Meet Me at the National Heirloom Exposition!

I am a huge fan of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, so it’s a real honor for me to be speaking at their event this year at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, California! For the last four years, Baker Creek has staged the “World’s Pure Food Fair” as a not-for-profit event that celebrates…

Linda Ly

Written by Linda Ly

Exhibit hall at the Heirloom Expo

I am a huge fan of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, so it’s a real honor for me to be speaking at their event this year at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rosa, California!

For the last four years, Baker Creek has staged the “World’s Pure Food Fair” as a not-for-profit event that celebrates gardening, homesteading, small-scale farming, sustainable living, and of course, whole, local, pure food. Preserving heritage seed stock is the focus of the fair, and you’ll find food porn for days in the exhibit halls and all over the fairgrounds. The Heirloom Expo is truly a foodie paradise!

I’ll be speaking on Tuesday, September 8, 2015, at 11:30 am in the E.C. Kraft Building with the topic “From Leaves and Flowers to Stems and Seeds: Exploring All the Delicious Possibilities of Your Vegetables.” Tuesday will be my only day at the fair, so I hope you can join me! I’ll be signing copies of my book, The CSA Cookbook, after the presentation.

You can read my coverage of last year’s event here, and this year promises to be no less incredible. A few tips from experience:

  • Download the speaker schedule and make a game plan if there are several sessions you want to attend. There are speakers every day, at all hours of the day, presenting on a range of topics from edible gardening and backyard beekeeping to culinary history and agritourism.
  • Bring your appetite! The Heirloom Expo puts all other county fair food to shame. I’m talkin’ grass-fed beef dogs with raw sauerkraut, Vietnamese bánh mí with pastured eggs, organic ginger-mint lemonade, wild fermented fruit soda, kimchi and pickles and honey and pies and you will be stuffed before you even get to them all!
  • Make a shopping list. If you’ve been looking for a home composting system, biochar sources, drip irrigation kits, poultry feeds, fermentation crocks, exotic spice blends, rare seeds, or even a pizza oven, chances are you’ll find it in the vendor hall — along with handmade jewelry, beauty products, baskets, ceramics, and stationery.
  • This is a family-friendly event, so make a day of it and enjoy the live entertainment, petting zoo, and farm demonstrations. If you stay till the end on the last day, you can even bring home a pumpkin (or two or three) from the famous pumpkin tower in the exhibit hall, or any of the pumpkins scattered around the fairgrounds.

See you at the Heirloom Expo!

One of many pumpkin displays at the Heirloom Expo

Linda Ly

I'm a plant lover, passionate road-tripper, and cookbook author whose expert advice and bestselling books have been featured in Time, Outside, HGTV, and Food & Wine. The National Parks Cookbook is my latest book. Garden Betty is where I write about modern homesteading, farm-to-table cooking, and outdoor adventuring—all that encompass a life well-lived outdoors. After all, the secret to a good life is... Read more »

30 Comments

  1. I WANT TO GO! I wish it was closer. I have a break after September 23rd and wanted to visit Bakers Creek anyway, then you!
    Sad.
    Maybe you, Bakers Creek Seed Co and Lisa steel together, closer to for us midwesterners. That would be awesome!

    Reply

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