Slow Food Southwest Washington serves up fundraiser

Everything on Tuesday night’s succulent six-course menu, from wines to cheeses and squash to chicken, was grown and prepared by ecologically minded farmers, harvesters and chefs right here in Southwest Washington.

“We want to bring out the distinct flavors of our four different food regions,” said organizer Warren Neth: forests, valleys, highlands and coastlines.

Neth is the driving force behind Slow Food Southwest Washington, the local chapter in a worldwide Slow Foods movement that aims to reverse our dependence on highly industrialized food systems by developing local alternatives, and to get high-quality, healthy food to people who can’t afford it easily.

“Taste Renaissance 2016,” set for 5 to 9 p.m. Nov. 15 at WareHouse ’23, is Slow Food Southwest Washington’s first-ever fall fundraising feast, and it aims to raise $10,000 for its 2017 activities — including gleaning 40,000 pounds of unharvested fruit for the Clark County Food Bank that would simply go to waste otherwise, and to continue bringing top-quality lunches to low-income children in summer programs.

Slow Food volunteers have been busy with both of these activities for years, but this is the first time the group has tried to raise enough money to hire an AmeriCorps worker, Neth said.

But that’s next year. Right now, let’s slow down and think about Tuesday’s six-course meal, the chefs preparing it and the food regions they represent. There will be four rounds of regional hors d’oeuvres, a salad, a main dish and dessert:

• Forest: Matt Hale of Skamania Lodge. Holbrook Ranch Rabbit apple sausage, butternut squash kraut, Rabbit huckleberry demi.

• Highlands: Chelsea Barnes of Grocery Social and Cocktail. Beef tartare with housemade wheat herb crackers.

• Coast: Sebastian Carosi of Coyote Ridge Ranch. Chicken-fried Willapa bay oyster po’boys with smoky cranberry secret sauce and shaved lettuce on a brioche bun.

• Valley: Mark Lopez, Crave Catering: Housemade pork rillette crostini featuring Willapa Hills Creamery Lilly Pad Alpine style cheese, topped with Crave Family Farms pickled cucumber, house made dijon and pickled red onion garnish.

• Salad: Toasted ancient grains, heirloom kale, pickled antique apple, nuts and seeds, nasturtiums and Cloud Nine Farm’s goat cheese tossed in a blackstrap switchel vinaigrette.

• Main course: Tanner Pocnik of WareHouse ’23. Three options: winter squash with chanterelle rice stuffing, chicken fricassa in white wine sauce with ozette potatoes, or lamb osso buco with herbed polenta.

• Dessert: Daisuke Matsumoto, La Sorrentina. Chestnut paste cake topped with sweet vanilla goat cheese and whipped cream. (Nicknamed “snowy foot hills” — a Clark County adaptation of classic “Monte Blanc.”)

Wine, beer and cider from Southwest Washington producers will be available for sale by the glass and bottle; an after-dinner cheese course is also an extra charge of $15 (or included with VIP tickets). The Irish folk band On A Lark will provide musical accompaniment.

After dinner, keynote speaker Marci Shuman of Cascadia Creamery will describe her operation in Trout Lake and the future of artisan cheesemaking throughout our region.

Admission to “Taste Renaissance 2016” is $75, or $120 for VIP tickets that include the cheese course and bottomless wine — and a special pre-event hosted by the Port of Vancouver: a walking tour of Terminal 1, the waterfront area west of the Interstate 5 Bridge that’s now under redevelopment, with a presentation about a potential small-vendor public market there. The VIP tour starts at 4 p.m.