Farm-to-table has become a cliche among restaurants these days, with chefs touting the freshest of produce and the best of locally raised meat and dairy. But when the farm is literally just footsteps away from the table, there’s nothing trite about the expression.

Sunday’s "Farm to Table" event at Real Farm on Hawaii island will set the bar for freshness and sustainability: vegetables, dairy products and meats will all come from a single farm. The event is a benefit for Kahilu Theatre in Waimea and the Pa’i Foundation.

Located on Saddle Road, the highway that bisects the island between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, Real Farm is the home of Melanie Holt, husband Tim Bostock, director of Kahilu Theatre, and their family.

Holt was born and raised in Honolulu and met Bostock in London as a student. She spent a year on a farm in Scotland, where she became enamored with farming, leading to a degree in agriculture in England.

Returning to the islands, the Holt-Bostock family settled on the Big Island to realize Holt’s passion for farming. They plant heirloom seeds and employ sustainable practices such as crop rotation, companion planting, and compost and worm bins. They milk Buttercup, their Jersey cow, twice daily and raise pigs, goats, sheep, ducks, chickens and turkeys that are fed from the vegetable garden.

Holt and her daughter Jasmine, aka Jazzy, maintain an extensive vegetable garden planted with kale, lettuce, fava beans, French nickel beans, mange-tout peas, beets, eggplant, artichokes, cabbages, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, fennel, asparagus, celery and cucumber. Herbs grow in rubber tire pots.

Jazzy has become the dairy processor, making butter, yogurt, mozzarella, cottage cheese and feta with their daily 3-gallon supply of fresh milk.

Members of the Holt-Bostock family cook daily and pride themselves on homegrown meals. "It’s such a good feeling to go out and pick what we need and want to eat," Holt said.

For the benefit, chef Mark Noguchi and his team from Honolulu will cook.

"He’s asked for two lambs, three turkeys, pork belly and head so far," said Holt.