There’s a reason why some of the finest restaurants in Palm Beach use vegetables, micro-greens, herbs and edible flowers grown by Swank Specialty Produce in Loxahatchee.

The family-owned and -operated hydroponic farm grows some of the highest quality produce in South Florida.

So just imagine if one of the region’s preeminent chefs cooked an amazing lunch for you at the Swank family’s farm—a repast brimming with just-picked, flavor-exploding, nutrient-rich fare.

Sounds like a relatively special experience.

Well, avail yourself of it.

Chef Dean James Max of 3030 Ocean, the award-winning restaurant at Marriott’s Harbor Beach Resort & Spa in Fort Lauderdale, is headed to Swank Specialty Produce on Jan. 23 to prepare a luncheon.

The event also will feature a tour of the all-natural farm, which includes 70,000 square feet of produce grown hydroponically, an above-ground method of growing plants in nutrient solutions without the use of fungicides, herbicides and pesticides.

Well-known Max, who has won numerous awards, grew up on a farm so from an early age, he would help harvest crops, then pick only the finest to test his creativity in the kitchen.

He’ll be right at home at Swank Specialty Produce, which has become regionally famous for the impeccable quality of its vegetables and herbs. The produce supplies fine area restaurants and is sold on Saturdays at the Green Market in downtown West Palm Beach.

Husband and wife Darrin and Jodi Swank grow (with a little help from their three young children) more than 200 products—five types of arugula, four varieties of radishes, eggplant, squash, zucchini, baby carrots, beats, shelling peas, all sorts of tomatoes, basil, garlic chives, cilantro, dill, fennel, lemon verbena, mint, watercress and much more.

The Jan. 23 lunch and tour, says Jodi, “should be a great learning experience about what we do and how food is grown hydroponically. And in the hands of Chef Dean, the lunch should be amazing.”

The menu is still in the works.

One hundred tickets are available for the tour and lunch, which begins at noon. Tickets are $100 apiece, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting Slow Foods Glades to Coast.

To buy tickets, log on to swankspecialtyproduce.com; order before Jan. 21.

To reserve a spot by mail, send $106.50 by check, money order or cashier’s check payable to Swank Farm. Address: 14311 North Road, Loxahatchee, FL 33470.

For more information, call Swank Specialty Produce at 202-5648.

As more enticing details emerge about what promises to be a unique lunch experience, it’s nice to know tickets for the event are still available.

During the last week, several producers, purveyors, distributors and retailers have agreed to donate everything from their highest-quality meat and fish to fresh-baked breads and craft beers for this Sunday’s tour and luncheon at Swank Specialty Produce in Loxahatchee.

A sommelier’s on board and so is the pastry chef from Delray’s 32 East restaurant.

As mentioned in a previous “Dish” blog posting, lunch will be prepared by one of South Florida’s preeminent chefs—Dean James Max of 3030 Ocean, the award-winning restaurant at Marriott’s Harbor Beach Resort & Spa in Fort Lauderdale.

3030 Ocean is among numerous upscale restaurants in the region that swear by the exceptional quality of the vegetables, micro-greens, herbs and edible flowers hydroponically grown at family-owned and -operated Swank Specialty Produce.

Sunday’s luncheon—a portion of the proceeds benefits Slow Food Glades to Coast—should include quite a spread.

According to Jodi Swank:

Palmetto Creek Farm in Avon Park is donating pork. Deep Creek Livestock in De Leon Springs is donating beef. Wild Ocean, with a few Florida locations, is donating shrimp. Old School Square Bakery in Delray is donating specialty breads. Seed to Bloom in Loxahatchee is donating flowers. Whole Foods is donating non-alcoholic beverages, including bottled waters. Fresh Beer in Pembroke Pines is donating micro-brews. Regency Party Rentals in West Palm Beach is donating party equipment and supplies.

The list goes on and on.

Jennie Benzie, the former sommelier at Palm Beach’s Cafe Boulud who now runs her own company (Pour, Sip, Savor) will pour wines at the luncheon and share her expertise.

Live musical entertainment has been arranged.

Of course, a cornucopia of just-harvested Swank produce will round out the bill of fare.

The event begins at noon with a farm tour, first in the greenhouse where seedlings are hatched.

Then guests will tour the 55,000-plus-square-foot shade house, where more than 200 products—arugula, radishes, eggplant, squash, zucchini, baby carrots, beats, shelling peas, tomatoes, herbs and much more—are grown hydroponically, an above-ground method of growing plants in nutrient solutions without the use of fungicides, herbicides and pesticides.

In the shade house, Chef Max and his team will serve up tastings at three food stations.

