Buzz Blog
As adjunct programing to the Downtown Farmers Market, the Downtown Alliance has crafted a series of farm tours so market patrons can go beyond the quick exchanges they have with farmers on Tuesdays and Saturdays. This week’s theme is fruit and honey, and there are still seats available.
The first tour’s theme was cheese and wine. The afternoon began with a wine-and-cheese pairing and educational discussion from locavore aficionado Matt Caputo of Caputo’s Market. Then the “students” piled into a bus and headed up to Eden to visit the Snowy Mountain Creamery—Utah’s only sheep creamery. After chatting about tour operations with the owners and cheesemaker, we ate a delicious spread of the creamery’s five cheeses (If you haven’t tried Strawberry Peak yet, you really should—it is a pillar of American cheesemaking), sheep’s milk, yogurt, fruit and homemade bread. The light fare was paired with wine from Kiler Grove Winery, Salt Lake City’s urban winery, who’s vintner was on location. Then we were free to see the facilities, including the milking station and the cheese-aging cooler. The experience was informative, engaging and fun.
Today’s tour will begin at the Salt Lake Art Center—amidst their Fallen Fruit of Utah exhibit—for a fruit wine tasting with wines from the newly opened The Hive Winery, located in Layton. Then folks will get on a bus and head up to the “Fruit Highway” on Highway 89. Read an article about the fruit-stand-dense area here. On site, there will be a tour of Tagge’s Famous Fruit along with light fare from the farm. The owner of Slide Ridge Honey will join the tour to talk about pollinators and their service to the orchard.
The tour starts at 3 p.m. at the Salt Lake Art Center and costs $30. Register here.
For those interested in eating local and being invested in knowing where their food comes from and how the whole process works, this is a great investment of time and money—and one good food-lovin’ time.
Images of the first tour courtesy of Downtown Alliance:
