FARM2FORK Festival

Rodale’s Organic Life, the handbook for living naturally in the modern world published by Rodale Inc., today announced its first signature event. The Farm2Fork Festival, sponsored by Subaru (I happily drive a Forester!), will take place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Saturday, October 24 and Sunday, October 25^th, with three unique food-focused experiences celebrating the harvest season and its best ingredients.

The festival will kick off on Saturday morning with Bites of Brooklyn, featuring tastings from Brooklyn restaurants passionate about sustainable, local, farm-to-table dining, including Allswell, Bar Bolinas, Delaware and Hudson, Egg, The Finch, Greenpoint Fish & Lobster, Ted & Honey, The Pines, and Willow; a cooking stage with celebrated local chefs Adam Geringer-Dunn, Evan Hanczor, Patti Jackson, and John Poiarkoff; and interactive demonstrations on  everything from canning to windowsill gardening, led by experts from the Rodale Institute, JustFood.org, and the International Culinary Center (ICC).

Saturday evening’s intimate Slow Down Dinner, in partnership with Slow Food NYC, will celebrate one of the founding fathers of Brooklyn farm-to-table dining, restaurateur Andrew Tarlow. Guests will enjoy a family-style meal of urban farm fare inspired by the menus of his taste-making restaurants including Diner, Marlow & Sons, Roman’s, and Reynard. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Slow Food NYC’s program, Urban Harvest in the Schools, which provides financial and organizational support for 16 public schools throughout the city, helping to initiate, maintain and expand garden and food education programs.

Sunday’s Farm Feast Brunch will premiere the documentary film, “Food For Thought, Food For Life,” an exploration of today’s supersized agribusiness and its impact on the food system and the environment, with insights and solutions from some of today’s most forward thinking environmentalists, farmers, and chefs. A brief Q&A will follow, hosted by Organic Life Editor-in-Chief, James Oseland, with the filmmaker, Susan Rockefeller, and Dan Barber, the James-Beard award-winning Chef of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns who is featured prominently in the film. Guests will then sit down to a farmer’s feast of the season’s bounty, inspired by Barber’s new book, The Third Plate.

The Farm2Fork Festival is presented by Subaru and co-hosted by Lundberg Family Farms. Other participating and supporting sponsors include Bonterra Organic Vineyards, Klean Kanteen, Larabar, OurHarvest, PassionRoses, Pete and Gerry’s Organic Eggs, Organic Valley, Sixpoint Brewery, and Yogi Tea.

Organic Life has graciously provided a special code MEDIA when signing up on the registration page for a 40% discount for you to attend any of the three events. 

I will be there for Bites of Brooklyn and The Farm Feast Brunch so come say hello!

Vinegar Hill House / Kings County Distillery Picnic Dinner

 All Photos © Valery Rizzo

One of the last dinners of the season in the Whiskey Garden at Kings County Distillery was a picnic dinner with Brooklyn's Vinegar Hill House paired with cocktails and wine. On the menu were deviled eggs, bourbon cured lox, moonshine, cucumber & dill cocktail, watermelon salad, smoked pork wattle pork shoulder, cucumber & cabbage slaw and heirloom tomatoes with a selection of rose and white wines along with a dessert of sweet corn flan paired with a bourbon blueberry cobbler cocktail. The garden was glorious. This was the whiskey garden's last year as the space will become part of the new Wegmans supermarket being built in the Yard, but I am sure it won't be the end of other special events at the distillery.