By Ruth Melville

Plantin’ Seeds Farm Kitchen, a new café and gathering place in North Canaan, is not your traditional restaurant. For one thing, it doesn’t charge money for its meals. Instead, it is a community resource, a mission and a project still taking shape.

Plantin’ Seeds is the brainchild of Dale McDonald, a retired options trader who in 2007 bought a farm overlooking the Housatonic River in Falls Village. Since McDonald didn’t come from a farming background, she started talking with local farmers to learn more about the land. About four years ago, she started hosting salons in her house to invite local farmers to share in an ongoing conversation about farming and food.

These gatherings were successful, but McDonald wanted to broaden her reach. Her first idea was to open a commercial kitchen in North Canaan, a town she admired and wanted to be more involved with. After a complete renovation of a storefront on Main Street, she started holding monthly farmer meetings there. Adair Mali, of Norfolk’s Lost Ruby Farm, says that these meetings are “a gift” to farmers. “Someone else cooks, the food is great, and it gives us a chance to meet other people doing similar things. The casual setting is a great way for us to get to know other farmers.”

Still wanting to engage the wider community, McDonald decided to turn the kitchen into a restaurant plus community resource. This October, Plantin’ Seeds Farm Kitchen celebrated its first year of operation. The renovated café space is charmingly designed and light filled, with windows on two sides. Gingham-covered tables dot the small seating area, and the gleaming kitchen is clearly visible to diners.

The café is at the intersection of Main and Railroad streets in North Canaan.

The café is open on Saturday and Sunday, for breakfast and lunch. Tracy Hayhurst, formerly the manager of Chubby Bunny Farm and now the director of community outreach for the Plantin’ Seeds project, does all the cooking. Every weekend she prepares a farm-to-table meal themed around what is growing in the ground at the moment. “I love the ‘nonrestaurant’ experience at Plantin’ Seeds,” she says. “Because we are so small—16 seats—I am usually able to talk to the guests about the food, the farms the products come from. This enables me to tell the story of the food and helps make the connection from land to fork.”

A recent November menu was centered on root vegetables and included celeriac, mushroom and barley soup; mixed root vegetables in gravy, with biscuits, and parsnip spice cake for dessert. The flour, parsnips, carrots, sweet potatoes, celeriac and mushrooms all came from local farms. The Saturday meal usually has a vegan option; the Sunday one is all vegan.

The primary purpose of the café is not to make money but to raise awareness. To that end, there is no charge for the food served in the café. Instead, diners are encouraged to join in the project, or to put as much money as they wish into donation jars on the tables.

There is also mini-grocery that is open during café hours. Local products sold include wheat berries, farro, beans, maple syrup from North Canaan, coffee ground in Goshen, honey from Sharon. These foods are for sale, not donation, but all the proceeds go directly to the growers. McDonald would also like to start selling books by local authors.

The farmers’ gatherings and the opening of the kitchen are only the first stage in what McDonald and her team envision as a three-year, three-step process.

The project is now entering its second phase, which is to branch out further. Brandon Scimeca, formerly a chef at the Interlaken Inn, has come on board as the director of education. The plan is to introduce the ideals of Plantin’ Seeds to young people and show them how “we are all part of a living system,” McDonald says. “I want to plant seeds of thought and allow them to grow.”

The third stage will be to make the project sustainable. At present, the money for it comes mostly from McDonald, but eventually she’ll be looking at options for public support, whether through fundraising or applying for grants. She emphasizes that “this is not just a hobby.”

The café is located at the intersection of Main Street and Railroad Street, and its hours are 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday. You can also follow the Plantin’ Seeds Farm Kitchen on Facebook.

McDonald is not sure where the Plantin’ Seeds project will lead. But that uncertainty doesn’t worry her. She is also a painter and believes that “a canvas will tell you what it is.” So, too, will Plantin’ Seeds.

Photos by Bruce Frisch.