Calling All Foodies! Mark your calendars and get ready for the feast to end all feasts. Fresh oysters, home-baked breads, salad greens, micro-brewery beers, decadent desserts and meads are just a small part of a local cornucopia banquet that will have even the most hardened foodie salivating with anticipation.
Every manner of sumptuous local offering is on the menu at the Island Chefs’ Collaborative (ICC) Local Food Festival: Defending Our Backyard on May 30th (Sunday) at Fort Rodd Hill National Historic Site in British Columbia. The popular event pairs top chefs with local food producers from all over the region, showcasing and serving up the best of what the community has to offer while engaging and inspiring the public via their palettes.
“The rising demand for local food has outstripped what Island growers can currently supply. A lot more people need to get dirt under their fingernails if we are going to eat as well as we should. Somehow wannabe farmers need to be transformed into real farmers, and how that happens is a shared responsibility,” explains Bob Mitchell, President of the Island Farmers’ Alliance.
Local food is a growing and urgent priority. Vancouver Island supplies only 5% of the food its population consumes each year, and has only a three-day supply of food available if transportation services from the mainland are ever disrupted. The ICC helps educate the public about the importance of local food and farms when they put Island flavors on their menus and raise the profile of local food security.
“ICC members are passionate about local foods that deliver world-class flavor. By working collaboratively with farmers, making plans and commitments to grow and prepare more local foods, we are making our community’s shared food future more secure,” says Ken Nakano, President of the Island Chefs’ Collaborative and Executive Sous Chef at the Empress Hotel.
The ICC Local Food Festival: Defending Our Backyard, aside from being a marvelous local feast, operates as a fundraiser in support of local farms and farmers in their efforts to become more successful. Over the last 5 years, the ICC has provided CAN$22,000 worth of equipment to 16 small farms on Vancouver Island — helping to make those farms more sustainable.
This year’s festival entertainment line-up features local talent with Kings Without, Children of Celebrities and The Ecclestons. Festival participants will also have the opportunity to learn about growing more of their own food, composting, the ethical harvest of seafood, local wineries and breweries, and the work of food-related special interest groups.
The Island Chefs’ Collaborative Local Food Festival: Defending Our Backyard on May 30th (Sunday) at Fort Rodd Hill National Historic Site in British Columbia. Tickets are now on sale. Early bird tickets qualify you for monthly dinner draws at the best eateries in the region.
I will come to your festival. Can you suggest ways to advertise a wksp I’m organizing – Food Forest Gardening on June 26/7.
The teacher, Richard Walker has 25 years of experience and will come from the interior, if I get can enough participants. Focused on growing food on urban lots. I can email a flyer. Will there be a place for me to put them out at the festival and can you suggest any other people/groups who’d be interested?
Thanks,
Hilary Mackey 250 590 8490
Colwood Resident
Please send some information to me at cassandrajane10@shaw.ca and I will put you in contact with the Island Chef’s Collaborative Food Festival.