High Points: Outstanding in the Field matters

So I have a reasonably, OK, an unreasonably large appetite. But the “Food Matters” column that Amiee White Beazley writes in the Aspen Times Weekly always makes me hungry.

Each week she opines and “dishes” (sorry about the pun) on the various food offerings of our abundant valley and beyond. Rather than simply offering reviews, Amiee makes suggestions and recommendations and touts the good things and the great places to go and sup.

This week, her column, illustrated by an outrageous photo of a 144-foot-long dining table set up in the middle of a farm patch under stunning mountain peaks, is about a project called Outstanding in the Field. It is a program that, to quote Amiee, is “a culinary adventure that travels around the country setting up their long table in the fields, vineyards or beaches” — and serves amazing meals. How cool is that?

On Wednesday, an Outstanding in the Field dinner will take place in Edwards at the Copper Bar Ranch with the various restaurants of the Mark and Lari Fischer dining empire cooking and providing the food, the service and the love.

If you have been reading “Food Matters,” you know that Mark, who changed the food scene in Carbondale when he opened six89 in an old house on Main Street a decade or more ago, has topped himself with his new space called Town. Still on Main Street but in the center of Carbondale, the contemporary but welcoming Town has been a huge hit with both locals and visitors alike and has given another boost to what is now a thriving culinary community.

Anyway, Mark and sick Baltimore Ravens fan John Chad Little, who is now cooking at Cherry Creek’s Harman’s Eat & Drink (the Fischer establishment that just replaced the Denver Phat Thai), will prepare a five-course dinner from greens grown on the premises and other local products. Yum is the word. Guests, who bring their own plates (and sunscreen and sunglasses, judging from the photos), will sit side by side, smell the fresh, farm air and enjoy what will inevitably be a joyous repast unlike any other.

The thirsty ones may be the luckiest of all. Cocktails will be made with the Woody Creek-grown Woody Creek Distillers vodka, beer will flow compliments of Vail’s Bonfire brewery, and, a favorite of the Fischer gang, the Jack Rabbit Hill Winery in Paonia will pour wines paired perfectly with the dinner.

Tickets for the Outstanding in the Field dinner at the Copper Bar Ranch on July 24 are $180 (plus taxes and a $5 fee) and can be purchased at http://www.outstandinginthe field.com. And you can find out more about the ranch itself at http://www.copperbarranch.com.

And, of course, the Fischer restaurants all have their own quirky websites. Check ’em out at http://www.town carbondale.com, http://www.thepullmangws.com, http://www.phat thai.com or http://www.harmanscherrycreek.com.