Regulars and Shorts

Food Feasts and Festivals for October

By Staff

We gather to cook, taste, dine.

Harvest festivals bring the best of fall. Pick over pumpkin patches, take the kids for a hayride, gather in a bundle of dried corn stalks to decorate the season. Then give thanks to the bees at the annual Utah Honey Harvest Festival and treat your taste buds to the last, and best, food fundraiser events—Celebrate the Bounty and Feast of Five Senses. Then, finish your canning, hunker in for winter and say good-bye to food feasts until spring comes again.

 

Raw Milk Workshop @ Redmond Heritage Farm Store (formerly Real Foods Market), 2209 S. Highland Dr., SLC, Tues. Oct. 4, 6:30 pm. Free, RedmondFarms.com

State legislation allows Redmond Heritage Farm to sell raw, unpasteurized milk from their cows directly to the consumer through their farm store in Sugar House. There’s a lot of information and misinformation about the benefits and dangers of this product. Get some facts about raw milk from farmer Jed Johnson, farm manager at Redmond Heritage Farms.

 

Utah Honey Harvest Festival @ Clark Historic Farm (378 W Clark St.), Granstville, Fri. & Sat. Oct. 7-8, Fri. 2pm-dusk, Sat. 11am-dusk, $4 /$3 kids, ClarkHistoricFarm.org/utah-honey-harvest-festival

Satirist and author Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels) once said of the offerings of honeybees that they furnished “mankind with the two noblest of things, which are sweetness and light.” Utah’s connection with the givers of honey and wax goes back to the first Mormon pioneers who named their new state Deseret, a word that, in the Book of Mormon, means honeybee. Currently, Utah’s is seeing a revival of beekeeping and the city of Grantsville is stoking that growth with its third annual Honey Harvest Festival. Participants can enjoy beekeeping demonstrations, learn DIY skills like how to properly milk a cow (milk and honey, anyone?) at the healthy homesteaders fair, try their finger picking at a fiddlin’ fest jam session open to all acoustic musicians, sample the region’s best honey, and compete in the Deseret honey contest, open to dilettantes and professionals alike with separate categories for novice and commercial harvesters. Just pre-register online and bring a half-pint of your best honey to the festival.

 

Harvest Festival @ Petersen Farm (11887 S 400 W), Riverton, Oct. 8, 10am-3pm, $5 ($20 for family up to five members), PetersonFarm.com

Started as a way to say thank you to loyal customers, the annual Harvest Fest held during the farm’s pumpkin-picking season is Peterson Farm’s gift to the community. The event will feature free wagon rides, corn pit and kids corn maze, hay bale maze, pumpkin bowling, pony rides, face painting, food trucks and pumpkins for $0.27/lb.

 

Tuscany: cooking class @ Tony Caputo’s (314 W 300 S), SLC, Tues. Oct. 11, 7:15pm, $45 (with wine pairing $60). CaputosDeli.com.

Foodies will tell you there’s no such thing as Italian cuisine.  Rather, each of the country’s 20 regions has a unique culinary tradition of its own.  For instance, the foothills of the Abruzzi region are blanketed with herbs that give zip to its risotto and grilled lamb, while Naples provides a masterclass in the preparation of mussels and clams. Caputo’s Deli is offering a cooking class on the techniques from one of Italy’s heaviest hitters—Tuscany—whose gentle hills produce some of the worlds most coveted olives, tomatoes and beans. The class will share secrets to channeling the regions flavors and making a home-run pasta sauce and classic Tuscan dessert. Register online.

 

Celebrate the Bounty, Thurs. Oct 13 @ the Rico Warehouse (545 S 700 W), SLC, 5-10pm, $65, LocalFirst.org

This event encourages mingling and sampling. Try small plates from the best restaurants from Ogden to Provo. Try a cup of fresh brewed, locally roasted coffee or a square of locally crafted chocolate. And don’t miss the excellent cocktails made with an ever-increasing variety of locally blended and distilled liquors. This is the party to close out the season. Proceeds benefit Local First Utah.

 

New Harmony Apple Fest @ New Harmony, UT, Sat. Oct. 15, 10am-6pm, free, NewHarmonyFire.com

Braeburn, Cameo, Fuji. Apples still abound in southern Utah. You can find some of them at New Harmony’s Apple Fest (near St. George), a fundraiser for the city’s fire department, or visit one of the five area farms and pick your own. Find local apple farms at Agrilicious.org/local/ apples/utah

 

Feast of Five Senses @ Jewett Center for the Performing Arts, Westminster College (1840 S 1300 E), SLC, Sun. Oct. 16, 5:30-10pm, $150. SlowFoodUtah.org

This multi-course sit-down dinner is truly a feast of the senses. Salt Lake’s top chefs take ingredients farmed locally and personally introduce their uniquely crafted dish as the courses are served. Proceeds from the event go to Slow Food Utah and fund the organization’s micro-grant program for local farmers and ranchers.

 

Fall Harvest Festival @ American West Heritage Center (4025 S. Hwy 89-91), Wellsville, Fri. & Sat. Oct. 21-22, 10am-5pm, $9 ($8 children 3-11) AWHC.org.

Bring in the harvest the old-fashioned way with living history activities such as cider pressing, corn shelling, candle making, steam engine threshing, corn mazes, hay activities and a haunted hollow.

 

Halloween Treats Cooking Class @ Redmond Heritage Farm Store (formerly Real Foods Market), 2209 S. Highland Dr.  SLC, Thurs. Oct. 27, 6:30 pm, Free. RedmondFarms.com

Local food blogger and cook Emily Allen of ThatsWhatIEat.com will share festive recipes that taste good and are good for you, too.

 

This article was originally published on October 2, 2016.