Granor Farm is a community of growers in the region known as Harbor Country in Berrien County, Michigan, that provides sustainable vegetables, grains, flowers and herbs to its local community.
Mostly they provide food through a seasonal farm stand and a 100-member CSA program, a sort of subscription service to Granor produce. In the winters, though, the best way to engage with Granor is through its dinner program.
"Someone at the farm stand recently equated it to: you can go to the farm stand and buy the ingredients, and it's like buying a band's album. But then when you come here (for dinners) it's like the live show," said chef Abra Berens.
Winter dinners at Granor showcase the locally grown food from the entire region. While much of the food is preserved from the fall, a lot is also grown throughout the winter.
"We're picking varieties that like the cold, so they thrive in the cold weather," said farm manager Katie Burdett.
Taste of Granor Dinners happen every Friday and Saturday night in the Granor farmhouse, which seats 24 for a set-menu of seven dishes. They range from about $85-100 per ticket.
In addition, Berens provides recipes for her dishes on Granor's website and runs cooking classes once a month.
"Fewer and fewer people are interacting with farmers," Berens said.
"One of the consequences of that is that fewer people interact with farmers and understand what they go through to produce the food that's on our plate. And so I wanted to make the food that I cook be representative of that work," she said.
Granor was founded in 2007 as an educational farm and runs farm camps every summer for children ages 5-10.
The team at Granor is planning for expansion. Along with the construction of a larger dining space and kitchen, owners will soon launch of their own whiskey brand and extend farm stand hours year-round.