Ray's Farm Dinner
6049 Seaview Ave. N.W.
206.789.3770

To celebrate fresh, Ray's Boathouse is hosting a series of "Farm Dinners," highlighting some of their many fine purveyors and the local fare they produce, including produce, meat, poultry, cheese and seafood. The focus is on sustainable and organic, and the growers are in the house.

With a prix fixe menu priced at $60, diners enjoy a sampling of seasonal local ingredients prepared under the watchful eye of Ray's chef Peter Birk.

Part of the fun is having the chef and purveyors make rounds during the various courses, filling us in on what we're eating. If you are the chatty type, they love to talk about what they do and how it got to your plate. And if you're the more reserved type of eater who doesn't like to get to verbal during a fine meal, they're down with that program as well. We have a little of both of those traits in our tandem, and we thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Since the beginning, Ray's has demonstrated a commitment to local farms, and this is another way of recognizing the people behind the food they serve. The dinners continue monthly for the rest of the year, including a "Foraged and Found" dinner in October and a crab dinner in November.

On the night of our attendance, we reveled in an almost decadently fresh selection of items from Snohomish County's Anselmo Farm, Growing Things Farm from Snoqualmie Valley, and Tenino's Stoney Plains Farm. This is food to pay attention to.

Anselmo's always bold arugula kick-started the event, with a hint of cheese and some crunch from pancetta. Growing Things cauliflower got all caramelized, and partnered with a perfectly-not-raw-but-slightly-rare (a tough trick!) scallop.

At this point, we were thinking, "My goodness, we're not even to the big guns of the menu, and we are already up to our gills in freshness." We wondered, aloud, how much freshness can one meal present? We'd find out soon enough.

Kale from the Stone-cold crew at Stoney Plains provided just about all the organic accompaniment that a huge piece of pork belly could handle on the next dish.

This hot, creamy and considerably sized rectangle of porkage just about knocked us out of our chairs. Usually in these freshness parade, farmer-type meal events, servings are petite. But, not with this baby!

We never liked fat on meat as kids, probably because it was all nasty, but on today's organic pig, the fat's become more like dessert than nuisance. Would we eat pork fat like this every day? Absolutely not. But did we find it in our hearts to work through this serving with a solid and determined approach? Undeniably.

And, we weren't even to the salmon. But here it came, just about the most beautiful, iridescent pink piece of wild Chinook that could possibly exist. Partly because we don't believe that the Copper River even exists, and partly because we get get a little regionalistic with our seafood, we were stoked to see, smell and consume this carrot-kissed sea-goer.

The next two special farm dinners feature a knock-out lineup of local farms.

On Aug. 5, Alm Hill Gardens, Boistfore Valley Farm and Oxbow Farm are the featured purveyors, with a menu worth twice the $60 charge. Included in this freshness blowout are cold smoked Alaskan king salmon, Alm Hill slow-roasted beets, Oxbow tomato-zucchini gratin, Alaskan halibut with Shilshole ricotta and braised cipollini, Boistfort Valley purple, green, roma and yellow beans, and a roasted peach tart.

Sept. 2 showcases local meat farmers Thundering Hooves and The Bluebird Grain Farms. This dinner will feature braised beef tongue, rye gnocchi, "Petite Sliders," mesquite grilled Kansas City strip steak and plum strudel. Dang.

For more information Ray's Farm Dinners, click here.

The Ballard Food Police visit all establishments anonymously and pay for all food and drink in full. Know anything we should know? Tell the Ballard Food Police at ballardfoodpolice@gmail.com.