FEED SUPPER | DOMINO COLOR ISSUE

COOKBOOK AUTHOR SARAH COPELAND + DESIGNER DANA McCLURE HOST A DREAMY FEED SUPPER IN UPSTATE NEW YORK #feedsupper #dinnerparty #sarahcopeland #ravenwood #barnparty #charitydinner #dominomagazine #sodomino

GUYS, this gorgeous lady (right, Dana McClure) and I are in DOMINO MAGAZINES’s Color issue this month, talking about our recent FEED Supper Collaboration in Dana’s barn, last fall (pictured). It was the night of all nights, a total dream from top to bottom is only topped by being feature in possibly my favorite magazine of ALL TIME. But first, let me back up a little…..

For four years running, I’ve been hosting a FEED Supper for my community, in Upstate New York. It started simply, as a good excuse to gather friends for FEED foundation’s efforts to end childhood hunger, a cause that’s always been near and dear to my heart—but the FEED Supper campaign has grown to mean so much more to me, and this whole community I now call home.

I first met Lauren Bush Lauren, founder of FEED foundation, a decade ago, when we were building school gardens together across the country, in an effort to bring access to healthier produce to communities in need. Many years later, she started her FEED Supper campaign—an inspired, DIY effort to get people all over the country involved in the mission to end childhood hunger, simply by hosting some friends in their own home and asking them, in lieu of bringing food or a bottle of wine, to contribute dollars toward meals for those in need; she asked me if I might consider hosting one in mine to help get things started, which felt like a huge honor, but also, a calling.

SARAH COPELAND X RAVENWOOD DREAMY FEED SUPPER IN UPSTATE NEW YORK #feedsupper #sarahcopeland #ravenwood #edibleliving

At the time, I was an overstretched working mama in need of creating a little weekend magic, and a low-key, do-good dinner party was exactly that. My husband Andras and I opened our humble weekend retreat upstate (now our full time home) to a handful of friends. We served Hungarian Gulyas, made a few cheeseboards, and asked our local winemaker, Michael Drapkin, of Kingston Wine Co, to donate a coupe of bottles of wine toward the cause—so all the money we raised could go directly to FEED. Friends came and brought a few twenties each that we gathered and donated directly to FEED. It was the most nourishing night from which sprang many heartfelt and lasting friendships with folks we now consider our nearest and dearest—like Dana McClure and her husband, Chris Lanier, creators of Ravenwood, a food, farming and design mecca in Olivebridge, NY. It didn’t take enormous effort, but the result—meaningful conversations, a beautiful meal and a powerful statement that we weren’t going to just sit around and eat high on the hog, while others couldn’t—felt like the beginnings of something bigger. We, and our kids, in our own homes, in our own simple ways, were going to be a part of a wave of change, small at first, but a wave I was sure we could grow.

OYSTER PARTY live shucking oysters at EDIBLE LIVING x RAVENWOOD Upstate Feed Supper #feedsupper #dinnerparty #sarahcopeland #ravenwood #barnparty #charitydinner #dominomagazine #sodomino

Fast forward four (or is it five? I’m loosing count) years, four children (their two, and our two) and lots of dinner parties later, and Dana and Chris and several others that were present that first night (like our friends Frida and Tait) now feel like family. Their dreamy barn that we have watched them rebuild with their own hands over the years, has since been the backdrop for many a stunning dinner, Easter egg hunts with our crew, and Saturday morning pastry and coffee noshing during the summer months. Also in their barn sits at 26-foot white maple farm table Andras built for them, where we have gathered a half dozen times or more to celebrate stretches and reaches and successes in so many of our business and family lives. It is truly one of the most inspired spaces in the Hudson Valley, with Dana and Chris’ impeccable vision at its core.

AUTHOR SARAH COPELAND X DESIGNER DANA McCLURE DREAMY FEED SUPPER IN THE HUDSON VALLEY

Every year, hosting a FEED Supper seems to mark new growth not just for me and my family, but now, for our whole community—year by year I’ve invited in new collaborators like our friend Rebecca Ffrench of The Upstate Table, Kelli Galloway from Hops Petunia, and Kyle Needham from Oyster Party. We’ve long outgrown my family dining table, and later our backyard (where we hosted year number two)—filled the patio of Foxfire Mountain House for our last supper, and this year FEED Supper found the perfect new home at RAVENWOOD, with Chris, Dana and I as co-hosts, and the contributions of a dozen other dear friends and artisans making this scene here come to life. The word special, to sum up this night, the host of friends and artisans around the table and represented in these photos, would be an understatement, but if you’ve read this far, you already know how much these people mean to me.

I’ll be sharing more about this night, how to host a FEED Supper in your own home (or a friend’s dreamy barn), and all about the amazing friends who contributed to us raising $5,000 to provide over 50,000 meals for kids in need—our biggest sweeping fundraising effort yet (in total, this community has donated close to $9,000 over the last four years). But for now, here are some visuals to get you inspired. Grab the whole story in the spring Color issue of DOMINO MAGAZINE, and come back here for recipes and how-to’s, soon, because FEED Supper is truly brilliant, and if I, an overstretched working mama of two can do this, with a little (or a LOT of) help from friends, so can you. xo