Hey look, an Eat Drink RI newsletter!
Hello, it’s been a long, long time—maybe pre-pandemic—since I sent something to this list. As you may have noticed I even gave up the old newsletter format and so I’m using Substack (free) now.
If you’re reading this, first and foremost, I hope you are well. I’m okay. If you follow any of the Eat Drink RI social media you know I’ve tried to keep showing love and support for all things local food and drink, but I’ve also branched out a bit (I guess it’s almost obligatory to say pivoted) and wanted to share the latest news and info.
First, because it’s coming up next Saturday the 18th, is a culinary event. Yes, it’s an actual multi-chef, multi-course fundraiser dining event. I’m a board member of Eating With the Ecosystem, one of two non-profits working together on this benefit—the other is Yellow Farmhouse Education Center—and so I’ve been happily volunteering to help produce the kind of event that’s always been near and dear to Eat Drink RI. This is an all-locally landed or farmed seafood dinner with acclaimed chefs from the Stonington & Mystic, CT and Westerly area.
I highly recommend you check out the page for more information and get tickets if you’re able. I’ve seen the almost-final menu and it’s very exciting, full of farm and product names that will be very familiar to anyone who’s attended an Eat Drink RI event, along with several new fishers and producers. There are only a few tickets left and I hope to see you there on Saturday.
Bonus fundraising info: if you can’t make the event, almost all the items that have been donated to be auctioned to raise funds for Eating With The Ecosystem and Yellow Farmhouse Education Center, can be bid on or bought now. Please check out the Setting our Table Virtual Auction 2022 and you may notice a meat cooking class that hasn’t happened in many moons at a certain farm now available to purchase.
Next, beginning this Sunday, June 12th and every Sunday through October 9th is something that’s never stopped running, so hopefully you already know about and love to shop the Farmers Market I produce at the Blackbird Farm Farm Stand.
We’ve got lots of returning vendors and a bunch of new ones on Sundays from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. Plus there’ll some food trucks popping in and the Farm has their Ice Cream Trailer open. Come shop local!
My biggest pivot was back to something I used to do a lot of before I returned to Rhode Island many years ago, and that is video production. Sure, I’ve never been a stranger to the camera if you’ve caught any of my lives from the Festival or Farmers Market or whatever event I was excited about that day, but now there’s a whole lot of video to watch on the Eat Drink RI YouTube channel. I would appreciate your subscribing if you haven’t already and watch away (if you’ve already caught up with Stranger Things)!
First up, after I began consulting for a liquor distributor, Wine Bros., I started making tasting videos, mostly wine but also a few other delicious items that I enjoy that I wanted to share with viewers. As with all the food & drink I recommend, I don’t like going negative, so if I post a video publicly, then I really like it and hope you do too.
I’m up to over 80 tasting videos, and they’re short, about 3 minutes each, so get watching and sláinte!
Another video series I’ve begun is cooking and food tasting, almost entirely local products as you would imagine. These are a lot more work to produce but I really enjoy it and hopefully people are learning something from them, or at least like my cooking!
Of course I share these things on social media as well, but I’d really appreciate if you could subscribe to the YouTube channel. Thanks!
Lastly, after creating a video interview series of my own and hosting a limited series for Cox, both of which you can find on that YouTube channel, for the last year I’ve been hosting the RI Small Business Coalition Live Forum. This is a series of interviews with elected officials and people in the public sector who offer small business support.
This is geared toward any kind of small business, not only food or drink. I’ve interviewed our Congressional delegation, state leadership and with this being an election year, many people running for office. During the pandemic I became a founding member of the RI Small Business Coalition and now serve on the board with a great group of people from all kinds of small businesses. If you own a small business or know someone who does, please share.
I’m going to give one more shout out, even though I said lastly above. Since I mentioned two of the non-profit boards I’m part of, I feel I should also highlight the third one that I’m on. I’m very happy to be on the board of ecoRI News. If you aren’t already a reader, I hope you become one if you’re interested in reporting dedicated to environmental and social justice issues in southern New England. I’ll share more as we have some ecoRI News fundraisers later this year.
As always, you can head to eatdrinkri.com for local food & beverage news, the local event calendar, job listings and more. You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, just about every social media /eatdrinkri and the tag #eatdrinkri.
Thank you for reading. I appreciate you. Take care.