By Oregon Coast TODAY
Salmon and crab are two of the biggest stars of our local waters, but an unsung hero lurks just offshore. Increasingly acknowledged as powerhouse packages of health, sea vegetables are showing up in smoothies, soups and salads and more.
At the second annual Winter Waters, a new festival of culinary exploration taking place Friday through Sunday, Feb. 2-4, chefs and tastemakers will celebrate this regenerative seafood, with an emphasis on farmed sea vegetables including wakame, kombu, sea lettuce and dulse.
The Newport-based event is the first in the series that will be held all over the state throughout during the month of February.
“It’s our kickoff weekend so we’re making it pretty big,” said event co-founder and dulse farmer Alanna Kieffer, who also leads a variety of workshops throughout the year aimed at educating people about what can be found on and just offshore. “Last year, everything sold out so we’ve added some free community events.”
The event kicks off on Friday at the Yaquina Lab just east of Newport, operated by Central Coast Food Web. Guests can enjoy a variety of seafood and beverage samples, cooking demos and more while exploring the facility and learning about the organization’s efforts to build a more resilient coastal and regional food system. There will also be a pop-up seafood market.
Tickets are required, and must be purchased in advance.
Saturday’s event, a seafood dinner at Local Ocean Seafoods is sold out, but you can still enjoy the venue on Sunday, when Kieffer posts up next to the Local Ocean Seafoods fish counter for a free seaweed tasting and cooking demo featuring Pacific dulse from Oregon Seaweed. Additionally, Katie Wiley will demonstrate how to use the Crack’n Crab Cleaner to dispatch Dungeness crab. She’ll explain why this is her preferred way to process and clean the crustaceans.
Local Ocean’s seafood counter will be open for business so folks can stock up on fresh, frozen and smoked fish and shellfish. There’s also wine by the bottle and other ready-to-eat food options available for sale. The restaurant opens at 11 a.m., so stay for lunch or head over to the next event, the free family day at the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center.
The free day features the newly re-designed exhibit “Beautiful & Wild Oregon Fisheries: 150 years of Innovation,” celebrating the legacy and world-renowned sustainability standards of the local fishing industry. Explore the museum while you enjoy the views of Newport’s working bayfront. There will also be kids’ activities like a seaweed art workshop. Enjoy coffee, tea and shortbread-seaweed cookies made with Oregon Seaweed’s Pacific dulse, farmed in Garibaldi.
“There are some panels at the museum that are super educational,” Kieffer said.
If you are coming in for the weekend and haven’t booked a place to stay yet, a really fun floating hotel, the former paddle boat Newport Belle is offering a 15 percent discount with code WinterWaters15 through Feb. 5. And as an added bonus, Newport Belle will donate 5 percent of the room sale to the Oregon Kelp Alliance.
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For more information and tickets, go to the group’s website here.