Local Foods Tasting and Book Event with Gary Nabhan and Stephanie Mills

Join us for an Up North Foodie Friday on October 10, at Horizon Books in downtown Traverse City, Michigan!

Kick off the evening with a Local Foods Tasting from 5:30-7 p.m., followed by a reading and book signing with authors Gary Nabhan and Stephanie Mills from 7:15-9 p.m.

This is really cool for us. First we get Bill McKibben visiting Traverse City, sharing his thoughts on the local food economy in the context of fighting global warming. Then we get Gary Nabhan giving us a plan for action to identify and bring back traditional foods at risk in our own neck of the woods. Call the approach "eat it to save it."

Gary is a world-renowned ethnobotanist, conservationist and author, with two new books out this year: Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Vavilov's Quest to End Famine and Renewing America's Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent's Most Endangered Foods. As founder/facilitator of the Renewing America's Food Traditions, Gary is touring foodsheds around the country to help reinforce existing efforts to conserve the foods of each place. So we're psyched to have him here in northern Michigan! When he's not touring the country, Gary raises desert crops, Navajo-Churro sheep and heritage turkeys in the Southwest, or as he puts it, in the "stinkin' hot desert," where he teaches at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Stephanie Mills is an author, lecturer and long-time bioregionalist on both local and national levels, who lives in Leelanau County. A long-time advocate and practitioner of living simply, her books include Tough Little Beauties, Epicurean Simplicity, and In Service of the Wild. She and Gary have been friends for a long time, so it'll be fun to have them both here in one room sharing their collective wisdom with the rest of us.

Now, back to the food. We just met yesterday to go over the menu with Cuppa Joe's Sandi Daley and Vicki Kaley (who owns Sun Ra Farms just outside of Traverse City, along with her husband Roger). They've come up with a delicious assortment of flavors for us to enjoy, and are working hard to source locally, with a lot of heirloom flavors.

The Local Foods Tasting is just $16, and space is limited so we require an RSVP by October 8. Please send a note including your name to raftupnorth@upnorthfoodies.com to let us know you're coming. Stop by the coffee bar on the main floor to pay and get your hand stamped before heading down to the Lower Level. We look forward to seeing you there!

Filed under Heritage Foods • News & Views