Homespun HarvestFest
When Ali Long heard that the Sun Valley Harvest Festival was ending its eight-year run in 2014, she saw an opportunity. The festival had become a high-end, star-studded gourmet gala that brought in celebrity chefs and acclaimed winemakers, but imported most of its culinary talent from well beyond Idaho’s borders. Think reality TV’s “The Fabulous Beekman Boys” (from New York) and big California Cabernets.
Long, who had co-founded the Local Food Alliance in the Wood River Valley with Stacy Whitman in 2013, saw a chance to localize the festival, making it about Idaho food and farming while attempting to attract more locals than tourists. “It seemed a really good opportunity,” Long says, “to connect our community to our local farms and to educate the public on the power of local food to help change our community, our health and our environment for the better.”
To that end, Long named this new event the Wood River Valley HarvestFest and moved it from tiny Sun Valley south to the less touristy Hailey and Bellevue. “We wanted one event where we could really just showcase what Idaho has to offer,” she says, “to help in our mission [at the Local Food Alliance] to bring more Idaho food products to those communities.”
In its first year, Long hoped to sell 125 tickets, but sold twice that, with a steady increase every year since. In this, its fourth, season, the Wood River Valley HarvestFest was a weekend event, with a fund-raising dinner called the Elevated Table held at a ranch south of Bellevue on Friday evening and a full-on community party and restaurant walk in downtown Hailey on Saturday.
Here is a collection of photos from the Elevated Table, which included local food prepared by Chef Sean Temple from Warfield Brewery & Distillery in Ketchum and wines brought to the dinner by Idaho winemaker Meredith Smith from Sawtooth Winery. No one seemed to lament the lack of non-Idaho celebrity chefs or California Cabs.
Local Food Alliance | @localfoodalliance
Wood River Valley HarvestFest | @woodrivervalleyharvestfest
Warfield Brewery & Distillery | @warfield_idaho
Sawtooth Winery | @sawtoohwinery
