photo courtesy of Lisa Bralts-Kelly

Our schedule for releasing dinner seats for reservations is as follows:

May 26 through July 21st released in early March (currently, all are sold out).

August 4th through September 8st released on May 12th at 10AM (currently, all are sold out).

September 22nd through December 1st released in mid August

Our new e-commerce site for placing reservations is ShowClix.  You can either click on this link or scroll down to the individual dinner dates, and click on their specific links.  If you prefer to make reservations by phone, you can order tickets by phone (at no additional cost) by calling, 1-888-71-TICKETS. Our call center is open Monday through Friday, 9:00AM - 9:00PM (EST).

To receive future notices about when dinner dates will be released for sale or when seats open up due to cancellations, please sign up for our mailing list through our website or friend us on Facebook.

 May 26^th A Dinner of Spring

We’re starting off this season’s farm dinners in style with a full-blown wine pairings event.  Our viniferous friends from H2Vino (a fantastic family run wine distributor from Chicago) will match the wines with each course. As has become our tradition, we’ll be serving a spring Katadin lamb raised on pasture from Caveny Farms in Monticello, Illinois. Expect wonderfully tender and sweet asparagus, spring greens, peas, herbs, rhubarb and strawberries to round out the menu.  This five course dinner with wine costs $100 per person. SOLD OUT

June 9^th Early Season Vegetables Unite (our early summer vegetarian meal)

Over the past few years, our herb garden has grown to be a thing of glory; several varieties of thyme, lovage, sage, anise hyssop, oregano, mints, parsley, basil and many kinds of edible flowers. The diversity of herbs will be the inspiration for our first vegetarian menu of the season. This five course dinner without wine costs $85 per person. SOLD OUT

June 23^rd Smoked

Join guest chef Nathan Sears, chef de cuisine of Vie Restaurant in Western Springs, IL, for a meal designed around the art of smoking foods.  Nathan has been the creative force at Vie for hand-crafted charcuterie, so expect an exciting assortment of smoked and cured meats and sausages.  He’ll also push the envelope with smoked vegetables too.  Of course, Nathan is skilled in this cooking technique, and the smokiness won’t overpower the essence of the main ingredients.  This five course dinner without wine costs $100 per person. SOLD OUT

July 7^th Texas in Illinois Barbeque

In honor of Independence Day, we’ll fire up our “big daddy” grill and prepare a good ole’ fashioned Texas style barbeque for y’all (Alisa, our chef, spent several years cooking in Austin Texas, and the drawl comes back to her when she talks of BBQ).  Expect mouth-watering, smoked beef brisket and house-made barbeque sauce, “boracha” beans, corn bread and corn on the cob.  Alisa says “pack a cooler of beer for this one!”  Five course meal sans alcoholic beverages costs $85 per person. SOLD OUT

July 21^st An Ode to Francis Mallmann

Francis Mallmann is a renowned Argentine chef who uses primitive cooking techniques (wood, open fires, in-ground cooking, cast iron) to bring out the authentic flavors of foods.  After years of haut cuisine cooking in fancy restaurants, he had an epiphany and walked away from that training. “From that moment on” he said, “ I wanted to cook with Argentine ingredients and wood fires, the way I had seen gauchos and Indians cook when I was growing up in Patagonia.” Our guest chef, Chris Pandel of the Bristol Restaurant in Chicago, will pay tribute to Chef Mallmann, one of his idols. He will roast meats over an open flame outdoors and bake items in the ground. This five course meal without wine (we would recommend Malbec for this one!) is $100 per person. SOLD OUT

August 4^th French Country Cooking

 We welcome back chef Thad Morrow of Bacaro Restaurant in Champaign, IL, to prepare a French country meal centered on humanely-raised red veal.  Our guest farmers will be Trent and Jackie Sparrow of Catalpa Grove Farm in Dwight, IL. They raise goats and pigs, in addition to beef cattle.  Their humanely raised veal calves are free-ranging (NOT confined).  Expect height- of-thesummer vegetables such as tomatoes and eggplant to accompany the tender meat.  This five course meal without wine costs $100 per person. Click here to make reservations (starting May 12th). SOLD OUT

August 18^th Al Fresco Cucina Italiana

Chef Alisa pays homage to her Italian roots with an evening of simple yet elegant dishes inspired by the diverse and seasonal cuisines of Italy.  We will start this meal a bit later than our usual time (5PM instead of 4PM). Upon arrival, guests will enjoy a tour of the farm and then sit down to a three course meal including antipasti, a main course featuring southern Illinois fresh water prawns and a small cheese plate and desserts.  This three course meal without wine costs $60 per person. Click here to make reservations (starting May 12th). SOLD OUT

