Camano Island barn dinners showcase local food

CAMANO ISLAND — Our region now offers yet another delightful dining experience for exuberant gourmands.

The Kristoferson Farm on East Camano Drive is hosting a series of summer dinners in the family’s hay barn.

These three-hour meals include wine pairings with each of the five courses, which are made from ingredients produced by local farmers and prepared by local chefs. And it’s all accompanied by a running educational dialog about the food and the wine.

Sit family style at a long table, get to know the people at your elbows and enjoy a wide range of gourmet tastes.

The Kristoferson family established a picturesque 134-acre dairy farm on Camano Island more than 100 years ago. The farm still grows hay, and more recently started growing a culinary grade of lavender. Five years ago, the family established a zip-line recreation business, Canopy Tours Northwest, in the 100-acre woods above the hay and lavender fields.

And now the Kristofersons are hosting the dinners and using their home-grown lavender in the meals.

“The dinners are another way to share the farm and keep the property from being developed,” said Kris Kristoferson, the great-grandson of Swedish pioneer Albert Kristoferson.

“When I was a kid, I had a friend who liked to eat over at our house because we had what he called ‘old-fashioned’ dinners,” Kristoferson said. “Family suppers are what I grew up with and that’s the feeling we have with our dinners in the barn.”

On a recent evening, two long tables in the rustic barn were decorated with pink flowers and candles. The rosé wine, which matched the flowers, already had been poured.

Guests mingled while trying hors d’oeuvres that included crab-stuffed mushrooms, honey-roasted beet stacks and shrimp in lettuce cups, all prepared by chef Donna King’s crew from the Cama Beach Cafe. David Volmut of Wind Rose Cellars of Sequim poured a 2015 Pinot Grigio for all.

The rosé wine (Rosato 2015) on the table was paired with a creamy morel mushroom bisque, which was followed by an organic field greens salad with roasted radish panzanella (bread and tomatoes) paired with the winery’s Bell Bottom White.

For the main dish, people chose from a luscious-looking plate of sous vide (steamed) lingcod, leg of lamb or a spring vegetable timbale (layered and molded). The wine for this course was Wind Rose Cellars’ 2012 Bravo Rosso red wine.

A 2013 Dolcetto accompanied the dessert of quinoa shortcake with strawberries and sweet lavender cream.

Suppliers included Ananda Yoga (meaning “joy and oneness”) Farm, Island Harvest Farm and Wildpatch Bread, all located on Camano Island

At this particular dinner, 42 people sat at the tables, including Kristoferson and two of his four sisters, Nancy O’Neal and Melissa Elliott.

Also at the table were Tino and Terry Senon, who live on Camano Island and had dined at the Kristofersons’ twice before.

“Kris and his family are so nice,” Terry Senon said. “We love the creative food, we like hearing from the local farmers and we enjoy meeting the vintners.”

Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com.

If you go

Kristoferson Farm Dinners

6 to 9 p.m. July 9, Aug. 13, Sept. 17

332 N. East Camano Dr., Camano Island

Cost is $105 each

To make a reservation, go to http://bit.ly/28NNHnu or call 360-387-5807.

Kristoferson Family Farm

From lumber milled on site in 1912, the Kristofersons built hay and dairy barns, which today are listed on the state’s Heritage Barn Register, managed by the Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hay and lavender are harvested each year. Along with Canopy Tours, the family forest is managed for a small harvest every 10 years under a stewardship plan developed with the help of Washington State University Extension. The farm was named the Washington State Wildlife Farm of the Year in 2014.