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Is it possible to prepare an organic, free-range feast on a budget? Managing editor Nicole Seiferth takes the challenge.

You are what you eat, as the cliché goes. But as we learn more about how all that we buy and consume impacts our world, that phrase has become a little more insistent: we really are what we eat. Just as many parishes have embraced recycling and fair-trade coffee, it’s time that we take a look at the food we serve at parish meetings and vestry dinners.

Recycle bins in the parish kitchen are one thing, but is it possible to prepare an organic meal that even the parish kids will eat and that won’t break the food budget? To find out, I decided to prepare an organic meal for 12 people, roughly the same size as an average vestry dinner. I enlisted the help of Luke and Willow Fodor, two friends for whom eating organically is just everyday life.

Panic was beginning to set in for me when I sat down with them two weeks before my dinner party. The Fodors, who are active Episcopalians and no strangers to planning parish meals, quickly calmed me down. With their guidance, we mapped out a meal that could be easily made for ten people or two hundred: organic fettuccine with sautéed mushrooms, almonds, and free-range sausage; steamed brussels sprouts; roasted parsnips; spinach salad with feta cheese and fresh bread from a local bakery.

The Fodors get as much of their food as possible from farmers’ markets and their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm. The food for my dinner party, then, would be supplemented by their finds at the farmers’ market, along with the results of my own grocery store shopping.

My shopping trip was a revelation. For the purposes of this article, I’d chosen one grocery store to get most of the food I’d serve my dinner guests. But I quickly found out why Luke and Willow stuck to the farmers’ market. The mushrooms for the fettuccine presented me with a moral dilemma: should I buy the organic mushrooms that came in a styrofoam container covered in plastic wrap, or the loose, undeniably fresh (but not organic) mushrooms available in the bin at my feet? Did the plastic wrap outweigh the environmental benefits of my pesticide-free mushrooms? I stuck to the organic produce, but not without a twinge of conscience.

Buying the sausage to accompany the fettuccine was an easier choice. Ray, an extremely helpful butcher, showed me all of his prepackaged free-range products — there were more than I’d expected, from all over the U.S. — and then he suggested that I buy the free-range chicken sausage they’d made that day in the store. I’d been planning on pork sausage, but, sticking to the Fodors’ edict that fresh is best, went with the chicken.

I was worried when I went through the checkout line. Organic food, for me, carried with it the impression of a higher price tag. So I was pleasantly surprised when my total came out to less than $80. That was a reasonable price tag for a dinner party in New York City. Add in what the Fodors spent at their farmers’ market and it was a meal for 12 for less than $100.

As any good parish dinner should, this one came together quickly, in less than an hour of prep and cooking time — and most of that was slicing, peeling, and washing the vegetables. For just that reason, having extra hands in the kitchen was essential. The real advantage this meal had in preparation was that it was a good balance of courses made a day before (roasted parsnips and dessert) and dishes that cooked quickly and were served almost immediately (the pasta and the brussels sprouts).

I learned an important and surprising lesson with this meal: perhaps contrary to popular opinion, when you offer your dinner guests simply prepared but very fresh vegetables, they will eat them and, more importantly, they’ll eat a lot of them. There wasn’t a parsnip or sprout left.

We finished the meal with Willow Fodor’s extraordinary pear crisp. It was so delicious that the guests didn’t even make it back to their seats after being served. All of us ended up crowded around the tiny kitchen island, savoring every bite of pear and ice cream — and waiting impatiently until it was our turn for a second helping.

Our organic dinner party was just what a dinner party should be: fun. It was a fun meal to shop for, fun to prepare and fun to eat. And it was a meal where empathy was fully present: in the good, healthy food we served our guests. In the free-range chicken, which means that, during their lives, the chickens had humane freedom of movement in their coop. In the organic produce, which, with its lack of pesticides and growth hormones, reduced our negative impact on the environment. We all went home happy, full, and, for me at least, thinking that this is the way I should be eating all the time, at home and at church.

Nicole Seiferth is managing editor of Trinity News.

A link to the recipe for Willow Fodor's Gingery Pear Crisp can be found above on the right hand side of the page.

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