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Plympton farm to host Beard Foundation
By Elaine Cushman Carroll
Globe Correspondent

With a name like Just Right Farm, it’s easy to understand why none of the special ingredients that will go toward making a dining experience to satisfy the standards of the James Beard Foundation have been left to chance.

Extra varieties of tomatoes for the five-tomato consommé, for example, were grown from seed planted early in the season.

The only uncertainty might be whether the watermelon will be ripe in time to go into the beet soup for the July 29 event.

“We’re a little anxious,’’ chef Kimberly Russo admitted.

Along with Elaine Murphy and Marilyn Browne, Russo has for the past five years run the farm and the kitchen for the restaurant.

About 80 percent of everything served at the restaurant is grown on the 300-year-old farm, located at 140 Palmer Road in Plympton. Local meats, seafood, and wines come from as close by as possible, Russo said.

About a year ago, master chef Marc Ehrler of Hilton Worldwide ate at the restaurant, and after doing so, urged its team to join him in hosting a dinner for 36 people to benefit the scholarship fund created in memory of Beard, a legendary cookbook author, chef, and teacher.

The proceeds from the nine-course dinner, which will cost more than $200 a person, will go to fund scholarships offered through the Beard Foundation and the Cambridge Culinary Arts School in Cambridge, which Russo attended.

On weekends in July and August, the farm serves a fixed-price dinner on three long, handmade tables in an elegant screen house lighted by gas lamps and fireflies. Reservations can be made by calling 781-936-5330; information is available at justrightfarm.com.

Elaine Cushman Carroll can be reached at elaine_carroll@msn.com.