September 1^st Fish Fry

Sunday Dinner Club (SDC), our hip and wonderful Chicago chef friends are back for another fry of a piscine nature. Here’s Christine’s vivid description of this dinner:  Sunday Dinner's Midwest roots run deep. We like our cheese and sausage abundant -- and we love us some good ole’ fashioned fish fry. Most of the SDC crew spent their formative culinary years feasting on fried lake fish, dipped in some sort of creamy goodness and served with fresh slaw and plenty of zesty lemon. And so, we will pack up our deep fryers and travel south of the city for a special late summer dinner on Prairie Fruits Farm. We won't reinvent the fish fry wheel, but we’ll upgrade it with locally sourced fish from the Great Lakes region and beautiful, seasonal accompaniments and side dishes. Rumor has it that s'mores will be served for dessert and the menu will definitely feature some our favorite PFF cheeses. This three to four course meal without beer or wine costs $65 per person. Click here to make reservations (starting May 12th). SOLD OUT

September 8^th Paul Virant’s Preservation Kitchen Book Dinner

One of our favorite Chicago chefs, Paul Virant (chef owner of two restaurants now: Vie and Perennial Virant) has just published his long-awaited cook book called “The Preservation Kitchen.”  Paul’s cooking embodies seasonality, and he truly walks the talk of local foods. As proof of his cooking philosophy, here’s an excerpt from the Introduction to the book: “The soul of my kitchen isn’t in my kitchen at all. It hovers one floor above, contained within a narrow storage room lined with aluminum shelves. Even on the brightest days, the sunlight that filters through a small east-facing window is dim, hardly adequate. It doesn’t seem to matter. Packed with jars of pickles, jams, sauerkrauts, and other experiments in preserving, these shelves radiate with possibility.” The book is organized around the seasons, mixing fresh produce with preserved ingredients. The book’s adage: “I eat what I can and what I can’t, I can.” Paul will prepare a very special fall meal for us using recipes from the book.  In addition to the fabulous food that will fill your bellies, each guest will receive a signed copy of “The Preservation Kitchen” book.  The cost of the five course meal and the signed book is $125 per person. Click here to make reservations (starting May 12th). SOLD OUT

 September 29^th The 100 Yard Dinner: A Triumph of Self Sufficiency

Imagine an entire menu sourced from 100 yards distance from the dinner table; IT CAN BE DONE.  This year, we will be raising Freedom Ranger chickens for the main course. Freedom Rangers are our unsung heroes of the poultry world.  Born to forage (and run), their sturdy legs and respectable breasts make for some juicy and flavorful meat.  Vegetables grown on the farm, corn meal from the Indian corn that Wes plans to grow in his “Three Sisters” garden (corn, beans and squash in a single planting just like the native Americans used to do it) and of course our goat milk cheeses and frozen confections will feature prominently on the menu.  As always, our chefs will work their magic with the farm’s bounty to serve you yet another memorable feast. The price for this five course dinner is $85 per person.

October 13^th Fall Vegetarian: For the Love of Cucurbits

With farmers’ market season nearing an end and the cool weather creeping in, October is a great time to settle into the kitchen for long days of cooking and preserving.  It’s also the time of year that members of the Curcurbitae family (that is the botanical family of squashes and pumpkins) are harvested.  Many of us in Central Illinois flock to “The Great Pumpkin Patch” in Arthur, IL, to marvel at the diversity of squashes and pumpkins that are grown worldwide.  One of the family members of The Great Pumpkin Patch happens to be a world expert on saving seeds from the cucurbit family, and we hope to have them as guest farmers for this meal.  Our chefs will prepare a fall comfort food meal with squashes, pumpkins, root vegetables and seasonal greens.  Many of the courses will highlight our cheeses made from luscious late lactation milk.  This five course meal costs $85 per person.

October 28^th A Sunday Afternoon Little Goat Brunch with Stephanie Izard

We welcome back Chef Stephanie Izard, of Top Chef and Girl and the Goat Restaurant fame, for a Sunday afternoon brunch on the farm. Chef Stephanie lives and breathes local and seasonal cuisine.  She supports numerous local farmers throughout central Illinois, and works tirelessly to connect new generations of chefs with the bounty of local foods grown in our region.  Guests can expect classic brunch dishes adorned with many of Prairie Fruits Farm cheeses.  This is our only Sunday farm dinner, and it starts at 1PM.  The multicourse meal costs $85 per person.

