Seafood festivals coming to the Okanagan.
The Okanagan is well known for its well established wine festivals, but in recent years food oriented festivals have also come to the fore.Feast of the fields, organised by Farm Folk City Folk, is now a well established and well loved event usually held in late summer on a farm venue which changes every year and features the best of BC ingredients prepared by some of the best kitchen teams in the valley.
Also last year saw the first Okanagan Spot Prawn festival, held at the Manteo resort and at Watermark beach resort, which were both very well attended.The aim of this event is to promote this sustainable BC harvest and to highlight the desirability of our own prawn harvest over the unsustainable (and bland) farmed prawns more prevalent in the market these days.Tasting dishes from some of the valleys best chefs were available, as well as live Prawn sales to the public and information /displays from Vancouver aquariums Ocean Wise team).
Happily, this year will see a repeat show, this time in West Kelowna at the Cove resort on June 2nd.
This April will also see the first Oliver and Osoyoos Oyster festival, to be held between April 14th -21st, with events being held at a number of venues as well as participating local restaurants featuring oysters on their menus for the duration of the week.
Mid summer will see a gala event at the Delta Grand (date yet to be decided) to celebrate the return of the Okanagan Sockeye, with one of the largest runs into the Okanagan River in living memory expected.This event will also be a fundraiser to contribute towards the conservation work being done by the O.N.A (Okanagan Nations Alliance), with the medium term goal of restoring the Sockeye run into Skaha Lake, and thus ensuring that the run will survive for many more years to come.
Finally in September we have the Naramata bench wineries tailgate party, which this year is set to be a fundraiser for Ocean Wise, and will feature a Salmon BBQ cook off, as well as an oyster bar and I am sure some great wines.
So, an exciting summer ahead, and whichever events you choose to attend, I look forward to seeing you there, and to doing our part in establishing this beautiful valley as a top culinary destination.
Useful links
http://www.oceanwisecanada.org/
http://www.syilx.org/naturalresources-fisheries.php
http://naramatabench.com/
http://www.syilx.org/naturalresources-fisheries.php
http://naramatabench.com/
