Where I live food is grown. Lots of different foods are grown. Each little town around here is the capital of some food. Gridley, CA is the Kiwi capital of the world. Corning, CA is the Olive capital of the world. You get the idea. Tons of rice is grown here. All types of melons and fruits are grown here including pit fruits such as prunes, peaches, avocados, nectarines, pears and apricots. Lots and lots of tomatoes too.
Tons of almonds and walnuts and pistachios are grown here too. As a matter of fact the largest concentrations of these nuts are grown right here in my neck of the woods and to celebrate that we have an annual California Nut Festival which occurs next Saturday on April 18th. It's subtitle is Tree to Table - Farm to Fork - Locally Produced Edibles. It's always been held at the Patrick Ranch in Chico, CA. You can check it out at CaliforniaNutFestival.com
The reason so many nuts are grown here is this area has the most water of anywhere in the state and we're "upstream" from central and southern California. On top of having the most surface water, farmers are graced with being on top of an aquifer as well as having the Sacramento River run right through the area.
This festival is a biggish deal. It goes on for 5 hours. There are a bunch of musical bands that play. Local wineries and craft beers are sold. Locally roasted coffee and local juice companies sell their wares. Of course you can buy nuts of all sorts. The whole thing is in recognition of the important role agriculture plays in the North State. It's a salute to local agriculture, farmers and the entire history of it. It's a way for farmers to show off their harvest.
The official mission of the Chico Nut Festival is "to connect consumers and farmers and to cultivate an understanding of nut production in the state of California and to teach consumers how California nuts fit into a healthy lifestyle."
Nut growers will be there. Nut processors will be there. Nut marketers that sell them locally and all over the world will be there. You can see demonstrations of it all including equipment used.
There will be locally famous chefs doing cooking demos and food sold by 11 restaurants (well 10 restaurants and the local hospital selling it's food too. I've got to see what our local hospital does with that). Five local breweries will sell there beer with the biggest brewery Sierra Nevada being conspicuously absent. Eight local wineries will sell there wines. Local honey will be sold. Several local olive oil companies will sell their oil. (BTW, the olive oil here is world renowned. We are so fortunate and only use local olive oil which simply has superior flavor.)
And of course there will be everything nut related you could possibly want. All in all 24 different nut growers will be selling their nuts.
Of the nine different bands playing during the day indoors and outside is Swamp Daddy featuring smileycreek's brother in-law Dean. He plays sax, guitar and dobro. He's on the far right wearing the hat in the bottom picture.
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