November 10^th Pub Grub

It has always been our Chef Alisa’s secret desire to open a gastro-pub featuring local food (farmer’s note: thankfully, we have convinced her she can fulfill all of her secret desires by cooking right here on the farm!). Imagine if our local micro-brewery (aka the Piglet) served up delicious, unpretentious, modern-European fare sourced from local and sustainable farms alongside their well-crafted brews. Well, this dream will become reality on November 10^th. Expect braised meats, tasty bites and a dessert that can stand up to a good fall stout.  This multicourse meal with beer costs $85 per person.

December 1^st: Pre-Solstice Holiday Celebration

Get in the spirit of the holidays with a gussied up cocktail party on the farm.  You provide the libations and we’ll deliver a parade of small plates to perfectly compliment your beverages.  This multicourse meal without alcoholic beverage costs $85 per person. 

As the "mother" of so many babies EVERY year, Mothers' day has taken on a special meaning for me. I'm holding both the smallest and one of the largest kids born on the farm so far--a 3 1/2 pound little doeling born last week (the now famous "teacup goat") and a 10 1/2 pound gentle giant born a couple of days ago to Scarlet. Baby goats have a way of worming their way into your heart.

Farm News

Wes started cutting our alfalfa hay crop today, and we should be baling by the weekend.  We plan to plant the tomatoes tomorrow and put in the sweet potato slips.  Flower seeds are starting to germinate.  The farm is looking lush.  Our cheese makers have been burning the midnight oil to make lots and lots of the little cheeses for which we are known. 

Farmers' Markets

We have a beautiful assortment of those cheeses for you to buy and create the perfect mothers' day gift--the gift of cheeses made lovingly from the milk of goat mothers who are loved.
We're attending two markets on Saturday, May 12th: Urbana and Chicago's Green City Market.  We would be happy to offer you suggestions for mothers' day gifts if you like. Just let us know. We're bringing:

• Fresh and creamy chevre: plain, herbs de Provence and cracked peppercorn
• Fresh goat milk ricotta
• Sheep milk feta
• An assortment of soft-ripened cheeses including: Angel Food, Little Bloom on the Prairie, Black Goat, Ewe Bloom, Black Sheep and possibly Krotovina

If you want to add goat milk gelato to your mothers' day gift package, Urbana market goers have LOTS to choose from:

• Vanilla
• Luscious chocolate
• Hazelnut
• Pistachio
• Margot's Mint
• Strawberry
• Gianduja (Chocolate-Hazelnut)
• Strawberry Sorbetto

Give the gift of local food love to your mother this year. Buy her some Prairie Fruits Farm Cheese and Gelato!

PHOTO BY LISA BRALTS-KELLY

Come dine with us on the farm and experience the essence and pleasures of eating locally and sustainably. With our on-farm certified kitchen and our Culinary Institute of America-trained chef, Alisa DeMarco, we are creating four to five course meals crafted from the freshest local ingredients. Many of the vegetables and fruits served are grown organically on our farm.

The meats and other products come from neighboring farms throughout Central Illinois and within our Midwest region. We invite many of these farmers as guests so that diners can meet them and learn about their farming practices. We offer a vegetarian main course for those requesting a vegetarian meal. You must make this request via email upon completing your reservation. Of course, we try to weave in our award winning cheeses into many of the courses. Exclusive of the dinners featuring local micro-brewed beer or those featured as "wine dinners," we ask you to bring your own wine or alcoholic beverag,  since we don't have a standing license to sell or serve alcoholic beverages on the farm. 

We'll kick off the 2012 season in late May with our customary spring lamb dinner.  In total, we will be hosting 14 dinners every two weeks well into the late fall.  For inclement weather dinners, we have a fully furbished "dining room" inside our barn.  Using recycled barn siding to line the walls, you're sure to feel cozy. 

 Most of the dinners are held on Saturdays, except where noted in the descriptions. Saturday evening dinners start at 4PM, whereas Sunday afternoon dinners start at 1PM.  When guests arrive, typically, they are greeted with hors d'oeuvres and a refreshing non-alcoholic drink prepared from herbs, fruits and honey produced on the farm. We encourage you to arrive on time to ensure you get to try all of the hors d'oeuvres. We offer a tour of the farm after about 30-45 minutes from the start of the event. Feel free to bring a lawn chair if you would prefer to just sit in the orchard and enjoy your hors d'oevres and drinks before dinner.

