This vacation, I turned a once-in-a-lifetime experience into an annual tradition.

You see, food and family go hand-in-hand in my circle. And with miles separating me from family, the two tend to come together only during holidays and summer vacations. But while the meetings seem scant, the spreads are often elaborate, with scrupulous attention paid to sourcing tastes locally.

So that’s why it felt right to rebook a Dinner at the Farm during my summer vacation in New England.

My husband and I arrived fifteen minutes late to Barberry Hill Farm in Madison, CT. The dirt doubletrack led us to a gathering of folks dressed in coastal summer attire and a welcome wagon of earthy types, just like us. My mother waited at the entrance, whisking me promptly to the drink table where the sangria—a Spanish rosé with farm-fresh fruit—was going fast. It was clear that the 180 guests had not yet arrived (they must have been stuck in traffic).  The cooks were busy cheffing it up in the back of an old pickup powered by generators. And servers circled the lawn with appetizers of tempura squash blossoms and melon, farm feta, and mint bites.

The young daughters of Kingsley and Kelly Goddard (our hosts) rang the cowbell. It was time to start the farm tour. One group sauntered off to the sea-kissed crops, while our group was led out to pasture to check on the animals. Chickens, sheep, and turkeys ranged land peppered with large granite boulders and quintessential New England stone walls. Women lifted their skirts to navigate poultry landmines and fussed over chicks, pullets, and roosters fit only for a Martha Stewart Living spread. We walked past sheds covered in trumpet vines and fences with moss so thick it dated the 1909 family farm. Finally, we came together under a linen-clothed tent held erect by timbers. That’s when they unveiled the menu …

Tomato, melon, beet, husk cherry, and peach salad ceviche

Corn soup with scallops and purslane salsa

Roasted fluke with braised kale and cabbage in a clam & lobster sauce

Braised chicken with carrots, ginger, mint, and peanuts with sautéed Bok Choy

Wood fired farm meatball with sautéed peppers, potatoes, and bacon in a Pecorino cream

Sponge cake with berries and whipped cream

My palate stumbled over crisp summer produce, melt-in-your-mouth meats, and seafood so fresh I swear it was caught minutes before. The wine kept flowing—as if out of nowhere—and its distinct mineral taste turned cartwheels over my tongue. Each bite rendered tastes of the earth, the sea, and the air, in an orchestra so mesmerizing I never wanted the concert to end.

But food aside, the best part of the evening was seeing my family sparkle.

My father, well, he forwent the farm tour to indulge in an extra pass of appetizers. Upon our return, he acted as if us “kids” just missed the ice cream truck. The enthusiasm my mother, the designer, expressed at each course presentation was contagious. And my husband and I held hands as we listened, open hearted, to Kingsley rattle off the event’s nonprofit beneficiaries: the Connecticut Farmland Trust, the New Connecticut Farmer Alliance, CitySeed, and Connecticut Region 4 School Kitchens (as Chair of Tetonia Elementary’s outdoor classroom, this one hits home). I was proud of my native state for their vibrant farm movement and happy to share the experience with both family and strangers.

Our Dinner at the Farm was much more than a date-night splurge, more than a Thanksgiving gathering, it was a celebration of our love of food, its cultivation, and my childhood roots. And even with great physical distance between me and my family, the City’s ethnicity, and the rural coastal farms, this night represented a closeness—a renewing of vows if you will—to what makes me whole.

That’s why I’ve already marked my calendar for next year …