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Last year at this time Nevada County hosted Restaurant Week as part of the California Restaurant Month, so while the community hasn’t organized another event this year, I thought it was a great time to remind folks to go out and sample some local cuisine.  Plus there’s momentum at the moment to create a local food hub.  Nevada County Grown wants to make it easier for Nevada County restaurants to connect with local farmers to buy the freshest local produce and put our community on the map as a farm to table destination. The organization received a planning grant to gather input from local restaurants for a new Food Hub, an online survey is available.  The deadline has been extended to allow more community voices to be heard.

“There is an amazing amount of momentum in Nevada County for locally grown products, among both producers and consumers.  What we are missing is the infrastructure to get these amazing products into the hands of consumers.  A food hub would facilitate these connections, which would allow producers to increase their production and consumers to increase their use of locally grown products,” said long-time supporter of local food, Shana Maziarz of Three Forks Bakery and Brewing Company.

The farm to fork movement is going strong in California, check out information about the Nevada City Farmers MarketNevada County Growers MarketFood Love Project UPick Farms, Farm to Table Dinner or the Outside Inn’s Eating Out page.  Other farm related blog posts include: Farm TourFood and Farm ConferenceRiverhill Farm and Mountain Bounty CSA.

A focus group meeting will be held to gather additional information from interested parties on Tuesday, Feb. 9, 9:30 to 11 a.m. at Three Forks Bakery and Brewing Company. Space is limited. Please take the survey and RSVP to the Food Hub Managers at: hub@nevadacountygrown.org.

Nevada County Grown, restaurants, farms© 2016 InnSide Nevada City, Photos © by Erin Thiem