Paradise Farm

" Hi! I'm Barb Freda, your visitflorida.com dining expert. Today, we're gonna spend the afternoon and evening with Gabriele, owner of Paradise Farms, here in Homestead, Florida which is just 35 miles southwest of downtown Miami, but it feels like a million miles a way. We're gonna be having dinner under the stars being hosted by Gabriele here at Paradise Farms and Outstanding in the Field, a company that puts together these outdoor farm-to-table dinners all over the world at this point. Everything is local. It's farm-to-table. We'll be eating basically right next to where our food has been grown. I'm here with Gabriele Marewski, owner of Paradise Farms, and one of the inspirations behind Dinner in Paradise here. Tell me about "Dinners in Paradise". It's such a great idea. Obviously, you get so many people coming here to enjoy the dinners. What inspired you to get going with that?"

" It was actually inspired by Hurricane Katrina. Shortly after that, Michael called me -- Michael Schwartz, from Michael's Genuine -- and he says "why don't we take your idea from Outstanding in the Field and doing dinners at the farm and do a fundraiser for Hurricane Katrina victims?" And that started the Dinner in Paradise series and this is now our fourth season."

" This is Jim Denevan, the founder of Outstanding in the Field, who is partnering with Gabriele here at Paradise Farms tonight. So, tell us about Outstanding in the Field."

" Outstanding in the Field is a dinner series that crosses North America. All the diners are at the site where our food comes from. We're trying to popularize the idea of dining on a farm. I think diners are seeking a little bit more adventure. Maybe they visited the farmer's market or seen the names of farms on a menu, but to actually go out to the farm and dine with the ingredients surrounding the site of the dinner. I think a lot of people are excited about that."

" I'm here talking with Michael Schwartz, chef at Michael's Genuine Food and Drink in Miami's Design District, and he is the chef here tonight at Dinner in Paradise. So, what's it like to come here and find exactly what you're going to use for dinner, yards from where you're working?"

" Yeah. Well, that's the point, you know. It's the inspiration and to kind of get people out of that restaurant environment and see, you know, where the food comes from. So, that's always an inspiration for us. We try to keep the food simple. This dinner is really family-style and it's about sharing food with people that you're sitting next to. Quality of the food is, obviously, its great restaurant-quality and the setting is the best of both worlds."

" Tell us a little bit about tonight's menu."

" The menu is the menu. So, you don't get to order off of a menu. We just cook for you what is fresh and what is of the moment. Yellow jack is the local fish that we found for this dinner, and it's one of our favorites. Lots of heirloom tomatoes. Beautiful Brassica greens from the farm and lots of flowers. Beautiful eggplants. We made a great capanada with lots of olive oil and raisins and olives and capers, so that's really bright and vibrant. Calabasa blossoms, a lot of them, so, you know, we stuffed those with mozzarella, and we're gonna just quick fry them nice and crispy with bright parsley sauce. So, lots of good stuff."

" You know, that's one of the neatest things about it is they don't tell you what you're having for dinner. It's all a surprise and it's always wonderful."

" Oh my God! It's so heavy."

" Heavy, right?"

" Oh, it's outstanding. This is our third time coming out to Paradise Farms, and I gotta say that the fish was outstanding."

" It was awesome. Actually, I'm really enthralled with the edible flowers. I'm really excited about that. That's like-- it makes something extra special to the salad. I really like that."

" It's been a great night here and we had such a treat learning what it is to eat local at a Dinner in Paradise, here in Paradise Farms. If you wanna participate in future Dinners in Paradise, you can go make reservations -- they are required -- on the website at paradisefarms.net. You can click on that. The prices range from a 150 dollars per person to 200 and they do sell out, so make your reservation quickly. This is Barb Freda, your dining expert for visitflorida.com. It's been fun dining with you."