© 2015 Stephen Ironside/Ironside Photography
On Saturday, Aug. 27, the second annual Farmer’s Market cook-off will take place where eight chefs will be paired up to compete for the best dish they can make using only ingredients found at the farmer’s market in the Town Center Plaza.
This year at Roots Fest, it’s the chefs and farmers of Arkansas who are the rock stars.
While the festival has always made a point to incorporate local and sustainable food in addition to its great folk-Americana music lineups every year, this year’s festival’s food programming has been revamped and given a bigger spotlight. About 40 percent of it is free and available to the public, said Jerrmy Gawthrop, Roots Fest co-founder and organizer.
The best and brightest chefs from all throughout Northwest Arkansas from restaurants such as Tusk and Trotter, Crystal Bridges’ Eleven, Bordino’s, Little Rock’s South on Main and many more have been invited to collaborate and host food-specific programs throughout the weekend.
A live cooking stage, a collaborative chef VIP party dinner, guest chefs, a farmer’s market chef cook-off, food pairing classes and film showings are all a part of the programming being offered.
There’s a few celebrity chefs coming to town, too. Guest Chefs Charlie Ayers, known for his work in revolutionizing the workplace cafeteria at Google, and Erin Hayes, Whole Food’s executive chef, will be in attendance serving up food at the VIP party and hosting events.
Even though the VIP party is sold out, it will be the biggest food event. All of the chefs are paired up and tasked with plating hundreds of elevated entrees for the attendees to try out.
Tickets for the music festival have sold out, too. That shouldn’t come as a surprise though, as this year Old Crow Medicine Show, Gregory Alan Isakov, Shovels & Rope, The Milk Carton Kids, Amy Helm and Fayetteville’s own Joe Purdy are among other great acts on the lineup.
However, there are still some tickets being sold for the late night sets at George’s Majestic Lounge. Friday night’s Samantha Fish, Amasa Hines and Drunken Hearts recently made our “Must See Shows” list, and Saturday’s show with Amy Helm and Earl & Them promises lots of great tributes to The Band, for $15-$18
Photo Courtesy of Kat Wilson
Chef Jerrmy Gawthrop talks with one of the vendors at The Fayetteville Farmer’s Market. Every year, the Fayetteville Roots Festival works to keep a locally sourced, sustainable menu of food for festival attendees.
FOOD PROGRAMMING
Starting Friday, Aug. 26, the 10 by 20 foot Whole Foods Cook Stage will be set up against the Jason Jones “Enjoy Local” mural wall along with a tented bar and seating. Throughout the festival, six chefs will host cooking demonstrations on different styles of street food, in what’s called the “Daily Specials.” About 200 small plates will be prepared from each show, and will be available for $5 each.
The chefs will be mic’d up, stocked and staffed to perform just like the musicians during the festival.
The plaza will be open to the public on Saturday, Aug. 27 starting at 9 a.m. and will go to 1 p.m., when it will return to ticket-holders only. During this time, the cook stage will become a demonstration stage. The first demonstration that day will be Chef Brooks, who will do a live cooking segment. Afterwards, Pink House Alchemy’s Emily Lawson will be doing a workshop on farmhouse cocktails.
Another free food program will be the second annual farmer’s market chef cook off, Saturday morning at 11 a.m. It will feature eight local chefs, who will be randomly paired together following the VIP party. The chefs are given one hour and $50 to source the Fayetteville Farmer’s market for all ingredients — as well as a given mystery ingredient — and then 30 minutes to cook and prepare one dish/five plates for the judges. The prize package includes $5,000 worth of Crystal Lake Farm chicken to be split and donated to the chef’s food based non-profit of choice and $2,000 cash for the best dish and chef team.
DIG IN! FOOD AND FARMING FESTIVAL @ FAYETTEVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY
Friday through Sunday, the Dig In! Food and Farming Festival is joining forces with Roots fest to host a variety of programs featuring films, workshops and demonstrations, farmer classes, farm tours, authors and the “Taste & Talk” series. All of the events will be free and open to the public at the Fayetteville Public Library.
“Jerrmy and I have been talking about how fun it would be putting Dig In and the Roots Festival together for a while now,” said Cheri La Rue, Dig In festival coordinator. “The Roots Festival has always been about local food and sustainable food and supported the local farming community. It seems like a natural partnership for us, because that’s our mission, too, and make it really great festival for all different types of people to come.”
© 2015 Stephen Ironside/Ironside Photography
As much food as possible is locally sourced and prepared by the best and brightest of the Northwest Arkansas food scene during Roots Fest.
The “Taste & Talk” series is a hybrid of a tasting and round table discussion from two area chefs about a select beverage —bourbon, wine and beer — and a featured farm, musician and a moderator, Daniel Hintz. The first portion of the event will be the discussion of food and alcohol pairing, incorporating the featured farm’s ingredients. The second portion of the event will be the tasting of the chef’s item, the select beverage of the event and a short performance by a Fayetteville Roots Festival musician.
There will also be an information vendor fair of local farmers and businesses geared toward farm food and sustainability. There will also be art on display from Douglas Gayeton, who has taken photos all throughout the country of people involved with food with text overlayed about different aspects of farming.
Saturday morning at the library will be a live KUAF broadcast of Ozarks at Large featuring the Shook Twins, Joe Purdy and John Moreland, Still On the Hill and Roy and Aviva, hosted by Kyle Kellams.
On Saturday, there will be two special Roots Fest screenings of “At the Fork” at 3 p.m. in the Walker Room at the library. The film features Arkansas’ own Crystal Lake Farms, and Dave Matthews of Dave Matthews Band was a producer.
“Almost 50 percent of our programming, energy and financing goes to our free programming,” Gawthrop said. “I want those farmers to have a full house when we’re talking about compost. I want the chefs at the Taste and Talk and the cook off to be a hit. You could go to the programming from the beginning of the event on Thursday to the end of the event on Sunday and not spend one dollar and be fully inundated with the Roots Festival.”
For more information and a full schedule of events, visit fayettevilleroots.com
