The mountains of Park City donned a Pacific Northwest atmosphere the night of the ninth annual 100 Mile Meal, put on by Recycle Utah.
A key fundraiser for the recycling nonprofit, which was founded in Park City in 1991, the 100 Mile Meal serves a dinner with food grown or produced within 100 miles of the recycling center.
This year’s dinner was held at Red Pine Lodge at Canyons Park City Mountain, which involved an aerial ride up the Red Pine Gondola. A slight thunderstorm delay didn’t dampen spirits, and the rain cleared entirely, leaving a mystical vista at 8,000 feet. The surrounding trees seemed to exhale as drifts of clouds poured from their tops, the sun burning the moisture away.
Greeted, as usual, with a glass of champagne, attendees milled around the upper level and deck of the lodge, sampling from an extensive meat and cheese board featuring Beehive Cheese, Park City Creamery and Creminelli Fine Meats. House-made cocktails — a mint mule, cucumber basil smash and a whiskey and coke — used Alpine Distilling’s gin, vodka and whiskeys, along with fruits and veggies from nearby farms.
The Park City Mountain culinary team, led by Executive Chef Greg Hansen and Food and Beverage Director Alex Malmborg, assembled the night’s menu, rising to the task.
“Being that it is from 100 miles, we do run into some challenges,” Hansen said. “We don’t have lemons or any kind of citrus here in Utah, no sugar. … So pretty much everything we use for acid is a honey vinegar or a honey.”
Appetizers passed around delivered a range of flavors and styles: lingua empanadas, a trout cake, smoked beet tartare and stone fruit crostini.
Once seated for the meal, guests chatted with the invited contributors at their tables, the farmers, cheese-makers or ranchers who had offered their goods to the chefs. Three new contributors participated this year: Moonshadow Farm from Hoytsville, Mountain Town Farm Utah from Park City and Whistling Spring Trout Farm from Brigham City.
After a first soup course — a melon gazpacho with cantaloupe, a pork belly chicharron and garnished with a picked melon rind — Recycle Utah Board Member Ken Barfield addressed the room.
“This is not a normal introduction. This is the leader of our family. This is the leader of our tribe,” he said, gesturing to Recycle Utah’s Executive Director Carolyn Wawra.
In early May, the young executive experienced a stroke. She returned to work in July with the support of her staff. Still recovering from the event’s side effects, Wawra addressed the crowded room unshrinking.
“Thank you for coming and supporting the 100 Mile Meal,” she said, reading from flash cards. “My name is Carolyn. I’m executive director of Recycle Utah.”
She thanked Epic Promise and Gallery MAR for their support and said the proceeds from the event would support Recycle Utah’s mission to achieve a more sustainable community through “recycling services, education and advocacy.”
When finished, the room rose in a standing ovation, representing the love and support Wawra has earned from her community.
Dinner continued with a mushroom ravioli salad, and then the entree course was served family style. A checkered picnic basket and a bucket of fried chicken was left at the front of each table, a charming surprise for guests to unbox — tins of brisket and ribs, roasted corn and squash, smashed potatoes and jars of whipped hot honey and crispy shallots for topping.
Throughout much of the meal, produce grown by Tagge’s Famous Fruit & Veggie Farm in Perry was incorporated, including cantaloupe, peaches, sun sugar tomatoes and potatoes. The family — husband Thayne, wife Cari and kids Laci and Chad — attended the meal with an exciting announcement.
“Thayne and I are unusual farmers because we didn’t inherit our land. We bought our farm piece by piece,” Cari said.
Since they founded in 1997, they’ve watched their neighboring farms sell and get developed, which was originally their plan, she joked. But then they realized the severity of the changes: “you’re never going to take a house down and put a peach tree,” Cari said.
“We thought, ‘we might be the last ones around with a Brigham City peach. We can’t let that happen. It’s too special.’ We feel like we’re the stewards of this,” she said. “Our land, we feel, needs to be able to go on forever. We want your grandchildren to buy Brigham City peaches.”
So, she announced, their family decided to put their 130 acres of land into a Legacy Trust. The room erupted in applause.
“It always has to be used for farming, and it can never be developed,” she said, receiving more cheers.
On that note, dessert was served, a peach berry pie with buttermilk ice cream, from Auntie Em’s Baked Goods, Smith Orchards and Weeks Berries of Paradise, was paired with a honey apple dessert wine created by Slide Ridge from Mendon. A sweet finish for a sweet night.
Then it was back down the mountain in the dark. Overlapping with this year’s Park City Song Summit festivities, the event gave way to the sounds of musician Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, growing louder as the gondolas descended on their performance.
The 100 Mile Meal will return next year. Learn more about Recycle Utah on their website, recycleutah.org, and follow them on Instagram @recycleutah for updates on events.