Finally, guests will be treated to an alfresco seated lunch, featuring a variety of dishes by Chef Max.

To purchase tickets, log onto swankspecialtyproduce.com. Tickets are $100 apiece. For more information, call Swank Specialty Produce at 202-5648.

Imagine sitting at table on a colorful and fragrant organic farm as an award-winning—but unpretentious—chef prepares, before your eyes, a multi-course lunch brimming with flavor-exploding produce just picked from the farm’s bounty.

Are you in California? No.

You’re at the regionally renowned family-owned and -operated hydroponic farm in Loxahatchee that some of South Florida’s finest chefs—including nameplates in Palm Beach—turn to for ingredients used in their restaurant dishes.

After last season’s popular chef-driven lunch at Swank Specialty Produce, the farm, by popular demand, this season is hosting three luncheons with such chefs as Ryan Artim (pictured below, right) of The Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach and Lindsay Autry of Michelle Bernstein’s at The Omphoy Ocean Resort.

“All of the participating chefs have been such huge supporters of our farm,” says Swank Specialty Produce’s Jodi Swank, who operates the family farm with her husband, Darrin. “I know they are all going to prepare amazing lunches that will be remembered for a long time.”

The first lunch, as part of a series called “Swank Table,” is Dec. 11—and if you think it’s perhaps a tad premature to illuminate here (after all, it’s still October), be advised that reservations for last season’s lunch (a scene from it is pictured below, right), with Chef Dean James Max of 3800 Ocean in Singer Island and 3030 Ocean in Fort Lauderdale, were snatched up weeks in advance.

The Dec. 11 luncheon, called “Friends of the Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival,” features Chef Artim and it benefits the preeminent, nonprofit James Beard Foundation, the nation’s de facto leader in celebrating, nurturing and preserving America’s culinary heritage and future.

Artim will incorporate some of Swank’s vegetables, micro-greens, herbs and edible flowers into the lunch courses he prepares, and also will use products from Florida’s ranchers, artisanal producers, micro-brewers and organic wine-makers.

The lunch includes a farm tour—70,000 verdant square feet—so the event is noon-4 p.m. Cost: $134 a person.

The two lunches that follow “Friends of the Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival” lunch take place Jan. 29 and March 4 and they collectively feature Chef Autry and Chef Max, plus Mark Militello of Shaka in Coconut Creek and Simon Stojanovic of Altamare in Miami Beach.

Stay tuned to this “Dish” blog for more details about Swank Specialty Produce’s luncheon series (menus, for one, are still in the works), but for a taste now, visit http://www.swankspecialtyproduce.com.

You can make reservations through that website and, if you’re considering doing do, sooner rather than later—as aforementioned—would be wise, especially for the be-here-before-you-know-it Dec. 11 luncheon. As Jodi Swank says, “We’ve already received some reservations, which is exciting, and people are talking about the luncheons.”

For more information by phone, call Swank Specialty Produce at 202-5648.

If you take the farm-to-table dining approach to its purist form, you get farm AT table—just-harvested produce in a meal served in the heart of the bountiful benefactor.

That’s the essence of an upcoming farm-bound luncheon with chefs, surrounded by verdant swaths, hailing from The Ritz-Carlton.

On Dec. 11, The Ritz’s Executive Chef Ryan Artim and his team will prepare and serve a station-style repast at a regionally renowned family-owned and -operated farm in Loxahatchee.

Swank Specialty Produce is a colorful and fragrant hydroponic farm—70,000 square feet—that several of Palm Beach’s finest chefs turn to for greens, baby vegetables, herbs and more.

Artim (shown below, right) has been incorporating Swank produce in Ritz dishes for years—a terrine of sliced beets with goat cheese, say—and he swears by Swank’s “amazing” quality. “I think people who come to the (Dec. 11) lunch will enjoy a farm-to-table meal with a whole new perspective,” he says.

Chefs from The Ritz’s Angle, Temple Orange and Breeze restaurants will contribute to lunch courses featuring not only Swank’s produce, but items from Florida ranchers, artisinal producers, winemakers and micro-brewers.

Upon arrival, guests will be welcomed with a screwdriver cocktail and a carrot-walnut muffin with ginger butter, plus pickled and raw crudite with tomato, eggplant and basil dip.

Angle Chef de Cuisine Matt McGhee will serve such dishes as beet-and-passion fruit salad with Loxahatchee goat cheese and baby fennel; grilled pork-belly sliders with mustard greens and pickled radishes; and beef short rib with bacon corn grits, local eggs and upland cress.

