Banquet of local foods open to public
Jan. 12, 2009Contact Information:
Heather Friedrich, Program Specialist, Department of Horticulture
479-575-2798 / heatherf@uark.edu
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A dinner to celebrate local foods and Arkansas farmers will be held Feb. 6 at the Fayetteville Town Center.
Reservations are $20 per person and the public is invited to attend.
Chef Lou Rice, culinary program director at Northwest Arkansas Community College will lead production of the dinner. The menu will feature locally grown items, including shiitake mushrooms, tomatoes, greens, winter squash, sweet potatoes, apples, raspberries, turnips, honey, eggs, brown rice, lamb, chicken and trout. A vegetarian option is available for the main entrée.
Washington and Benton County growers whose products are featured include Foundation Farm, A&A Orchard, Wynn’s Tomato Ranch, Wren Thicket Garden, Dickey Farm, Round Mountain Farm, Mark Hesse Farm, Melissa Late, Sweden Creek Farm, and others.
Curt Rom, UA professor of horticulture, will speak on “Growing Food and Growing Culture.” The chef and local growers will also make remarks.
The dinner is in conjunction with the Farmers Market as a Community Collaboration Conference that will be held Feb. 6-7. But the banquet is open to anyone who would like to attend, even if they are not attending the conference, said Heather Friedrich, program specialist in the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s department of horticulture.
The local foods dinner and conference are co-hosted by the Division of Agriculture and the National Center for Appropriate Technology-ATTRA and co-sponsored by the Arkansas Farmers Market Association, the Arkansas Agriculture Department and the city of Fayetteville.
Reservations are required for the dinner. Contact Shelly Walters of the Fayetteville Visitors Bureau by phone, 479-521-5776, or e-mail, swalters@experiencefayetteville.com, by Jan. 30.