Once again St. Albert hosts the one-of-a-kind, second annual Dig In! Horticulinary Festival running from Oct. 1 to 3.
The itinerary is similar to last year’s inaugural festival. Both the Thursday night culinary walking tour and the Friday night long-table dinner are sold out.
“We felt last year was successful and we didn’t want to change too much. We’re still a growing festival. We want to grow slowly and keep people going so they understand what Dig In is all about,” said festival chair Dawn Fedorvich.
For visitors interested in learning to grow food in an urban setting and developing new kitchen skills, Saturday offers a full day of talks, demonstrations and hands-on workshops.
Workshops will take place at two different locations. Food workshops such as cheese making, preparing tapas and learning to cure bacon take place at Bellerose Composite High.
“At Bellerose they have a very good cooking program with culinary arts labs. Part of the reason we’re over there is because they have eight labs,” Fedorvich said.
Bellerose also has a wood-fired pizza oven used for the school’s food and business program. Foods teacher Jason Dabbagh and his students will use locally grown organic heritage wheat from Gold Forest Grains to make wood-fired pizzas.
“And people will get to take home samples,” added Fedorvich.
In Steakology, Kyle Iseke of Darcy’s Meats steps up to show visitors how different cuts are best cooked.
“This one is about different kinds of meat and how to prepare them. People will go home with some meat.”
Over at the Enjoy Centre, visitors can imbibe at three different workshops – wine tasting, brewing beer, the art of making apple cider as well as sipping top tier coffee.
The festival once again offers a series of free, mainstage drop-in talks lasting about 15 to 20 minutes. The focus of these talks is on growing food and understanding what impacts it.
“We deliberately kept these short. We didn’t want it to feel like a conference where pre-registration is required for everything.”
Topics range from understanding different soil, pruning trees and edible flowers to medicinal plants, bee-keeping introduction and growing micro-greens. A schedule of the 16 talks is available at www.diginstalbert.ca.
Closing the festival at the Enjoy Centre are two contests – a pumpkin pie eating contest and a people’s choice salsa making contest. People can sample salsa throughout the day and cast their votes. The pumpkin pie-eating contest will be held at 3:30 p.m.
