Greetings Foodtopians, this Monday night fifty lucky eaters will be dining with Intentional Swine at a pop-up wine dinner hosted at All Souls Pizza. The dinner will feature wine from central Italy as well as cuisine riffing on the tradition of that region. While you may be jaded to the constant flow of news surrounding pop-up dinners, wine dinners and events of this nature here in Asheville, this Intentional Swine dinner is a pretty big deal.
First of all, the fact that dinners of this sort happen so frequently here in the Land o’ the Sky is a fortune that few have in other parts of the world. Every time one of these events take place it means that some of our abundant population of chefs and beverage professionals have taken extra time away from the daily grind to prepare something unique sourced from our abundant population of growers and producers that is special, that is what they are all about. That alone is reason to pay continual interest to dinners like this one.
Intentional Swine Pop-up Dinners: Everything Great About Asheville
Beyond that, this dinner is worthy of your attention for more important reasons, it is a reflection of everything this place branded ‘Foodtopia’ is all about. Intentional Swine is the creation of local restaurant veterans, chef JT Debrie and Table manager Samara Rasmussen. For about a year now, these folks have been acquiring select pigs from regional farms, applying butchery and delivering CSA packages to clientele. Recently, Intentional Swine announced plans to open a butchery in West Asheville, and will continue their process on a greater scale in this sizable urban community.
The expression ‘Farm to Table’ may be becoming sort of a clichéd term, but Intentional Swine is an example of this movement in its most progressed form. Talented individuals moving to a place that is rich in resources but lacking in jobs and figuring out a way to make a living while contributing to the local economy in as many ways as possible: supporting local producers, staging events at local businesses, dispersing the healthiest possible food to us without much of an environmental impact.
Even the wine at this dinner will represent and support the NC economy. Wine is great because it’s wine of course, but also because wine is one of the few agricultural products that can travel successfully from one part of the world to another and still show off seasonality and terroir. Most wine is big production stuff, but the wine that comes from small growers and producers around the world is unique to that season and climate and piece of land that it comes from every single vintage. Haw River Wine Man is a NC Importer that represents only these sorts of wine, and some of their Central Italy juice will be on hand Monday, and it will be wine you could only find in a few corners of the U.S.
If you’ve read this far and are excited about the dinner, I have to disclose that it is sold out. But I waited until now to mention that because the happening of this event alone is newsworthy. And because there will be more. So every time you see a wine dinner or beer dinner or tailgate market dinner or pop-up dinner or cooking demo or whatever, remember it is a representation of what is great about the place that we live in on many, many levels. Be sure to check out Intentional Swine, this concept is also a representation of all the above.