Temple Orange Chef de Cuisine Matthew Stephens: baby tomatoes with buffalo mozzarella and purple basil, lamb saddle with broccoli-turnip slaw and red-wine thyme jus, and wood-grilled local red snapper with cauliflower, tomato, couscous and dandelions.

Chef Jen Braglin of The Ritz’s Breeze will prepare a salad of baby lettuces, arugula, spinach, radishes and sunflower seeds with Lantana honey-mustard vinaigrette; and a Royal Red shrimp mojo with Everglades corn pancake, mango-papaya salsa and pea shoots.

The lunch, which benefits local charities and, through the Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival, also benefits the James Beard Foundation, is $134 a person. Activities, including a farm tour, begin at noon.

To make reservations: visit Swank’s website, http://www.swankspecialtyproduce.com, or call Swank at 202-5648.

Other upcoming Swank luncheons take place Jan. 29 and March 4, with such chefs as Dean Max, Mark Militello, Simon Stojanovic, and Lindsay Autry, who’s currently is a chef-testant on Bravo TV’s “Top Chef.”

Swank Specialty Produce’s Jodi Swank, who operates the family farm with her husband, Darrin, says, “I know all of the chefs are going to prepare amazing lunches that will be remembered for a long time.”

More than a few menus in Palm Beach include items described as featuring “Swank micro greens” or “Swank beets,” say.

It’s a Swank-comes-to-us circumstance by way of chefs’ appreciation of produce perfection or the closest facsimile thereof.

But why don’t we go to Swank?

We do.

Or at least the growing number of people attending alfresco, chef-driven farm-to-table luncheons at Swank Specialty Produce, a highly regarded family-owned and -operated hydroponic farm in Loxahatchee.

Swank started hosting periodic, onsite lunch-on-the-farm events last year by partnering with well-known South Florida chefs, local nonprofit organizations, and regional ranchers, artisanal producers, micro-brewers and wine-makers, among others.

Last month’s luncheon, featuring cuisine directed by Palm Beach’s Chef Ryan Artim of The Ritz-Carlton, drew near-sellout attendance.

Swank’s upcoming Jan. 29 luncheon—with acclaimed chef Dean James Max (shown at right; his many restaurants include 3800 Ocean in Singer Island) and pastry chef Jennifer Reed of The Sugar Monkey—sold out earlier this month.

Reservations already are on the books for Swank’s third and final luncheon of the season on March 4, which is destined to sell out, too (so make reservations promptly), because it showcases the culinary talents of THREE notable South Florida chefs.

Among them: Palm Beach’s Lindsay Autry, the executive chef at The Omphoy’s Michelle Bernstein restaurants who’s one of six still-standing contenders on Bravo TV’s “Top Chef: Texas.”

Joining Autry (shown at right) for the March 4 luncheon: Mark Militello, chef/partner at Shaka in Coconut Creek, and Simon Stojanovic, executive chef of Altamare in Miami Beach.

All of Swank’s noon-4 p.m. luncheons, which benefit local nonprofits, include a farm tour—70,000 verdant square feet—with ever-welcoming Darrin and Jodi Swank.

The March 4 luncheon, benefiting the Red Cross, is $144 a person, which includes tax.

For more information or to make a reservation, visit http://www.swankspecialtyproduce.com or call Swank Specialty Produce at 202-5648.

Compared to seasons past, the upcoming farm-to-table lunch roster at Swank Specialty Produce in Loxahatchee Groves is juicier than ever, with more down-on-the-farm dining events featuring a broader cast of pedigreed chefs.

The popular annual lunches—well-known area chefs and sommeliers serve up feasts amid Swank’s lush grounds and hydroponic happiness—have grown from one a couple of years ago to this season’s five, each benefiting a nonprofit organization and including a tour of the growing houses at Swank, which now has a “resident” chef: Lindsay Autry.

The multi-course meals not only are composed from Swank’s acclaimed produce, herbs and edible flowers, but with numerous ingredients supplied by Florida ranchers, seafood purveyors, cheese-makers, micro-brewers, wineries and more.

Among the brigade of sponsors: Whole Foods.

Except for one event, the lunches take place from noon to 4  p.m. and are $150 apiece, with a discount if you purchase the entire series. Here’s the schedule (for more info or to make a reservation, visit www.swankspecialtyproduce.com):

Dec 9: A “Food4Thought”-themed lunch is in conjunction with the Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival, Dec. 7-11. With chefs to be announced later, this is the only lunch priced at $200.

Jan. 6: “Pico de Garden Gala,” benefiting The Milagro Center. Featured chefs include Gordon Maybury of PGA National Resort & Spa; Sean McDonald of the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort; and Chris Miracolo of Max’s Harvest in Delray Beach, plus pastry chef Darlene Moree and sommelier Jenny Benzie, CEO of Pour Sip Savor.

