The East Coast Grill serves its share of seafood and wine, and Chez Henri isn’t known for its simple farm fare. But the chefs of each are adapting for a good cause Thursday: The fourth annual Urban Barn Dance, a benefit for the nonprofit Mass Farmers Markets starting at 6:30 p.m. at the Dante Alighieri Center in Kendall Square.
Chris Schlesinger (East Coast Grill), Paul O’Connell (Chez Henri) and Bob Sargent of flora Restaurant in Arlington are to build a menu from locally grown food — including Globe Fish of Boston, Danish Pastry House of Medford, Austin Brother Farms of Belchertown and Hamilton Orchards of New Salem — before a live band and caller get attendees contra dancing (no experience required, organizers say) and the bidding begins in a silent auction.
The auction “offers a wide array of [goods from] the best local businesses from the culinary world and beyond — a perfect opportunity for early holiday shopping,” said Karin Turer, of Mass Farmers Markets.
Tickets to the event are $50, but there are other suggested levels of support (the $500 Golden Watermelon includes admission for two, as does the $250 Silver Queen Corn, while the $100 Bronze Fennel includes admission for one) that “provides the opportunity for guests to toast the hard work of their favorite farmers,” Turer said.
“The Urban Barn Dance is a harvest celebration of our markets, our farmers and the supporting community members who shop farmers markets. It is a delicious and fun way for people to support a bright future for the over 250 markets in our state,” said Mass Farmers Markets executive director, Jeff Cole.
Cambridge alone has four farmers markets listed on the group’s website: Kendall Square’s, running 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Oct. 26 on Main Street, near the T stop; Central Square’s, running from noon to 6 p.m. Mondays through Nov. 21 at the parking lot at Bishop Allen Drive and Norfolk Street; Harvard Square’s, running 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays in the Charles Hotel Courtyard at 1 Bennett St.; and a winter market running 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays starting Jan. 7 at 5 Callendar St., near Putnam and Western avenues in Cambridgeport — and still seeking a name, via a contest that can be entered here. There’s also Farmers’ Market at Harvard, running noon to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Oct. 25 at Oxford and Kirkland streets.
This post took significant amounts of material from a press release.
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