This week Mangaroa Farms joined the Visa Wellington On a Plate (WOAP) festival for the very first time, with Field to Feast: two evenings of sold-out long-table dinners in the yurt, where almost everything on the plate was grown, raised or made right here in the valley and by our neighbours.
Set on our working regenerative farm just 40 minutes north of Wellington, the idea was simple - bring people as close as possible to the land that produced their meal, and let the food, the stories and the people do the rest. We placed a heavy focus on local food and seasonality, which was a challenge with the lack of vegetables available at the end of winter - but gave us a chance to celebrate the local suppliers around us. It also reminded us why preserving food when it is in season and abundant matters so much - fermented, pickled and preserved kai made in the months of plenty is what carries a kitchen through the hungry gap.
The dinner was prepared with love and care from our market garden legend Tyler Langerveld, supported by his sister Zoe. Tyler works his day job in the garden, and was able to combine that knowledge of food with his background as a chef to prepare a delicious three-course meal for the guests of Visa WOAP.
Around the fire
The evening began gathered around the fire with a warm welcome drink: a homemade lemon, Grafter’s Honey and kawakawa tincture, made entirely from local ingredients. Canapes acquainted everyone’s taste buds with the land, and a short circle of introductions around the fire meant nobody walked into dinner a stranger.
Into the yurt
From the fire, we shifted into the cosy yurt, seated around four tables and invited into connection and conversation over a three-course, farm-sourced meal. Woven through the evening was live music from our good friend Casual Healing, and featured stories from the garden, farm and wider Mangaroa regeneration project throughout the night.
The kai
We’re incredibly grateful for the partnership with Rustic Kitchen that supported this dinner to happen, run by Tyler’s mum Tania. We partnered with Rustic Kitchen for use of their facilities and equipment to make this a little easier to pull off.
Entree - breaking bread together, with organic sourdough baked and donated by Fig Tree Cafe, made with organic stone-ground flour from Capital Millers (the same flour we stock in the farm shop), alongside a roasted parsnip spread with seasonal and preserved baby vegetables ‘growing’ from the plate.
Main - beef brisket, born here, raised here and butchered here. Our cattle are regeneratively raised on pasture by Miki and Jake, free from harm, and processed by Rob in the Mangaroa Farms Butchery just down the road from where they grazed. This one came about last minute: with the farm and butchery sharing the same site, quick comms between the farm team and the butcher made it easy to source exactly what we needed - butchered on Wednesday and slow-cooked that same night, braised in Supercharger Pale Ale donated by our Upper Hutt neighbours at Panhead. Miki shared the story of our growing and grazing practices as the plates went out.
Dessert - a delicious lemon cake to finish, made with free range eggs from Jason and Sarah at No Boundaries Eggs, lemons and olive oil from Andy and Helen at Juno Olives in the Wairarapa, and raspberries and strawberries from Tyler’s Gran Mary’s garden.
Non-alcoholic beverages flowed throughout the evening, including probiotic water kefir supplied by James from Gratitude, and Sam and Vanessa’s Grafter’s Honey found its way into every course, from the welcome tincture through to dessert - even lighting the tables as beeswax candles.
Between courses there were connection games, stories from the land, and korero from Miki and Zeb about growing, regeneration and what local food practices really look like on the ground.
The people behind the plate
Dinners like this take a village, and ours showed up in force:
- Tyler and Cam in the garden grew most of the vegetables in the mix
- Tyler and his sister Zoe prepared beautiful kai in the Mangaroa kitchen/wharekai
- Sarah and Mel from the Farm Shop, running food from kitchen to yurt and holding the room together
- Billy and Halina from the marketing and events team, facilitating the evening
- Miki and Zeb, sharing stories of growing and regeneration
- Casual Healing, soundtracking the whole thing
- Rob in the butchery, and every hand that raised, grew and gathered the kai
Our local suppliers
We sourced everything as locally as we possibly could, and these dinners simply don’t happen without the growers and makers around us. An extra shoutout to:
- Fig Tree Cafe - organic sourdough, baked and donated
- Capital Millers - organic stone-ground sourdough flour, also stocked in the farm shop
- Panhead - donated the Supercharger Pale Ale that braised the brisket
- Jason and Sarah at No Boundaries Eggs - free range eggs for the dessert
- Andy and Helen at Juno Olives - Wairarapa olive oil, plus the lemons for dessert
- Sam and Vanessa at Grafter’s Honey - honey through the canapes, entree, main and dessert, and the candles on the tables
- Tyler’s Gran Mary - raspberries and strawberries from her garden
- Gratitude - probiotic water kefir, poured alongside dinner
- Miki and Jake with Rob at the Mangaroa Farms Butchery - the brisket itself
- And the wider family of suppliers in our farm shop, who filled in everything in between
Our reflections
The yurt looked more beautiful than it ever has, and these two nights genuinely raised the bar for us - a new ceiling of capacity and possibility for hosting events and farm-to-table dinners at Mangaroa.
Most of all, it was the people. Such an engaged, open-hearted group who came for the story, the connection and the local food, and who left feeling like part of the Mangaroa Farms mission. We’re deeply grateful, and we’re already dreaming up the next one.
In the closing circle, we asked for 3 words of reflection on how you’re feeling: we heard gratitude, local, invigorated, full (many times), and our fav: nom nom nom.
If you’d like to be at the next table, keep an eye on our events page and sign up to our newsletter. And if you’re interested in hosting your own gathering on the farm, get in touch at events@mangaroa.org.
Ngā mihi aroha, Your friends and farmers at Mangaroa Farms