Feb. 10: “Hot Pink,” benefiting the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Featured chefs: Paula DaSilva of 1500 at the Eden Roc in Miami Beach; Lauren DeShields of Market 17 in Fort Lauderdale; Julie Frans of Essensia at the Palms Hotel in Miami Beach; and Sarah Ortiz of Dallas, Tex. Also featured: sommelier Mariya Kovacheva of Café Boulud.

March 17: “Wearin’ O’ The Green Salad,” benefiting The Red Cross, Featured chefs: Clay Conley of Buccan and Imoto; Jim Leiken and Arnaud Chavigny of Café Boulud; and Michael Wurster of Malcolm’s at The Omphoy. The sommelier for the lunch is Stephanie Miskew of Delray Beach.

April 7: “Genuinely Swank,” benefiting the James Beard Scholarship Foundation. Featured chefs, all from Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink in Miami: Michael Schwartz, Hedy Goldsmith and Bradley Herron. Also coming from Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink: wine director Erik Larkee.

Mariya Kovacheva, head sommelier at Palm Beach’s Café Boulud, will pair pours with courses during an upcoming “Hot Pink” down-on-the-hydroponic-farm lunch at Loxahatchee’s Swank Specialty Produce.

Sommelier Mariya Kovacheva of Palm Beach's Cafe Boulud will choose and pour wines for an upcoming lunch at Swank Specialty Produce.

If you’re not familiar with Swank Specialty Produce by name, there’s a good chance you’ve tasted its perfect organic microgreens, veggies and more since several chefs in Palm Beach and elsewhere in South Florida source from and swear by Swank’s high quality.

The Feb. 10 “Hot Pink” lunch—Swank’s lunches each season often sell out fast so this heads-up communiqué is hardly premature—benefits The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Along with Kovacheva, four female South Florida chefs are on tap to prepare the meal featuring just-harvested produce and fish, meats, cheeses and more from Florida-based ranches and artisanal producers.

The chefs: Paula DaSilva of 150 Degrees at the Eden Roc in Miami Beach; Lauren DeShields of Market 17 in Fort Lauderdale; Julie Frans of Essensia at the Palms Hotel & Spa in Miami Beach; and Sarah Ortiz, a Dallas, Tex. Pastry chef.

The noon-4 p.m. lunch, including a tour of the farm, is $150 a person. For tickets, go to www.swankspecialtyproduce.com.

In other fare-on-the-farm news, this past Saturday’s dinner at Indiantown’s Kai Kai Farm was, by all accounts, a charmer thanks to the five-course meal prepared by Lenore Pinello and her staff from Tequesta’s In The Kitchen (www.inthekitchennow.com), plus the ambience complete with supping at a sunflower-set dining table in a candle-twinkling greenhouse.

Among the dinner courses: pan-seared scallop with sweet potato cake, heirloom tomato-ginger jam and tatsoy stirfry, and grilled Creekstone Farms flatiron steak with caramelized sweet onions, sauteed spinach and roasted fingerling potatoes.

What do you get when four notable chefs from three different Palm Beach restaurants collaborate on a meal? Odds are, deliciousness.

That’s what’s in store for Swank Specialty Produce’s next down-on-the-farm luncheon, smack dab in the middle of the Loxahatchee Grove farm’s grounds.

Arnaud Chavigny (photo by Michael Price) is among the chef team on tap for a March 17 farm luncheon.

The cooking squad for the March 17 affair—the fourth Swank lunch event this season—includes Clay Conley of Buccan and Imoto; Jim Leiken and pastry guru Arnaud Chavigny of Café Boulud; and Michael Wurster of Malcolm’s at The Omphoy.

Delray Beach sommelier Stephanie Miskew will be on hand, too, to pair courses with wines.

The noon-4 p.m. event is called “Wearin’ O’ The Green Salad,” but don’t be fooled: Lunch not only will include some of Swank’s acclaimed produce and herbs, but also ingredients supplied by Florida ranchers, seafood purveyors, cheese-makers and more.

The luncheon, $150 a person, benefits the Red Cross and includes a tour of Swank’s hydroponic growing houses.

To make a reservation—the earlier the better since Swank’s lunches routinely sell out—call 202-5648 or visit www.swankspecialtyproduce.com.

Next month’s luncheon at Swank is April 7, when the featured chefs and sommelier will include a brigade from Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink in Miami.

So you’re invited to an exclusive, secret-location alfresco gathering where everyone dresses divinely in white, dines under the stars, and brings and lights candles to make the evening sparkle.

