5th Annual Heirloom Tomato Festival

I first heard about and attended the Seattle Heirloom Tomato Festival at Cedarbrook Lodge last year. I believe I saw it come across my twitter feed which I rarely look at anymore these days. Now, I'm more of an instagrammer than a tweeter. This year's attendance was not as large as last year, maybe because the weather wasn't as sunny and warm but at least the rain managed to stay away. It was perfect weather for a tomato festival I thought. All the more food and wine for the rest of us.

Several wineries and restaurant chefs were in attendance serving up some delicious tomato based dishes and wine/beer to go with them. We learned if you want more than just a small sampling of a wine you can actually ask for a full glass. I don't recall that option last year but never thought to ask. We sampled most if not all of the wines and foods too. The prawn dish served by Trace was our favorite dish this year. We enjoyed chatting with Chef Derek Ronspies from Le Petit Cochon. It's a fairly new restaurant in Fremont that serves up farm to table and nose to tail cuisine. They actually change their restaurant menu daily so there is always something new to try. They brought a refreshing tomato ice cream with a little burnt egg plant puree.

There are around 100 varieties of tomatoes at the festival that are grown by the Bromiley's and Prentice's in Moses Lake, WA. There are tables set up with plates and bowls of cut up tomatoes with toothpicks and salt shakers for people to taste. The tomatoes are also available to purchase for a very reasonable price of $2/lb. I've already started planning the tomato varieties for next year and there a few on my wishlist that I don't have seeds for yet and one of those is the Japanese Black Trifele. I was excited to see that tomato at the festival and bought a pound of them so I could save the seeds for planting next year. I also bought some super snow white, chocolate cherry and one called dark green Mexico. A google search didn't turn up anything for that one so have been trying to figure out if it goes by another name. I'm thinking it may be a kumato but not sure. I've attempted to contact the growers via Facebook in hopes of getting more information on that one.