this is pretty intense. and smart.

On a rare sunny late afternoon in Half Moon Bay, 20 minutes south of San Francisco, 70 people mingled at a beachside cocktail party. As they sipped blush wine and watched the waves rush up on shore, the barefoot guests, faces glowing in the late sunlight, marveled at the break in the summer fog and looked upon a surreal tableau.

A stark 80-foot shale cliff towered over a long, slightly curved table set with white linen and elegantly mismatched plates. The sea’s high-water mark etched a line of dark sand two feet from the last chair. Up the beach a safe distance from the water, mesquite smoke drifted from a pavilion where guest chef Lewis Rossman and his staff, of Cetrella Bistro and Café in Half Moon Bay, labored over a grill.

Guests had come to this dinner, hosted by a group called Outstanding in the Field, for a simple reason: to eat at this table between bare earth and open sky with the same farmers, fishermen and winemakers who had coaxed the crops to ripeness and the seafood to the plate...