PHOTO BY LISA BRALTS-KELLY

Following the tour, we serve dinner starting at around 5PM for Saturday evening and around 2PM for Sunday afternoon, and expect to end the meal after about three to three and one half hours. It is a truly slow food event, and we encourage guests to wander the garden between courses.

While we strive to create an elegant, peaceful and delicious evening for our guests, we need to acknowledge that this is a farm and the meal is served outdoors. As many of you know, farms come with ocasional odors, insects, wind and dirt. Outdoor events can be subject to inclement weather as well. We will try to complete the meal before it gets too dark and biting insects become a problem. However, if you're attractive to biting insects, we encourage you to bring the repellent of your choice.

PHOTO BY LISA BRALTS-KELLY

Our events are held RAIN OR SHINE. If rain is forecast, we will dine inside the dining room of our pole barn.

Because we believe that the full flavors of local foods are best savored outdoors, we want you to be prepared for the 'darker' side of the outdoor elements. It could be a hot sultry evening, it could be windy, it could rain or in the fall, it could get chilly. Please wear or bring appropriate clothing and hats for the weather of the day. If the forecast calls for significant really nasty weather, we will move the dinner inside our fully furbishe pole barn dining room.

To make reservations for one or more of the dinners, please CLICK ON THE LINK IN THE DESCRIPTION OF EACH FARM DINNER ON THE "DINNER SEASON" PAGE OF OUR WEBSITE. 

Our policy regarding children and pricing: Given the limited number of seats for each dinner, we are not able to offer a reduced price on meals for children. We don't discourage people from bringing their children; however they would have to pay the full price. Also, please let us know in advance if you plan to bring your children.

CANCELLATION POLICY: You can receive a full refund if you cancel your reservation one week prior to the date of the dinner you are scheduled to attend. Please email or call us as soon as possible, if you need to cancel (prairiefruits@gmail.com or 217-643-2314). If you cancel less than one week prior to the dinner, we won't be able to issue you a refund.

WAITING LIST POLICY: We no longer take names for waiting lists for each dinner. If we receive cancellations, we will repost the seats on the website and notify folks through our email mailing list. Sometimes, we will offer dinner seats for sale on the day of the event at the Urbana Farmers' Market. 

Yesterday, our smallest yearling, Gladys, gave birth to twins-two healthy but tiny kids-a doe and a buck.  The little buck weighed just over 4 pounds, the doeling a petite 3 lbs. 7 ozs. Both are complete and healthy and full of spunk.  I've taken to calling the little doeling a "tea cup" goat because she is so miniature.

She's just a bit bigger than the tea kettle.  I tried to get her to stand inside it, but she wasn't cooperating. Her diminuitive size is no match for her magnanimous personality.

With Wes stealing a little kiss, you get the picture of her miniature nature. 

On other farm news, we finally got some rain this week, setting a green growth spurt in motion. The pasture is lush, the alfalfa crop nearly ready for its first cutting and the flower seeds that Rachel planted are sprouting.  Thankfully, we missed the funnel cloud that materialized over the southern part of Champaign on Tuesday afternoon. 

First Outdoor Farmers' Markets of the Season

Farmers' Market season has arrived at last, bringing our spring open house-breakfast season to a close.  We will be attending two markets on Saturday morning, May 5th: Urbana and Chicago's Green City Market.  Both start at 7AM; Urbana's Market at the Square runs until 12 noon and Chicago's Green City Market (located in Lincoln Square Park) runs until 1PM.  The weather is expected to be balmy: sunny and in the '80's, so it should be a great way to spend your Saturday morning.  We're bringing lots of great cheese:

• Fresh chevre-plain, herbs de Provence and cracked black peppercorn
• Fresh goat milk ricotta--what better way to celebrate spring with some fresh ricotta, fresh market greens sauteed and tossed over some pasta. 
• Sheep milk feta--perfect for a quick spring green salad
• Angel Food--our creamy, slightly gooey goat milk brie
• Little Bloom on the Prairie--goat milk camembert, wonderful served warm with some honey
• Ewe Bloom--a delicate yet intense soft-ripened sheep milk cheese
• Black Sheep--with ash on the rind, this soft-ripened sheep milk disc is perfect for a spring picnic cheese plate.
  

