I’m very close with my pigs. I like to do pig things with them. We have a joyous and happy time together—the slaughter is not the end of that relationship, but the beginning. As I ingest the pig I ingest everything about the pig—his sense of self, his movement in the landscape, the fat from the corn I fed him. You could say that as I am the one doing the eating I feel better about it than the pig, but one day I will be devoured.

PETER NADIN, an artist and Greenwich Village resident, has been feeling alienated from his food for some time. So, to roll back some of the estrangement from nature that he finds endemic to city life, he organized a dinner party the other night at Les Deux Gamins, a West Village bistro, launching what the restaurant called the Festival of the Two Pigs. The two pigs in question are artisanal swine that Mr. Nadin raised on his farm in upstate Greene County. With autumn settling in, the pigs that Mr. Nadin had come to think of as ''delightful'' met their U.S.D.A.-supervised fate. They were then transported, halved and packed in ice, to Les Deux Gamins, on West Fourth Street, where they elicited sideways glances from passers-by as they were unloaded. There the pigs were deftly butchered and expertly prepared by the chef, Gwena?Le Pape, who left no part of what he called ''the beasts'' unused. The pigs thereupon became the featured part of a banquet attended by about 30 of Mr. Nadin's friends and neighbors in the Village. Besides wanting to share the pigs he raised, Mr. Nadin wants to help people establish the traditional relationships between them and their food. As he put it, ''People don't think about where a pork chop comes from.'' Mr. Nadin, 52, grew up in England, where his family raised vegetables and chickens, but these days he is more of a gentleman farmer. His pigs -- he heeded advice not to give them names -- were raised in a respectful manner, he said, and when passed along to Mr. Le Pape and Robert Arbor, the restaurant's owner, their meat was accorded similar reverence. The more than 200 pounds of pork is not gone yet, although the feast at Les Deux Gamins certainly put a dent in it. After comparing stories about their encounters with the pigs when they were alive and stories about their eating habits (''Get out of the way if they're eating walnuts''), guests laced into the feast, the star of which was communal dishes of braised pigs' feet. ''It's interesting to get into some of the weirder parts of the pig,'' said Mary Chatham, a sculptor. Integrating rural and urban landscapes is something of a raison d'?e for Mr. Nadin. Like his pork, Mr. Nadin's art is made on his farm but consumed in the city. He also raises Kashmir goats, honeybees and chickens, the byproducts of which he uses in his paintings -- giant works set on rumpled linen and enhanced with beeswax and goat's wool. Mr. Arbor proved a willing accomplice in the pork venture. The two men met when Les Deux Gamins was on Waverly Place at Grove Street, within sniffing range of Mr. Nadin's town house. In addition to running the restaurant, Mr. Arbor is the principal author of ''Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living,'' a book that advocates a more intimate relationship with food. In it, Mr. Arbor notes that in the French countryside people often show up at dinner parties with their own meat knives. His father had such a knife, and he expects to inherit it someday. ''We're not throwing anything away; nothing, zero, zip,'' said Mr. Le Pape, the chef, who wears a white smock with a logo depicting a death head, a bloody cooking knife clenched in its teeth. ''You can check the garbage can, but you won't find anything but the plastic wrap the pig came in.'' What's left over after the banquet will go into daily specials such as pork stew, ham hocks, fresh ham, p? and confit. STILL more meat will be smoked (for bacon) or cured (for country ham). Mr. Nadin even salvaged the pigs' fur, which he will use to make paintbrushes; the split ends of the coarse hairs hold more paint on the brush. After the dinner, Mr. Le Pape emerged from the kitchen and received a round of applause. ''Thank you, Peter, for making such nice pigs,'' Mr. Le Pape said. With the venture deemed a success, Mr. Nadin and Mr. Arbor are planning to produce more pigs next year, using the restaurant's organic detritus -- carrot peels, potato skins -- for pig food. ''It was such a great experience to eat the pigs,'' Mr. Nadin said. ''It's almost as if you are consuming their vitality. When the community comes together for a meal, it is very close to how art is consumed.'' Next year, he added, ''the feast of the 40 ducks.'' Photos: The night of the feast, above, and the piece de resistance, shortly before.

The farmer is another animal on the farm. The success of the farm is evaluated not by how much is produced, but how each species contributes to the equilibrium of the farm. When equilibrium is reached, the surplus is taken to market. The farmer farms both the land and the mind. The creation of art and the activity of farming both facilitate and enhance each other. Each plant, animal and insect is an ambassador for its species and is given the respect accorded a diplomat.

Broccoli Cabbage Garlic Cayenne Pepper Musk Melons Luffa Summer Squash Winter Squash Kohlrabi Artichoke Cardoons Radish Cucumber Rhubarb Tomatillos Bell Pepper Leeks Tomatoes Potatoes Strawberry Broom Corn Sweet Corn Padron Pepper Peas Beets Carrot Celery Daikon Fennel Parsnips Turnip *Herbs:* Basil Bee Balm Borage Chervil Chives Cilantro Lemon Verbena Lemongrass Lovage Marjoram Oregano Parsley Rosemary Scallions Sage Shisho Thyme *Salad Greens:* Bronze Arrowhead Chrysanthemum Escarole Frisee Indian Mustard Green Mitsuba Minutina Mizuna Nasturtium Radicchio Rouge d'hiver Sculpit *Braising Greens:* Beet Greens Cabbage Chard Kale Sorrel

Old Field Farm occupies 172 acres in Greene County, New York. It is located about forty miles due west of Catskill, on the northern slope of the mountain range. The soil is relatively poor due to glacial erosion, and the fields are still speckled with rocks left by the retreat of the glaciers. The farm has 110 acres woodlands and 62 acres of fields. Of these 30 acres is pasture for the animals, 20 acres are planted with oats for the pigs, and 12 acres are vegetable gardens and orchards. We grow about 60 pigs per year and 300 chickens, and we have 20 beehives. The pasture makes good bee forage.

The farm is in the town of Durham. It is located on the northern slope of the Catskill mountains. The town is 49 square miles and has a population of 2,725. Our farm occupies 172 acres with a population of 2 to 4. We take the produce to Manhattan. It is two and a half hours away and has a population during the day of 4,350,000. And covers 34 square miles.

I bring produce into the city on Tuesdays. On the journey, I often think about all the dead things consumed in the city: pigs, chickens, eggs, honey, vegetables, herbs, salad greens. I am driving one of thousands of trucks bringing our dead animals, plants and fish in to feed the insatiable hunger of the city, 8 million people in New York City closely packed and needing a constant supply of food. Today I started to think about how much food we must consume in New York City. About 8 million people, three meals a day. How much weight of food per day? Two, three, four pounds...so 16 million pounds of food per day at the very least. Then the excrement: how much is passed through the human digestive tract? Ten to twelve million pounds per day. It is encouraging for those with food to sell, but disturbing when considering the volume we consume and the amount we excrete.

Anne Kennedy and Peter Nadin asked me to design them a small structure to house 1) insulated water distribution for the pig farrowing houses and 2) future farm manager and some workers. The dual functions led me to invert a corner so that the basement could be easily accessed from the ground level and commandeer light and volume from the first level. The living space could be left isolated and uninterrupted by the itinerary of work. Views and natural light were maximized through careful consideration of the siting. - Hallie Chen