat dishes (pork, lamb or beef) as a main course.  But this was an early summer menu that featured the garden more than the pasture.

Lasagna Bolognese

The final course was a very well executed sweet fromage blanc tart with local honey and housemade pastry.  It had overtones of a breakfast danish that advanced to being a very pleasing sweet course to a fine dinner.

Sweet fromage blanc tart

Throughout the summer the menu progresses and the whole event is a great time for food and wine, prepared and served by an able staff that help make these dinners such a wholehearted event.