Dinner celebrates Conservation Foundation's 45th anniversary

As part of its 45th anniversary celebration, The Conservation Foundation is inviting 150 friends to enjoy a meal prepared by a gourmet chef from 5 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 12, at McDonald Farm, 10S404 Knoch Knolls Road, Naperville.

The Green Earth Institute will provide the organic vegetables for this meal, all grown on the grounds surrounding the evening's dinner table.

"Iron Chef America" alumnus chef Paul Virant, owner of Vie in Western Springs, has designed a unique meal for the evening's guests.

The reception menu will feature breakfast radishes, herbed Nordic creamery harvest butter, sea salt fennel and carrots "a la grecque" charcuterie, cheese, pickles, black raspberry jam, and olive oil crackers salad: assorted beets, grilled chard, and radicchio, drizzled with roasted garlic vinaigrette.

The entree will be dry-aged CDK beef sirloin (raised in the Midwest without hormones or antibiotics), garden herb chimichurri, Russian banana fingerling potato salad, and summer crisp lettuce with Caesar dressing. The dessert will be honey mousse, seasonal fruit, and vanilla shortbread.

While dining al fresco on the 60-acre farm, not far from where some of the meal was grown, guests will be entertained by Yorkville resident Katie Moritz, an award-winning hammered dulcimer musician.

Those attending are encouraged to stroll around the grounds and learn how solar and wind renewable energy help provide 25 percent of the farm's electricity each year.

Cost for this evening is $125 for Conservation Foundation and Green Earth Institute members; $150 for nonmembers. Registration is limited to the first 150 guests to register. To register, contact theconservationfoundation.org/farmtofork.

A partner organization of The Conservation Foundation, Green Earth Institute leases 49 acres at McDonald Farm for organic vegetable farming. More than 40 crops are grown and sold through the community-supported agriculture program. Go to greenearthinstitute.org for more information.

The Conservation Foundation, headquartered in Naperville, is one of the region's oldest and largest nonprofit land and watershed conservation organizations.

Since it was founded in 1972, the foundation has helped preserve nearly 33,000 acres of open space, restored and cleaned miles of rivers and streams, and educated thousands of kids by engaging them in nature and the outdoors.

The group's work is focused in DuPage, Kane, Kendall and Will counties to preserve and restore nature. Find out more at theconservationfoundation.org.