Nourish Nashville

Nourish 2016 did not disappoint! In its fifth year, the event raised more than $135,000 in support of The Nashville Food Project’s mission to grow, cook and share nourishing food.

This year’s event, held on July 28th at the Hutton Hotel, brought together 275 friends of The Nashville Food Project to celebrate recent accomplishments and enjoy an exquisite meal prepared by six of the Southeast’s most notable chefs.

The evening kicked off with margaritas prepared by Chipotle Mexican Grill, served alongside several delicious Mexican-inspired hors d’ouevres from Chef Nick Hertel of Merchants. Attendees ate and mingled while perusing the silent auction, which featured nearly 80 packages thanks to the generosity of our Nashville community.

Guests then gathered at the table to enjoy a five-course meal paired with wines from Lipman Brothers. Local food writer and friend of the Food Project Chris Chamberlain elicited many laughs from the stage as emcee of this year's event. The dinner included watermelon salad by Chef Bill Smith of Chapel Hill’s Crook’s Corner, curried catfish and grits by Chef Asha Gomez of Atlanta’s Spice to Table, Bear Creek Farms pork belly by Chef Matt Bell of Little Rock’s South on Main, and beef by Chef Cole Ellis of Cleveland, MS’s Delta Meat Market. After a rousing live auction, guests enjoyed a blueberry posset by Butcher & Bee’s Cynthia Wong as well as take-home cookies from Christie Cookie Co. on their way out.

Huge thanks to all in attendance at Nourish this year. A special thanks to our sponsors for making this year’s Nourish possible: First Tennessee Foundation, Chipotle Mexican Grill, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Community Trust, Dorothy Cate and Thomas F. Frist Foundation and Whole Foods Market. We also want to thank our patrons, live and silent auction donors and in-kind sponsors for supporting this annual fundraising event. We are grateful to you for believing in and supporting the important work of The Nashville Food Project. Click through the photos below to see the night's highlights.

A Day in a Dozen: From Harvest To Plate

The marketing team from Whole Foods in Franklin joined us on a gorgeous morning at the Wedgewood Urban Garden. 

Whole Foods has long been generous with our organization, so it was nice to welcome this group to the garden for the first time. 

Meanwhile at TNFP headquarters, the morning crew arrived to prep food for a delivery to John Glenn, a retirement community. Volunteers Mary (left) and Cheri (right) got to know one another over the makings of a fruit salad. Mary visits every Monday and Tuesday to prep plus three times per month to cook. Cheri was visiting for the second time. 

Meals Assistant Katie picked up a generous donation of corn and tomatoes from Green Door Gourmet and later organized a donation from Whole Foods including brioche and muffins. 

After their time in the garden, the Whole Food team visited the kitchen and prep room where Meals Manager Anne explained the “giant puzzle” of putting together more than 1,000 meals each week with the variety of donations and harvested food from our gardens.

The Whole Foods group had harvested approximately 50 pounds of kale. When team member Michael Martin arrived that morning, he didn't know he was dressing particularly well for the occasion.

The greens will be prepped the following day, but meanwhile, Tamara and Brittney rolled enchiladas with donated ingredients from Chipotle. Their prep work will be finished off by a cook team for delivery the next day.

Just outside the kitchen by the Green Hills garden, Tom cleaned potatoes...

…which had been donated by Long Hungry Creek Farm. They will be sliced, baked or mashed for future meals.

In the midst of it all, we welcomed new intern Mary Blythe and put her right to work making cookies for dessert throughout the week.

Then the final cook team for the day arrived at 3pm to make meatloaf for 5pm deliveries to Rex Courts, an Urban Housing Solutions property off Murfreesboro Road, and Trinity Community Meal at Trinity United Methodist Church in East Nashville.

The group cooked from Judy Wright's mother’s meatloaf recipe (which she shared in a lovely tribute on her blog, Judy’s Chickens).

The meal made with many loving hands and hearts arrived at Trinity for dinner just as neighbors began to gather.