SANDPOINT — There’s a rich tradition of celebrating local food throughout North Idaho, from the region’s numerous famers market to the University of Idaho Extension’s annual food summit. 

Colette DePhelps, UI’s Community Food Systems educator for the area, said that love and celebration of local food from the local community is why the summit is expanding to a second day with a harvest festival. Everything from bison meat to black garlic brownies will be available for residents to purchase on Saturday. 

"This year we decided we wanted to have a fall harvest festival, which is more of a meet-your-producer event,” DePhelps said. “We have a number of farm and food businesses that will be set up throughout the Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center. They’ll have booths, kind of like an indoor farmers market.” 

DePhelps said it will be an opportunity for residents and local business owners to connect with farmers, which she hopes will spark a connection. In addition to local farms, there will be several booths that will provide information about the region’s wilderness and nature for attendees. 

There will also be five, one-hour long educational workshops on Saturday. DePhelps said they will be focused on more casual food topics like gardening and soil health and will be hosted by various educators for U of I extensions.  

"They are designed for people who are from the community, who want to learn more about growing their own food, gardening, managing their own orchard,” DePhelps said. “We really tried to think about how to put together workshops that would help community members.” 

The summit portion of the event kicks off on Friday at 1 p.m. with a welcome ceremony before Alex Jacobson, a local chef from Pearl’s on the Lake, puts on a plating demonstration. DePhelps said the event attempts to highlight different aspects of food before every summit. 

"We always have an artistic opening because we recognize that there’s art that relates to food and agriculture, and we want to highlight that,” DePhelps said. “As that artistic opening, to talk about how chefs put food on the plate and where they position it and where thy put it on the table and how that is a part of the culinary experience.” 

From then on, there will be three groups of “Ignite!” sessions focused on following the food through the supply chain, starting on the farm through the processing phase to the table. These five-minute rapid-fire sessions are a staple of the summit and allow visitors to get a behind-the-scenes look at how food is made.  

The sessions will kick off with local farmers from across North Idaho, including Tess Hahn, owner of Bah Bah Blacktail Farm in Careywood. Hahn said the focus of her presentation will center around increasing sustainability of local food. 

From increased meat science education, economics and customer connections, Hahn said she’ll be sharing her perspective on numerous issues during her five-minute session. 

"Consumers nowadays want two things: quality assurance and dependability,” Hagn said. “If your food comes from afar and you don’t know anything about how it was grown, you don’t have that same grasp on quality assurance and certainly not the same sense of dependability.” 

Hahn said one of the main reasons she stays involved is the connections that she can build with other farmers. She said she loves sharing updated tricks of the trade with other farmers and knowing who in the community is doing quality work. 

"A meal doesn’t happen with just meat, I’m a meat producer, but someone else might be a berry producer, a corn producer,” Hahn said. “It’s that connection of I know whose quality, who is in the game and doing a quality job. The connections farmer to farmer are so important.” 

DePhelps said the summit has been very well received, which she credits to the event’s ability to build connections in the community. 

“People are really searching for community, and we connect meaningfully through food at the dinner table, with our family and our friends,” DePhelps said. “Meeting your local producer extends that circle and allows people to ask questions about how their food is grown and what makes it special.” 

Registration for Friday’s summit is open until Thursday, Nov. 6 and costs $10. Both events will be held at the University of Idaho’s Sandpoint Organic Agriculture Center. More information, including the agenda for both days, can be found at Idahofoodworks.org.