When I learned that renowned chef and cookbook author Jasper White would be arriving in Portsmouth on Tuesday, Nov. 9 to participate in a benefit dinner, I had a particular reason to be excited.

In the spring of 1988 I was given the opportunity of a lifetime when a good friend informed me about a job opening at the restaurant where she worked. "Here, take a look at the menu," she said, passing me a grease-stained copy.

I was about to graduate from the culinary arts program at Johnson and Wales College in Providence, R.I., but wasn't having any luck finding a job that appealed to me. My actual job experience up to that point had been limited to establishments that counted baked stuffed haddock and chicken Cordon Bleu as the more exotic fare on their menus, and the majority of recruiters who had descended upon campus a few weeks prior were from the institutional arena-hotels, resorts, hospitals and the like. I didn't relish the idea of churning out hundred-pound batches of mashed potatoes on a given night, so I opened the menu and began to read.

I had never heard of Wellfleet oysters or Moulard foie gras, and didn't know there was such thing as a spring-dug parsnip, but as I read, I knew instinctively that this was the food I wanted to cook. One week and two interviews later, I reported for duty to begin a two-week tryout in the kitchen of Jasper White.

To say that I learned a great deal during the almost three years that I worked there is of course an understatement. To work for Jasper meant to bear witness to a constant parade of local characters that included farmers, fisherman, artisinal millers, cheese makers, hunters and foragers. Many were old-time New Englanders who would arrive laden with baskets of heirloom tomatoes or woodland mushrooms that they themselves had hand picked for Jasper. His reputation as a passionate and relentless troubadour for the cause of local, seasonal and sustainable agriculture resulted in a fierce loyalty from these old-world purveyors, and they went out of their way to please him.

To work for Jasper also meant to work with Jasper. I remember standing at my station preparing the dishes that had been assigned me, with Jasper at the next cutting board deftly administering his knife to a freshly delivered spring lamb or breaking down an entire 20-pound halibut in a matter of minutes.

The beauty of Jasper's food was in its simplicity. He allowed only the highest quality ingredients to cross his threshold, and the last thing he ever wanted to do was adulterate them. Instead, he researched traditional recipes and used them to showcase each item. Those Wellfleet oysters that first caught my eye would be shucked to order and dressed with nothing more than a classic mignonette. The Moulard foie gras would be flash seared and served only with a dollop of Jasper's house-made preserves (brandied peaches in the summer or concord grape conserve in the fall) and perhaps a wild rice pancake. And to this day I look forward to the first batch of spring-dug parsnips to hit the market so I can mash them the way Jasper did, with butter, cream, salt and pepper.

In the 15 years that have passed since I first read that menu, I've worked with many talented chefs, but I've never strayed far from the style of cooking I learned from Jasper. Like a duckling that instantly bonds with its mother upon hatching, I bonded with Jasper's food and will always recognize it as home.

Jasper, of course, has gone on to achieve further success, writing cookbooks and opening a trio of Jasper White's Summer Shacks (in Boston, Cambridge and Connecticut). When he rolls into Portsmouth, he will be accompanied by Brian Flagg, executive chef of the Boston and Cambridge Summer Shack locations, and together they will join chefs Duncan Boyd of Victory at 96 State Street, who is hosting the event, and Christian Thornton, of Atria on Martha's Vineyard. All of these men have built their culinary repertoires around the same philosophy of seasonality and sustainability that Jasper spearheaded in Boston all those years ago, so it is no surprise that the benefit is officially being billed as the Farmers, Fishermen and Foragers First Annual Harvest Dinner. Proceeds fromthe event go to Operation Frontline, a national and local grassroots hunger-fighting organization (see sidebar).

The five-course feast will likely feature locally harvested lobster (paired with foie gras and papaya in Jasper's classic warm salad), Casco Bay monkfish (wrapped in bacon), Martha's Vineyard scallops, and New Hampshire-raised venison, as well as a bountiful array of local fruits and vegetables. Although the menu has been planned for some time, Boyd says the chefs are hesitant to make too many promises, given the unpredictability of New England weather.

"We really want to make sure that the ingredients are as local as possible," says Boyd, a fellow Jasper alumnus who would rather make a substitution than feature products harvested days ago and trucked a thousand miles.

Chemistry is another factor. This will be the first meeting between Jasper and Thornton, although both men have no doubt admired one another from afar. Thornton has achieved acclaim for his ability to fuse local ingredients with Mediterranean and Asian influences and says, "Ninety percent of my menu comes from local farms and fishermen. I gather the best local ingredients I can find, and then I do whatever I want with them."

I, for one, am not too concerned about the specifics. To be on the receiving end of such a collaboration can be nothing less than exhilarating. I might never have the opportunity to work for Jasper again, but on Tuesday, Nov. 9, you can be sure I will have secured a place at the table. I hope you are lucky enough to do the same.