Celebrating local farms, local foods, Appalachian culinary heritage, and healthful eating will be the goal of the first Serve It Up Local: Celebrating Farms and Food Fest, slated for Saturday, Aug. 10, at the Agriculture Heritage Hall on the Garrett County Fairgrounds. The festivities will be held from 12:30 to 9 p.m.
The day will begin with the Local Lunch Cook-Off. Lunch guests will be the judges of the cook-off, which will feature regional chefs creating dishes made with farm-fresh local food. Using as many locally grown ingredients as possible, each competing chef will create a special dish. Chefs are slated to attend from a number of area restaurants, from Garrett County as well as Morgantown and Davis, W.Va.
A list of the participating chefs is available on the event web site, which can be found at www.ServeItUpLocal.com. The official judges for various food contests will be chef Spike Gjerde of Baltimore’s Woodberry Kitchen, chef Adam Murray of Garrett County, and Susan Walter Sink, an organic foods specialist and chef from North Carolina.
The Local Foods Fest will follow, a free admission time with local food cooking demonstrations, farmer demonstrations, culinary heritage displays, live music, children’s activities, and other activities for the whole family.
An evening Local Sips Social will allow guests to relax while sampling regional wines and beers, and listen to farm-to-table stories from Chef Gjerde.
The culminating event will be the 50-Mile Meal Dinner, where the goal is to source as many of the foods as possible from farms within 50 miles. The 50-Mile Dinner will be catered by the Local Pantry, which consists of Chanteclaire Farms with help from FireFly Farms and Garrett Growers.
Tickets and information are available at www.ServeItUpLocal.com or by calling 240-442-2585.
