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 Don't Miss This Weekend's Flavors of the Desert Gourmet Food Festival. By Rebecca Cook INCREASE YOUR KNOWLEDGE base, take in a little sunshine, shop for gifts, kitchen and garden necessities, and feast on gourmet food at a singular celebration on Saturday, April 24, at the Westward Look Resort. The posh retreat's Watson Terrace is the site of the first annual Flavors of the Desert, an educational gourmet food festival featuring music, demonstrations, storytelling, dance and crafts, as well as loads of delicious food. The event will benefit Native Seeds/SEARCH, a locally based non-profit organization conserving the traditional crops, seeds and farming methods that have sustained native people throughout the Southwest for centuries. The organization manages several projects, including the collection and preservation of more than 1,900 seed varieties, demonstration gardens at the Tucson Botanical Gardens, the Desert Foods for Diabetes Prevention Project and a 60-acre conservation farm near Patagonia, Arizona.
In addition, Jonilonis and Wilder will conduct cooking demonstrations throughout the afternoon, focusing on the use and preparation of native foods like tepary beans, chiles, cholla buds and nopales (prickly pear leaves). "We are especially grateful to Westward Look. Not only for providing us with a beautiful place for Flavors of the Desert," says Raven-Johnson, "but also for their ongoing commitment to a shared philosophy of wanting to celebrate the desert." A perusal of the Gold Room's menu, which features several Jonilonis-created regional specialties, substantiates this glowing praise. High-end restaurants like the Gold Room are making a point that native foods merit placement on the classiest menus in town. Some of the delicacies include blue corn-crusted cabrilla, rainbow posole (a soup), a triad of succotash with wild tepary beans, mixed greens with prickly pear vinaigrette, pickled nopales and a prickly-pear pork tenderloin served with grilled onion chutney. Given the creativity and resourcefulness of the chefs involved, no one is certain of the exact menu for the day. "With these guys, you never can tell," Raven-Johnson says with a laugh. "Whatever they come up with though, you can bet it will be wonderful."
"Our goal is to encourage people to love these foods and use them," says Raven-Johnson. "Not only do we value these foods because they've been used for so long, we are also finding out that they are particularly good for us today." In part, Raven-Johnson may be referring to some of the findings of the Diabetes Prevention Project, a program that seeks to return the O'odham to their traditional foods in hopes of curbing the rising rate of the disease among Native Americans. Traditionally, the O'odham ate foods such as tepary beans, prickly pear and mesquite pads, perhaps not coincidentally foods that tend to protect against diabetes by slowing down the digestion of sugar. A diet rich in desert foods not only helps to maintain blood sugar levels, it also has the benefit of being high in fiber and protein while remaining low in fat. Just what the doctor ordered. For serious aficionados of desert cuisine, this event offers the opportunity to take that passion to the next level: a short trek into the desert to harvest cholla buds. Presumably the correct methods for engaging in this prickly enterprise will be thoroughly discussed and demonstrated beforehand. The preparation and uses for the precious buds will also be explored. It's certainly an addition to your culinary repertoire sure to, er, spur dinner conversation. Food forms the basis of several other activities of the day, including native tales featuring desert plants, and a talk by ethnobotanist Lina Austin about Native American gifts to the art of gastronomy. Of course, not all plants are intended for consumption; some are instrumental in other ways, such as basket weaving. The art has been perfected by the Tohono O'odham people, and that tribe's Basketweavers Association will be on hand to display their skills as well as a stunning array of work. In much of the same spirit as Native Seeds/SEARCH, the association is composed of basketweavers from across the large Tohono O'odham reservation, caring craftspeople who've banded together to preserve and perpetuate this traditional art and livelihood. The group is also active in working to preserve gathering sites on the reservation, and to develop mentoring programs that encourage young people to carry on the torch. The San Xavier Fiddle Band and Indian Dancers will further enhance the scene with a live afternoon performance. A fundraising raffle offers the winner a complimentary weekend at Westward Look, and dinner for two at the Gold Room. In short, it will be a full afternoon--full of nutritional, epicurean and cultural enrichment. Truly, this is an event even rarer than that Easter snow.
Flavors of the Desert: A Gourmet Foods Festival is from
1 to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 24, on the Watson Terrace of Westward
Look Resort, 245 E. Ina Road. Tickets are $40 ($36 for members
of Native Seeds/SEARCH), available at Westward Look Resort's front
desk or the Native Seeds/SEARCH office, 526 N. Fourth Ave. For
information, call 622-5561. Event proceeds benefit Native
Seeds/SEARCH programs.
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Native Seeds/SEARCH spokesperson Krishna Raven-Johnson says the
event, which is equally a cultural as well as culinary celebration,
is especially geared for "people who love to eat." Tasting
stations will feature the cuisine of local luminaries Jason Jonilonis
of Westward Look's Gold Room, Janos Wilder of Janos, Albert Hall
of The Grill at Hacienda del Sol, Alan Zeman of ¡Fuego!,
Jeff Amperse of Loew's Canyon Café at Ventana Canyon, and
Bill's Grill. Guests are invited to grab a plate and sample the
unusual regional fare.
And if the demonstrations inspire you to new heights, many of
the ingredients will be available for purchase at the event. The
program will assist budding chefs by including not only the schedule
for the afternoon, but several intriguing recipes, many of which
will be featured at the event.
