Hundreds feasted and took workshops on cooking and local food all day Saturday at the Local Abundance Festival in Caspar.
But for Marty Johnson, one of the organizers of the “C”mon Home to Eat” event for Coast Economic Localization Link (CELL), the highlight of the day wasn”t the silky Sea Palm Struedel from Ravens Restaurant or even the music by the Blushing Roulettes. It was the opening “prayer,” when the community seemed to become a single unit.
About 150 people gathered in a huge circle behind the Caspar Community Center, in sight of the community garden. Inside the donut hole were the dozens of children and Ron Nadeau, who thanked the earth for its gifts.
“With everybody together and the children in the middle, it was really a village, it was truly a community,” Johnson said.
The circle brought together an economic localization movement that has blossomed on the coast in the past two years, although it has no partisan or religious agenda. The group seeks to recreate a locally-based system of life from energy to shopping to food — an idea not unlike the community forming a circle in which as many needs as possible can be met without products trucked in from the outside. Worries about over-consumption, greed, rising oil prices and peaking oil supplies have all energized the movement, along with the desire for more reuse and recycling.
But nothing localization groups have offered has been as overwhelmingly popular as the opportunities to eat together.
In the month of October, members of CELL have been endeavoring to eat foods produced within a 100-mile radius — which reaches all the way to Sutter County as the crow flies. That effort culminated Saturday with the serving of more than 40 different main dishes, many from the executive chefs of top local restaurants. Another table offered more than a dozen desserts.
The MacCallum House, Caf? One, Ravens Restaurant, Mendo Bistro, Moosse Caf? and Brewery Gulch Inn all offered ample helpings of gourmet local foods.
Charlie Fore, the new executive chef at Brewery Gulch Inn, was offering a very popular Roasted Rooster Gumbo. The inn, which raises food that is certified organic, serves only guests and isn”t open to the public for dinner.
“The food from Mendocino County is top notch quality that we wanted to get in the Bay Area. One reason I like coming here is to be closer to the source,” Fore said.
There were vegetarian sushi and turkey cheese cornbread enchiladas, polenta meatballs and pork shoulder roast from Old Mill Farm. There were recipes made with Central Valley rice and a spicy quinoa recipe — a light, high-protein rice-like grain. Another favorite was the Sea Palm Struedel, which had all the smooth cake-like consistency of any strudel, spiced by flavors of the ocean that were only a little salty.
Comedy and music capped off the busy day. Everything but the Caspar Community Center”s metal forks went into the compost at the end of the evening, including the paper plates, the cups and table coverings.
Aron Yaskin, who is a hobby chef and has cooked in restaurants, thought the food was “spectacular.” Many who ate searched in vain for the correct superlative to describe a gourmet feast that cost just $8. One plate was enough, even for this reporter..
“This meal definitely exonerated our harvest season,” Yaskin said.
Many of the children on hand were not anywhere near as keen on the rich and sometimes spicy foods, although they did like the rice and the dessert table.
For the October effort to eat locally, Harvest Market and Corners of the Mouth both clearly marked in their stores locally-produced products. Organizers said Safeway wanted to participate but the chain”s methods of selling shelf space didn”t allow for local food marking.
For more information about the Coast Economic Localization Link”s C”mon Home to Eat program, contact Marty Johnson, 964-6164, or email localize@mcn.org. The Website is www.coastlocalize.org.
