If you liked the county fair, you will love the fourth annual Great Island Grown Festival. It’s a three island, 13-day extravaganza with a cornucopia of food, farms and friendliness – just the elements that have made the San Juan County Fair the “can’t miss” event in the islands for more than a century.
Spearheaded by the San Juan County Agricultural Resources Committee and the revitalized Island Grown in the San Juans program, the festival “celebrates the bounty of abundant farms and locally grown food in our beautiful archipelago within the Salish Sea,” according to Island Grown’s extensive new website, islandgrown.net.
Food and more food will be the hallmark of the two-week event. Each island will provide multiple opportunities to fill your cupboard and yourself with local produce, seafood and fish. All food events have a fee; visit islandgrown.net/festival for event prices, reservation requirements and other details.
On Orcas, renowned chefs Christina Orchid and Madden Surbaugh are producing gourmet feasts at Red Rabbit Farm (Oct. 6) and the New Leaf Cafe (Oct. 12).
Orchid’s “Going Whole Hog” will be an all-day event starting at 10 a.m. on Oct. 6, featuring instruction on butchering, roasting and preserving pork. There will also be an all-day Farm Olympics, with contests such as hay bale lifting and milk pail carrying. Proceeds benefit the Orcas School Farm to Cafeteria Program.
Surbaugh’s gourmet Island Harvest Pop-up Dinner at 6 p.m. on Oct. 12 will feature local ingredients from Maple Rock Farm, Coffelt Farm, Jones Family Farm and Buck Bay Shellfish. Locally produced beer, wine and spirits are included.
Lopez feasts include a Lopez Locavores Evening Meal at the school Oct. 3; Lopez on the Halfshell Oct. 4, at 11 a.m. at Sweetwater Farm (with a tour); and a Farms to Feast dinner Oct. 13 at Jones Family Farm, prepared by chef Derrek Bugge from Frank’s Oyster House and Champagne Bar in Seattle (also with a tour). Vita’s Wildly Delicious and watercolorist Tom Hoffman team up Oct. 11 and 12 for a two-day watercolor course followed by a wine-tasting dinner at 6 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 12.
San Juan Island will host its share of gastronomic delights, too. There’s a Chili Cook-off Oct. 6 at the Brickworks; a Bike and Gastronomic Tour the same day, with a lunch at Red Mill Farm; and a Tour the Fields, Taste the Feast event Friday, Oct. 11, with dinner following at Coho Restaurant in Friday Harbor.
The Oct. 5 and Oct. 12 Farmers’ Markets on Orcas, Lopez and San Juan will be overflowing with freshly harvested veggies and fruits, some of it ready to eat and some of it ready to cook. San Juan County’s farmers have learned to grow almost everything from spring to fall, so you can choose from a big variety, from greens to sausages to apples at peak flavor.
On Orcas, also Oct. 5 and 12, a Food Masters Workshop can inform you how the best farmers and processors grow, harvest and preserve. Three workshops, 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. each day, will tell you about sustainable horticultural practices, at the Community Garden, and value-added production, at the Village Green.
And what’s a festival without a parade? Sponsored by the Grange No. 966, the Friday Harbor Fall Farm Parade Oct. 5 is a hoot-and-holler event, from children with chickens and pets, to farm families with tractors and harvesters parading through Friday Harbor’s main streets to celebrate the resurgence of smalls farms and local food in the San Juans. It starts at the county fairgrounds at 2:30 p.m. and ends at Brickworks.
