This week's challengers made their way to the ever-growing Berlin Farmers' Market on Main Street.

Vendors truck in everything from swiss chard to clams, from garlic to free-range eggs. Each purveyor is as proud as can be of their local contribution and puts their finest pieces forward. Some even offer recipes for how to prepare their goods.

Be sure to wander through the Berlin Farmer's Market Wednesdays (May - Oct, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.) or Fridays (year round, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.) for a bit of the local flavor.

Progress is creativity, ambition and drive boiled together, strained through trial and error then refined as it is reduced over low heat for many, many years. Actually, in the case of Nage and Dogfish Head, that reduction just keeps heating up.

Nage's Chef du Cuisine Hari Cameron is in love with food. Truly. A close friend of many local farmers and unique edible findings, the freshest vegetables light up his stories about experiments old and new. After even the shortest conversation it's obvious that his passion runs deep. How deep? He has some of his favorite produce tattooed in a sleeve of ink that starts at his wrist. If you follow the artichoke past the asparagus and over the tomato you will find the end over his heart where he has some lavender and a fennel bulb ("because it looks like a heart") to symbolize his marriage and wedding day at Lavender Fields in Milton.

Dogfish Head's National Sales Manager Claus Hagelman ditched his stiff title for something more suited to his personality, Chief Story Teller. Claus knows beer. Overflowing with exuberance he shares insights on beer that go back centuries in the history books while preaching the gospel of Dogfish Head, "Off-centered ales for off-centered people." An incredibly friendly guy he'll tell you how beer started off as a food substitute for factory workers and where it is now with Dogfish Head leading the charge as the largest craft brewery in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Claus came up with an idea to pair with Chef Hari, Sous Chef Ted Deptula and the rest of their crew at Nage for a culinary game. The concept: create a four course meal where each dish will be paired with one craft beer from the Dogfish Head quiver. The catch- those four extremely unique beers will not be shared with the chef until 12 noon, the day of the meal.

So you might be able to imagine what a meeting of these minds would taste like. Or maybe (if you're like me) you have no idea but you are giddy at just the prospect. Add the challenge of those complex beers and the abbreviated timeline and you have yourself an event that your taste buds won't soon forget. And we weren't alone. Patron's of Nage said "of our 50-60 dinners here, this one is among the best". Both sides pulled out all the stops. Chef Hari brought freshly foraged fiddle head ferns, Claus brought vintage 120 minute IPA...from 2007! And the surprises just kept coming course after course.

One pair of guests drove four hours from Massachusetts to celebrate the one year anniversary of their loves (each other and that of Dogfish beer) at the brewpub in Rehoboth. With a brief visit to the brewery to begin their fun that day, the brew specialist, Ben, served them beers and pushed them out the door to this "once in a lifetime opportunity." Ali and Chris left with the biggest smiles and shouting, "Delaware rocks!!"

Two individually spectacular institutions coming together to create one event to enlighten their guests with local food and exotic beer; now that's a recipe for greatness.

TIPS

Be sure to keep up with the off-centered events at Dogfish Head Brewery and brewpub (where they test beers on the public before putting them into production). They host everything from music to the Dogfish Dash.

Head to one of Nage's Farm-to-Table dinners where the ingredients are delivered the day of so that Chef Hari and his team whip up magic! The farmers are often there for you to meet as well. You can also keep an eye on Chef Hari on his blog, The Comb and Wattle.

I must admit, while calamari tastes great, the acrid smell of raw squid is enough to make the nose twitch. That's what happened when Errol and I walked into the squid dissection class and the rank little cephalopods were plopped onto our plates. This may be normal for folks into food preparation, but for us it was a first-time experience, and seeing the slimy tentacles terminating in blue-black ink emissions pooling on the plate was enough to bring up fond thoughts of eating spinach. I sat there poking the critter with some level of morbid fascination, which I think may have led to Errol's decision to briefly leave the room under the guise of a "phone call."

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Off the coast of Maryland, deep in the waters of the Chesapeake, sits an island that goes by the name of Smith. Accessible only by ferry, this place is a reminder of the life of fishermen's days gone by.

Broken down and abandoned crab and fishery shacks pop up along the marshes that surround the villages of Tylerton, Ewell, and Rhodes Point; graying wood and collapsed ceilings, with pelicans and seagulls perched on the pylons that were once docks or fishing piers.

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One Friday afternoon, we had the luxury to be taken out by a few Ocean City locals (our web gurus, Full City Media) to a late lunch at The Shark.

In the process, we were able to assist a charter boat in need. So, about ten strapping young men, and one strapping young woman stepped outside of local restaurant, and helped the captain and his crew put the fiberglass roof back on the boat.

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