Have a Seat at the Table

The Bell’s Bend community comes together over dinner to preserve their land

Tickets to this year's 2016 Ring the Bell Dinner are here. 

Happiness quite unshared,” Charlotte Brontë once opined, “can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.” While the eldest of the Bronte sisters referred, no doubt, to good times in her own pastoral patch of 19th century England, the sentiment still applies to us today in contemporary Nashville. We at Edible feel nowhere is such shared happiness more delicious than the Ring the Bell Dinner at Whooping Crane Farm. With shimmering stars as a canopy and fertile fields and fecund forests as a backdrop, the annual dinner raises both spirits and funds to help preserve a Nashville natural treasure: the Bells Bend corridor.

Set fully within Davidson County minutes from downtown, the Bells Bend corridor consists of a lush peninsula jutting out into the Cumberland River. For generations, a community of stewards have labored to grow healthy, delicious food from its generous ground, thereby preserving the community’s rural heritage from the forces of development.

Last October, the farmers and friends of “The Bend” set long tables stretching across the lawn behind Whooping Crane Farm. Local florists, chefs, farmers, and musicians then set about doing what they do best—harvesting, arranging, cooking and playing. The guests arrived and dinner was served.

This year’s farm dinner will return to Whooping Crane Farm on Sunday, October 9th. Chef Philip Krajek of Rolf and Daughters will again staff the portable kitchen, and sommelier Nicolette Anctil from HUSK will curate the wine. The locals themselves—Bells Bend Farms, Six Boots Growers Collective, Old School Farm, and other organic farms—will supply fresh ingredients. The women of Humble Flowers will provide the floral arrangements, and the Bells Bend Stringband will bring to the table the oldtime music. Also, since folks do not live by bread alone, Yazoo Brewery’s Preservation Ale—made with hops grown by Bells Bend Farms—will grace the glasses and tickle the throats.

Tickets are $200 with all proceeds used to strengthen local agriculture in Bells Bend and protect Nashville’s last remaining farmlands. Bar opens at 4:30 p.m. and dinner will be served at 6:00 p.m. Come share some delicious happiness with new friends around the table at The Bend.

Bells Bend Farms | bellsbendfarms.com
eric@bellsbendfarms.com