Harvest on the 'Hooch Food and Beer Festival

Harvest on the Hooch Farm-to-Table Taste Fest Returns Oct. 13

Event celebrates connection between garden and grub on the plate with family-friendly fun and the metro Atlanta’s top restaurants and breweries

ATLANTA, GA – Visit the Chattahoochee Nature Center and enjoy local brews and food from the best local breweries and restaurants at the annual Harvest on the Hooch taste fest Oct. 13. This event celebrates the vital connection between the garden and the plate and raises funds (and glasses) for CNC’s Unity Garden and programming. In addition to featuring local restaurants and breweries, the event includes Bluegrass music, farm animals, garden games and tours of the Chattahoochee Nature Center’s Unity Garden.

As a special treat, VIP guests can experience an intimate and unique private cooking demonstration from a local celebrity chef from noon-1 p.m., before the event.

This year’s special chef is Chef Woolery “Woody” Back, of Table & Main in Roswell and Coalition Food and Beverage in Alpharetta. Back launched his career in the hospitality industry as a host, server and bartender in New York restaurants. Those positions coupled with a household understanding of Southern cooking traditions fueled Back’s passion for the food business and inspired his career trajectory. He came to Georgia, where he worked at Craft (Atlanta) and Holeman and Finch, and Restaurant Eugene. Woody Back serves as a role model for responsible food sourcing and agricultural sustainability. Back is the President of the Roswell Farmers and Artisan Market, and an active member of the Southern Foodways Alliance and The James Beard Foundation, debuting his skills at the prestigious James Beard House in the fall of 2016.

This special event will be held at CNC’s Ben Brady Lakeside Pavilion, on Kingfisher Pond.

Tickets are on sale now at www.harvestonthehooch.com.

The Unity Garden is a quarter-acre urban farm dedicated to growing fresh, organic, natural plants and vegetables to teach local schoolchildren (and parents!) where their food comes from. Everything harvested from the Unity Garden goes to the North Fulton Community Charities Food Pantry. To date, CNC has donated more than 35 tons of food to North Fulton’s needy families.

The mission of the Chattahoochee Nature Center (CNC) is to connect people with nature. What better way to do that than through food? With the Harvest on the Hooch farm-to-table event, restaurants, chefs, and breweries from around metro Atlanta converge on CNC’s 127 acres to provide tastings of their own locally-sourced dishes and brews.

For more information, go to www.harvestonthehooch.com.

Who: Chattahoochee Nature Center
What: 8th annual Harvest on the Hooch farm-to-table tasting event and fundraiser
When: Oct. 13, 2019, 1-5 p.m. (VIP pre-event with a local celebrity chef from noon-1 p.m.)
Where: Chattahoochee Nature Center, 9135 Willeo Rd., Roswell, Ga. 30075
Why: Funds raised from the event go to support CNC’s Unity Garden, a quarter-acre urban farm dedicated to growing fresh, organic, natural plants and vegetables to teach local schoolchildren (and parents!) where their food comes from. Everything harvested from the Unity Garden goes to the North Fulton Community Charities Food Pantry. To date, CNC has donated more than 35 tons of food to North Fulton’s needy families.
Price: Pre-purchased tickets: $50. Day-of: $65
Children: $15 (10 and younger FREE)
VIP: $1,000, Includes the main event plus a pre-event cooking demo with a local celebrity chef.

About the Unity Garden

Harvest on the Hooch is a fundraiser for the Chattahoochee Nature Center’s Unity Garden, which supplies more than five tons of fresh produce annually to North Fulton Community Charities (NFCC) food pantry. Additionally, the Unity Garden is a learning facility. It is utilized for Camp Kingfisher’s GROW camp where kids plant, harvest, weed, seed and deliver produce to NFCC food pantry while getting to taste just how delicious veggies can be! These campers further enjoy this produce when it is prepared by a local restaurant. The benefits of the garden to GROW campers have been studied by the UGA Social Agriculture Department.

About Chattahoochee Nature Center

The Chattahoochee Nature Center is a private non-profit environmental learning center, with more than 127 acres of woodlands and wetlands along the Chattahoochee River. Dedicated to educating and connecting people of all ages to nature, especially the Chattahoochee River and its watershed. The Center’s conservation principles and the exposure to the natural world it provides are critical to the community’s collective efforts to preserve natural resources such as the Chattahoochee River.