The Nature Island Food and Drink Festiva kicked off Wednesday with an event called ‘Kids Farm 2 Table Experience.’
The festival, which is being endorsed by Discover Dominica Authority (DDA), runs from the 1st to 4th of July with activities being hosted at the Anchorage Hotel.
Promoter of the event, Carla Armour, told a press conference earlier this week that the opening activity was organized to expose children, from age 7-14, to a healthy lifestyle.
“The kick off day will be the Nature Island Kids Farm 2 Table experience which is another one of our goals to expose the next generation to agriculture, to healthy eating, to niche tourism provision, to a healthy lifestyle,” she said.
During the activity the children were taken to Petite Coulibri where they joined Erica Burnette-Biscombe, of La Robe Creole, on her farm for a day of farming, harvesting and learning how to cook.
According to Armour, the Island Chef Cook-Off Competition will also be held during the festival.
“So this will be our fourth year we are doing the cook off challenge for competing chefs,” she noted. “We are also including the Mixologist face-off which we did one year previously, we are bringing that back as well, so we are very excited to see what comes out of that.”
Armour highlighted some goals that she hopes to accomplish as it relates to the festival.
“We would like to see a demand for more exotic produce in Dominica, so that we can see the agriculture develop in a more exciting way,” she said. “And we have a demand in our culinary arts for preparations of these produce in more interesting ways so that the clients coming to Dominica, the guests coming to Dominica, can experience something different.”
On Friday there will be an “ital food and bush rum fest.”
“We are having an ital food and bush rum fest because we are celebrating the ital organic foods, we are celebrating the bush rums,” she explained. “We close off on the Saturday with our island chef competition which will incorporate the ital foods and the other foods.”
Positive!!!! Excellent activity.