National Heirloom Expo

This week, the very first (annual) National Heirloom Expo took place.  It was held in Santa Rosa at the Sonoma County fairgrounds on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  David volunteered to coordinate all the volunteers (gulp!) so he's been down there all week.  The rest of the interns came down to help out as well for a day, if not more.

Gourd, anyone?

Gourdgeous

It was a pretty sizable event, and there were many different areas in which to help.  Brandon and I worked in the Chef / Tasting area - we introduced chefs, and cut up heirloom tomatoes and melons for the tasting competition.  That was a pretty fun job. (Three for you, one for me ... )  There were at least 9 different tomato varieties and 4 melons entered into the contest - all unique and delicious, and none that I'd heard of. Others helped out the speakers and worked with the food vendors.  Before and after our duties, we cruised around and checked things out.

Ridiculous

Melons from the tasting competition

There were some incredible displays as well - numerous gardens had been set up for the event all around the fair grounds.  One guy was carving intricate designs into fruit and vegetables turning them into beautiful pieces of art.  At times he even choreographed his work - speeding up and slowing down his carving with the tempo of the music.

The roses you see are actually potatoes

Close up - melon carving

Delicious, organic, all natural food vendors were represented.  You could also buy starts and produce - one stand let you fill up a paper bag with as much produce as you could for $5!  It was an insane deal.  No doubt I left with over $20 worth of fresh, off the vine fruits and veggies.  Lots of heirloom seed vendors, handmade products (baskets, salts, seasonings, olives, aprons, bags, ceramics ... you name it!)  Stage areas for 2 bands, not to mention speakers galore and even films!  I wish I could have gone back today for the speakers alone (and yes, some goats milk ice cream & more rosa bianca eggplants.)

An heirloom expo celebrating local, organic produce & farmers, the slow food movement, farm to table etc. wouldn't be complete without one of it's pioneers: Alice Waters.  She was the keynote speaker Wednesday night - did you know she essentially started farmers markets in the US?  As in, they were not allowed and didn't exist before she personally worked to make that happen.  Such an incredible, inspiring woman.  I was able to pull her away from book signing for a quick pic (well, Brandon did ... I hate bugging celebs) but regardless - we got the pic for the blog.  And Facebook - score!

My hero