Sip a lemon verbena-honey ginger iced tea as you wander the gardens, mingling with other guests and enjoying hors d’oeuvres like fresh turnips with honey chive butter and Beach Plum Farm deviled eggs. The sound of a triangle mule bell signals it’s time to take your seats for the reveal of the seasonal harvest menu, offering dishes like cream of Swiss chard soup or kale Caesar salad with farm-fresh meats like Berkshire pork or pasture-raised chicken.

Beach Plum Farm has been showcasing the fruits of its labor at farm-to-table dinners since 2016. We sat down with the gentleman hosting these gourmet adventures, General Manager of the property Ed Hackett for the inside scoop on how the dinners started, and where they’re headed.

Ed, tell us about how the farm-to-table dinners began.

Curtis Bashaw, the owner of Cape Resorts, and his husband Will Riccio began hosting friends for farm-to-table dinners in 2016. They eventually opened them up to Cape Resorts guests, and then the public. They began as these thought provoking, ingredient-focused meals to showcase the farm, and have since evolved into a ticketed event where people travel from all over, some even once a month, to attend.

How has the planning process changed over the years?

The dinners have always been a great team effort with everyone involved months ahead of time. Not much has changed, but we’ve certainly perfected the craft. We start our hiring and training for the dinners in March and April and then our Director of Agriculture Christina Albert and I sit with our farm team to create a fluid harvest schedule and plan our themes. We also plan tables-capes with our florist Kerry Crowley based on when things are in season. The specific menu planning comes into play the week of, and it’s always changing. We meet with the harvest team on Mondays to see what’s going on, and then work with the chef to create the menu on Wednesdays and Thursdays before executing on Fridays and Saturdays with our service team.

So the phrase “it takes a village” holds true at Beach Plum?

It’s what Curtis and Will envisioned from the start—the farmers, servers, kitchen and management. You might come here on a Friday and see the landscaping team moving tables, the market cashiers staying late to help fold napkins, our florist putting flowers on the tables—it takes a whole farm to lift these dinners up. As I now host these dinners, the team and I want them to live up to everyone’s goals and vision.

You’re no stranger to the hospitality industry. How did you find your way here?

I worked in the restaurant industry for over 30 years, mostly as a managing partner for a Philadelphia restaurant group with four locations. Constant high volume, quick turnover, and round-the-clock routine business. One of our locations opened in Avalon in the early 2000s and from there I discovered Beach Plum Farm. I fell in love with what Curtis was doing. It is an extremely special place and I’ve always wanted to work somewhere like this.

We’re sure joining Beach Plum Farm was quite a shift from what you’ve been used to.

Absolutely, it’s nothing like the grind on a Saturday night in a restaurant where you’re completely beat up, burning bar ice and emptying trash at 1:30am just trying to get out of there. We don’t leave here exhausted from the work. Instead, we’re excited to come back and pull off this amazing experience again for our guests.

What makes farm-to-table dinners different from regular dining?

It’s truly a farm-to-table experience. At Beach Plum, our guests get to see where all the fruits, vegetables, and proteins come from with a story behind everything. You’re also immersed in the tranquility of the farm while you’re dining. Almost all of our dinners are planned for outside on the farm, and we move it around—sometimes it will be the medicinal garden, the raised beds or next to the market. It depends on the harvest for that evening. Our deviled eggs are a perfect example. You may have had one 100 times in your life, but to hear the story makes it special. Andrew harvested the eggs in the morning from the chicken coops a few feet from your table. They were then cleaned in our kitchen and prepared and now you have this beautifully plated deviled egg to enjoy. I think it’s one thing we do really well here—it’s simple, wholesome food, and there’s a reason for every dish we plate.

Tell us more about how the farm produces all that wholesome food.

We are always picking the best of the best of our harvest. In early spring for example, we see a lot of root vegetables like carrots, radishes, and turnips. We also have some wonderful leafy greens we’ll be showcasing like our Tuscan kale, curly kale and arugula. Our Livestock Director Andrew Halbruner will let us know what’s available and in the spring, that’s some amazing Berkshire pork. Our best practices are organic, but we’re not certified organic, so we use regenerative practices to have the best harvest.

What are regenerative practices?

Regenerative agriculture at Beach Plum Farm represents a sustainable approach to farming that prioritizes soil health, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience. Christina and her team implement those practices that not only produce food but also enhance the environment and avoid depleting natural resources throughout the farm.

Have any new products hit the farm?

There’s 62 acres of farmland the team has gotten to know over the years along with when and how plants will grow best. They’re always experimenting with new plants in our raised beds and our greenhouses. We have broccoli greens in the market for the first time, and popcorn broccoli—small little specks of broccoli tops. It’s great to see the new offerings and it adds to the guest connections we make at the farm-to-table-dinners.

How do you plan for bad weather?

When it’s on the chillier or rainy side, we move into the Hoop Houses. Our holiday dinners in December are the only ones we plan for indoors unless the weather forecast tells us  differently. There have been times in the past where the Cape May Bubble fails us and a shower comes straight through after everything has been set up. So we’ve had to just hand everyone an umbrella and the guests ended up loving it. We always make it work.

October and November are the highlights of the year for me during our autumn harvest dinners. They’re fantastic with the changing of the season and the farm in full bloom. Those are special because we sit around the fire pits and it’s like sweater weather—very cozy and has a great vibe to it.

We’d like to incorporate more tableside cooking for the guests. They’ve loved seeing dishes plated and put together and we can do some of that with our open-firepit dinners. Previously, we’ve done it a little bit with desserts. The more immersion we can include for our guests the better. Christina Albert, our Director of Agriculture, has always wanted to have fresh, planted herbs on the table, with our guests seasoning their own meal. We’re getting there with the interaction… any way we can deepen that experience, that’s 100% where we’d love our guests to be.