By JESSICA MASULLI REYES

jmasulli@njherald.com

  It started on a snowy afternoon in 1985. A handful of friends, mainly hunters, braved the frigid weather to join the Avondoglio family for a warming meal of game meat in the Perona Farms kitchen.

Over the years, the impromptu game dinner grew to an annual fundraising extravaganza, but it was apparent on Tuesday night, as a light snow fell outside, that the dinner still holds on to those same roots.

"It's evolved from local, Sussex County hunters to seeing the greatest chefs in the world," said George Morville, an insurance executive from Stillwater. Morville has participated in nearly every game dinner, hosted by Perona Farms and the Hudson Farm Foundation, since the inception. The dinner had taken a brief hiatus for the last few years, but returned this year.

The 150 guests, some dressed in flannel shirts and jeans, packed the tables in every corner of the expansive kitchen at Perona Farms for a 12-course cocktail hour, followed by a 13-course dinner. The cocktail hour featured top local chefs, including Brad Boyle, owner of Salt Gastropub in Byram, and David Drake, chef at Alice's in Lake Hopatcong.

Andre de Waal, owner of Andre's Restaurant and Wine Boutique in Newton, featured an appetizer that he likes to call "a bear and what it eats." Protruding from sticks was New Jersey black bear covered in trail mix, or savory marshmallow, oats, nuts, dried corn and other staples of a bear diet.

Following the cocktail hour, the dinner began with a foie gras, French for fat liver, with fig and duck prosciutto. Guests would take a dish in buffet-style, before quickly being instructed by the entertaining emcee wearing a red fish hat, Mark Avondoglio, to pick up the next course. On the tables were artisinal breads from Apple Ridge Farms, wild watercress salad with quail eggs, and salamis.

By the fifth course — roasted squab with brussels sprouts, bacon and grapefruit accompanied by an Italian wine — Avondoglio was having to prompt the stuffed guests to continue, as they were not even halfway through the meal. In the 1980s, the dinner with upwards of 40 courses had focused on local game, but this year's dinner had an extensive list of exotic meats from around the world, such as kangaroo, wild boar, pigeon, alligator, ostrich and even the hotly-sought python.

The dinner also featured famous, accomplished chefs, who flew in from all over the country for the dinner. Robert Irvine, host of The Food Network's show "Restaurant: Impossible," featured a rabbit loin, belly hominy hash, collard jus as the 10th course. Going into its fifth season, "Restaurant: Impossible" has been popular with Irvine attempting to save failing restaurants in two days with $10,000.

Daniel Boulud, an award-winning chef and owner of 10 restaurants, made a warm pate en croute of wood pigeon, accompanied by a 2010 French wine. Boulud has received accolades, such as being named "one of the ten best restaurants in the world" by the International Herald Tribune, Gourmet Magazine's top table award and a four-star rating from The New York Times.

"I'm very excited to be here tonight," he said about the annual dinner.

By the end of the meal, guests were stuffed but made room for David Varley and Michael Mina's civet de lievre, black perigord truffles, salsify mousseline, which Varly explained is the stew of wild hare topped with the blood and black truffles.

Varley is a Kittatinny High School graduate, who as a teen had high aspirations for becoming a famous chef. Varley's love for food began as a child plucking blueberries from his backyard in Sussex County. As a teen, he worked as a dishwasher, but ended up baking biscuits one day when a chef called in sick. The game dinner at Perona Farms became a "highlight of the year" for the young aspiring chef.

His career blossomed from there to his role today as corporate chef for Mina. But, the game dinner was an opportunity to come home and visit his parents in Stillwater.

"I always love coming home," he said. "This event is basically what got me started in the business."

It is precisely this mix of international acclaim and local favorites that make the game dinner a unique experience that is unmatched even in large cities. In the informal, kitchen atmosphere, guests are able to not only see the chefs at work, but to also chat with them one on one.

"The chefs that come from all over add immense quality, and it's a great thing for a bit of philanthropy," Morville said.

The game dinner, priced at $1,000 per person, raised money this year for seven local nonprofit organizations — Arthur & Friends, Birth Haven, Camp Nejeda, Pass It Along, Project Self-Sufficiency, Rutherfurd Hall, Sussex County Arts and Heritage Council and the Tri-County Scholarship Fund. In previous years, the dinner has benefited large organizations for multiple sclerosis and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

"We are very excited to be a beneficiary," said Jennifer Passerini, development director for Camp Nejeda. "We always have an enormous gap between what we have and what we need. We always have a need."

Camp Nejeda in Stillwater is a place for children with type 1 diabetes and their families to go for camping in a safe environment. The camp, while providing a fun atmosphere, is able to help the children and teens learn how to manage diabetes.

Bill Vierbuchen, executive director for the camp, said during the cocktail hour that he and Passerini also were honored to be at this game dinner, trying foods like python, kangaroo and elk heart, all before dinner even started.

"It's an incredible collection of chefs," he said, to which Passerini agreed that it also is important for outsiders to be exposed to the nonprofits of Sussex County.

Roberto Donna, an Italian chef who owns Al Dente in Washington, D.C., said the chefs truly enjoy coming to the game dinner as well, which can be seen in the light-hearted banter and jokes going on behind the counter. The chefs said that after the hiatus, they are glad Perona Farms opted to resume the game dinner this year.

"It's an experience for us to cook and for them to eat," he said, while preparing duck raviolini.