Recording of a Live Knowledge @ Noon presentation by Ann M. Evans & Geogeanne Brennan on Wednesday, November 11th, 12:00pm.
Yolo County’s food, wine and agriculture is now well recognized as an important contributor to the farm to table movement, but it wasn’t always the case. Join Ann Evans and Georgeanne Brennan for tales of their early and pioneering years of work with Slow Food Yolo, with Yolo County Department of Agriculture, and with all five Yolo County School Districts, all dedicated to putting the county, its wineries and olive oil producers, ranchers and growers, food processors and school cafeterias on the northern California culinary map.
From creating an award winning cookbook for the Davis Farmers Market, to a weekend of programming featuring Yolo County at the esteemed, Napa-based COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, to a celebration of Yolo County’s processing tomatoes in February, the events, publications and workshops created and presented by Evans & Brennan over a 10 year period from 2004-2014, were seminal.
This hour long, free ranging conversation with Ann and Georgeanne will begin with the publication of the cover story that changed the way Yolo County thought about itself. The SF Sunday Examiner published Evans & Brennan’s spread with photos on Yolo County: The Next Napa? The story surveyed the culinary and agricultural treasures of Yolo County and surmised that Yolo County was the next Napa, a little like Provence without the 3-hour lunches. Then, Evans & Brennan introduced the three hour lunch through the first ever Village Feast, gathering of 300 based on the French tradition of a Grande Aioli event – where everyone brought their own table settings, sat at one long table and service was family style.