Sherwood Farm Our Table Cooperative Hosts Annual Diwali Dinners | Eater Portland

"On a 60-acre Sherwood farm, the cooperative’s red barn and market host lively community meals and events where people snack on chaat, drink Willamette Valley wine, listen to Indian classical music, and often end the night dancing; past Diwali collaborations have featured Portland chefs Sam Smith (Sweedeedee) and Jasmyne Romero Clark (formerly of Kann), though this year Varma is running the menu himself, drawing on family recipes like his mother’s handi kabab and seasonal reinterpretations such as baingan bharta made with butternut squash and a Bailey’s-spiked rasmalai. The property includes hoop-houses for chicories and salad greens, rows of dahlias and raspberries, a commissary kitchen and small grocery stocked with items like Marion Acres chickens and Deck Family Farm pork chops, last-of-season Jimmy Nardello peppers grown onsite, a wood-fired pizza oven, a cider press, and hay rides; the cooperative structure blends regional producers, worker members, and consumer members (a one-time $150 initiation fee), and its ethos—“community through food” and “sitting at a table together”—informs events like the sold-out Diwali dinner on November 5." - Brooke Jackson-Glidden