Echo’s Food & Farm Fest draws crowd

Story & Photography

by Chuck Ballaro

One of the area’s biggest culinary and educational experiences returned to ECHO in March as the global farm hosted its 31st annual Food & Farm Festival

The March 7-11 festival was the biggest one yet, with five days of hands-on classes, seminars, cooking demonstrations, tropical lunches, fun for the kids and samples of some the food made with what is grown at the farm

Danielle Flood, ECHO’s communications director, said it was great to include more days of hands-on activities to give people a chance to get more out of the festival

“Visitors were able to gather tips for their own backyard. They got to try a tropical-tasting lunch, which sold out almost every day,” Flood said. “We also hosted a beekeeping workshop, food preservation workshop and how to build a kid-friendly food forest ”

Saturday was the busiest day, by far, with plenty of cooking demonstrations, starting with the traditional coffee tasting with Bones Coffee of Cape Coral, which brought in both hot and cold brews.

“We brought in a couple of cold brews and hot coffee from Ethiopia and dark roast,” “Coffees are differ-

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Address: 17391 Durrance Road, North Fort Myers Info: www echonet org