That’s generally the gist of Paris’ legendary annual “le diner en blanc” celebrations, a concept that has spread throughout the world—and now is the inspiration behind an upcoming “diner en blanc,” of sorts, in which a Palm Beach chef and sommelier are
headliners.

Swank Specialty Produce in Loxahatchee Groves has finalized its 2014 lineup of down-on-the-farm mealtime events taking place along its lush grounds—and for the first time, they include not only lunches but a twilight-time, wear-white and light-candles dining soiree.

Cafe Boulud's Rick Mace is among chefs in Swank's lineup.

The 2014 schedule includes three noon-4 p.m. lunches—Jan. 12 is the first—and a series-concluding 4-8 p.m. “Midspring Night’s Dream” finale on April 6.

Several Palm Beach County chefs are participating in the lineup, along with others from Miami and Fort Lauderdale. A team of at least four collaborate at each event, preparing and serving dishes incorporating Swank’s acclaimed bounty, plus ingredients from Swank’s event-partners ranging from Florida ranchers and seafood purveyors to cheese- and wine-makers.

The lunches and twilight affair, each benefiting a different area nonprofit organization, are $155 apiece. The schedule follows, with participating Palm Beach chefs and sommeliers in bold (for more info or to make a reservation, visit www.swankspecialtyproduce.com; Swank’s events typically sell out so reserve quickly if you want a seat at table):

Jan. 12, noon-4 p.m.: “Once Upon a Farm,” benefiting the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. Participating chefs: Nick Morfogen of 32 East in Delray Beach; Aaron Brooks of Edge, Steak & Bar in Miami; Richard Hales of Sakaya Kitchen in Miami; and John Drugan of Edge, Steak & Bar in Miami.

Matthew McGhee of The Ritz-Carlton's Angle restaurant.

Feb 9, noon-4 p.m.: “Hot Pink Lunch,” benefiting the Breast Cancer Research Fund. Participating chefs and sommeliers: Matthew McGhee of Eau Palm Beach Resort’s Angle; Clayton Carnes The Grille in Wellington; Conor Hanlon of The Dutch in Miami; Darlene Moree of Parisorbet in West Palm Beach; and Jenny Benzie of Pour, Sip, Savor.

March 9, noon-4 p.m.: “You can Bank on It,” benefiting the Palm Beach County Food Bank (bring canned goods to be donated to the food bank). Participating chefs and sommeliers:  Larry LaValley of 3800 Ocean on Singer Island; Sharithma Almodovar of Fratelli Lyon at West Palm Beach’s Norton Museum of Art; Anthony Pizzo of Cut 432 in Delray Beach; Janderyn Makris of Earth and Sugar in Boynton Beach; and Delray Beach-based wine educator and writer Stephanie Miskew.

April 6, 4-8 p.m.: “A Midspring Night’s Dream,” benefiting the Armory Art Center’s Outreach Program. Participating chefs and sommeliers: Paula DaSilva of 3030 Ocean in Fort Lauderdale; Giavanni Rocchio of Valentino Cucina Italiana in Fort Lauderdale; Rick Mace of Café Boulud in Palm Beach; Deanna Lezcano of 3800 Ocean on Singer Island; and Mariya Kovacheva of Café Boulud in Palm Beach.

After hosting a down-on-the-farm luncheon last month during the Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival, Swank Specialty Produce—a resource treasured by and associated with numerous South Florida chefs—is featuring its second chef-driven luncheon of the season on Jan. 12.

Even Emeril Lagasse has paid a visit to Swank Specialty Produce, which is hosting a Jan. 12 chef-led lunch event.

As always, the event will include a tour of the hydroponic growing houses at Loxahatchee-based Swank—and a bountiful spread prepared and served alfresco by notable area chefs who’ll incorporate into their dishes Swank’s acclaimed produce and ingredients
supplied by Florida ranchers, seafood purveyors, wine-makers and more.

Last month’s lunch affair at Swank featured James Beard Award-winning chefs and such Palm Beach County-based chefs as Lindsay Autry, a former finalist on Bravo TV’s “Top Chef,” and The Four Seasons’ Darryl Moiles.

Chef Nick Morforgen of Delray's 32 East is participating in Swank's Jan. 12 luncheon.

The chef brigade on tap for Jan. 12′s noon-4 p.m. luncheon ($155 a person; for reservations, call 202-5648 or visit www.swankspecialtyproduce.com) hails from Broward and Miami-Dade counties—Richard Hales, Aaron Brooks and Huma Nagi—plus Palm Beach County’s Nick Morfogen of 32 East in Delray Beach.

Proceeds from the event benefit the Historical Society of Palm Beach County.