For our Urbana customers, we will be selling pints of our goat milk gelato:

• Vanilla
• Chocolate
• Hazelnut
• Pistachio
• Gianduja (chocolate-hazelnut)
• Local Strawberry
• Strawberry Sorbetto
• Fresh Ginger (limited quantities)

Farm Dinner Reservations, Other Markets this year and our Bread, Cheese and Gelato CSA

We will be releasing reservations for the next four farm dinner dates (August 4th through
September 8th) on Saturday, May 12th. We have a new e-commerce platform through which the tickets will be sold. I will send out another announcement about how this will work on Monday, May 7th, so stay posted.  This year, we will be attending two new farmers' markets: Springfield and Logan Square (a Sunday market in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago).  Our first Saturday in Springfield will be May 26th and our first attendance at Logan Square will be June 10th.  We won't be attending the Oak Park Farmers' Market or the Downtown Bloomington Farmers' Market this year.  For those of you who live in the Bloomington-Normal and Peoria areas, you can still purchase our cheese through our "Bread, Cheese and Gelato CSA." 

We still have openings for the CSA, but you must sign up by Saturday, May 12th.  The first pickup for CSA members will be Tuesday, May 29th either in Bloomington OR Peoria. For more details about how to sign up, visit our website.

HAPPY SPRING!

• Triple S Farms pork sausage gravy and biscuits
• Fried Egg with Spinach pancakes, carrots and chevre sauce
• Three Sisters Oatmeal topped with orange scented granola and a touch of maple syrup
• Feta and Juliet tomato hand pies
• Muffins
• Hot Chocolate
• Coffee

Remember the news of over 40 does kidding that first week in March?  Remember the day we reached our 100th kid born less than two weeks after the first kid was born this year?  Well, this goat "baby boom" generation reached the six-week old mark this week, so we decided to weigh them to determine if they had grown enough to wean them off their milk.  Yesterday, we brought the scale out to the kid barn, list of kids in hand (46 in total who were 6 weeks old or older--we have sold over half of this group of 100 already!) and started weighing. Much to my amazement, most of the kids weighed between 21 and 32 pounds after ONLY SIX SHORT weeks!  One of the bucklings weighed over 36 pounds!  Since they had more than quadrupeled in size, we deemed it time to wean them.   We set up a separate new pen for them, Wes built them a cat-walk to distract them, we loaded up their hay feeder with alfalfa hay and let the games begin. We decided to go "cold turkey" on milk withdrawl, because we don't have the setup to gradually reduce the amount of milk that 46 kids should receive.

At first, they were thrilled with their new digs--lots of kids prancing on the cat-walk trying to push their rivals off the plank.  After a couple of hours, the realization that milk was no longer free flowing started to set in, and the din of kid screams began to rise.  By mid-afternoon, the mere sound of human footsteps outside the barn set in motion a cacaphone of 46 indignant kids.  I tried to appease them with some grain, more hay and lots of fresh water.  Their consolation didn't last very long. They were still upset well into the night and this morning. Their voices hoarse, some continued to protest while inhaling their grain. Finally, this evening, the decibels of noise were dying down, they seemed to be satiated with their hay and grain, and most were plum tuckered out from all the histrionics of the past 24 hours. 

Farm Open House, Farm Sales and the Illinois Marathon

Of course, we'll have plenty of cheese for you to taste and buy:

• Lots of chevre
• Fresh goat milk ricotta
• Sheep Milk Feta
• Several styles of our goat and sheep milk bloomy rind cheeses
• Maybe a few pieces of the last fall batch of Moonglo

Gelato flavors include:

• Vanilla
• Chocolate
• Hazelnut
• Pistachio
• Margot's Mint
• Giandjua (chocolate-hazelnut deliciousness)
• Chocolate-Mint
• Ginger

Our other farmers include Tomahnous Farm, Moraine View Farm and Stewart's Artisan Breads. Blue Moon Farm will be selling at Lincoln Square Mall. Rita Glazik of Cow Creek Farm notified me today that her ramps are done for the season. Hopefully, most of you were able to purchase some of their plump and savory ramps this year. They were delicious!

Cheese in the City (the windy city that is)

Prairie Fruits Farm will be making two appearances in Chicago on Saturday.  We'll be attending the last indoor Green City Market at the Peggy Notebarte Nature Museum from 8AM to 1PM.  We'll be offering our Chicago patrons the same assortment of cheeses we will have here in Champaign at the farm.  I will be attending the 2nd Annual Pastoral Artisan Cheese Festival at the French Market from 11AM to 3PM. I'll be sampling my heart out, so come by for a taste. Pastoral will have our cheeses for sale as well.  If you love cheese, you don't want to miss this one!

Outdoor farmers' market season starts May 5th. Stay tuned for details about what we'll be bringing to the markets.