Heritage Harvest Festival
What a glorious day for the 3rd annual Heritage Harvest Festival, and a beautiful new location at Montalto, Thomas Jefferson's "high mountain" that looks over Monticello and the University of Virginia and Charlottesville below. A collaboration of The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, and the PD 10 Master Gardeners, the festival offers a variety of classes and exhibits that support the mission of preserving sustainable gardening practices and heirloom plants.
There were classes and demonstrations all day, such as the sausage-making demo above.
Dozens of varieties of heirloom tomatoes, peppers etc were available for sampling.
Feast, one of my favorite Charlottesville gourmet shops, sponsored a cheese tasting where they paired heritage apple varieties with artisinal cheeses. Had a chance to sample some camembert from Old Chatham Shepherding company in the Hudson River Valley of New York- it's almost as good as the real thing. Susannah and I had visited the dairy years ago. Also had a taste of one of Virginia's better cheeses, the Meadow Creek Dairy's Grayson, from Galax, a raw cow milk cheese from grass fed cows- washed rind creamy goodness.
Tasted some great zucchini bread and squash soup from Local Food Hub and made plans to connect with them about some collaborative Richmond/C-ville events.
And as if my senses hadn't been aroused enough already,it was a great surprise to hear the sweet sound of Devon Sproule's voice wafting through the sun-dappled trees to complete our day.
There were classes and demonstrations all day, such as the sausage-making demo above.
Dozens of varieties of heirloom tomatoes, peppers etc were available for sampling.
Feast, one of my favorite Charlottesville gourmet shops, sponsored a cheese tasting where they paired heritage apple varieties with artisinal cheeses. Had a chance to sample some camembert from Old Chatham Shepherding company in the Hudson River Valley of New York- it's almost as good as the real thing. Susannah and I had visited the dairy years ago. Also had a taste of one of Virginia's better cheeses, the Meadow Creek Dairy's Grayson, from Galax, a raw cow milk cheese from grass fed cows- washed rind creamy goodness.
Tasted some great zucchini bread and squash soup from Local Food Hub and made plans to connect with them about some collaborative Richmond/C-ville events.
And as if my senses hadn't been aroused enough already,it was a great surprise to hear the sweet sound of Devon Sproule's voice wafting through the sun-dappled trees to complete our day.