VALENTINE'S DINNER: Friday, February 14

Chef Jason Welch is a Farmington, Connecticut native with an impressive culinary journey that began in New York City at the French Culinary Institute, and subsequently the legendary Gotham Bar and Grill under the helm of Chef Alfred Portale. After almost two years in the city, Jason went on to work as Sous Chef for Oran Mor Bistro—one of the top restaurants on Nantucket—and Craftsteak restaurants, and also held recurring roles as Executive Chef for the Connecticut-based Barcelona restaurant group. In Connecticut, Jason was also the Chef de Cuisine at Mill at 2T in Tariffville, an award-winning restaurant and James Beard House participant.

After time spent at the Mill, Jason returned to Nantucket and Oran Mor Bistro as the Chef de Cuisine, before trading the ocean for the mountains to become the Executive Chef of Turpin Meadow Ranch in Wyoming. Here, in one of the most beautiful places on earth, Jason spent three years honing his craft and building relationships with local farmers and ranchers.

After years of traveling back east from the west, Jason decided to work primarily in his home state of Connecticut, first helping to open Porron and Piña at Hartford's Goodwin Hotel with Chef Tyler Anderson, and eventually taking over as Chef-Partner of Fork and Fire in his hometown of Farmington.

In the spring of 2021, wanting to engage more with how the food he purchased for so many years is grown and raised, Jason began working at Sub Edge Farm. Jason says, "This eye opening experience opened my heart and soul, and ignited the flame within myself to start cooking again, inspired by the land and the vegetables that I was surrounded by."

With that, and his extensive restaurant experience, Jason developed a private chef business catering to guests on the farm and in their homes, and his love for the culinary arts began anew.

Over the years, Jason has developed his own cooking style and his passion for the craft is unmatched: "I truly love being in the kitchen, learning new techniques and of course creating new dishes... lucky to have stumbled into the culinary world so many years ago."

Chef Jason and Alexandra Welch are committed to using the majority of ingredients for their dinners from local Connecticut farms and small purveyors, especially Sub Edge Farm. Through Dining on the Edge, their goal is to promote these farms and bring attention to them, their needs, and challenges they all are facing, especially due to climate change and inflation across the country. Most importantly, the food that these farms and small businesses provide for the public is organic and healthy, and it takes a lot of hard work to produce what they can every year!

These dinners and events are all about the farms, and the people who run them.