MEDIA RELEASE

Are you a localvore? Come and taste why more and more people are dedicated to eating food grown and produced on the Big Isle at the inaugural Farmers & Friends Dinner-A Localvore Experience.

A fundraiser for the Kona County Farm Bureau, it’s 5:30-8:30 p.m. Saturday, March 26 at the Keauhou Beach Resort.

Chef Cy Yamamoto

It includes an opening reception to meet and mingle with local food producers and a display providing ag-related information. Also available will be a silent auction stocked with dinners, activities and merchandise donated by community businesses to benefit KCFB.

The evening’s highlight is the Farmers & Friends Dinner, a sit-down buffet showcasing locally produced food. Keauhou Beach Resort Chef Cy Yamamoto, a Hawaii Community College-West Hawaii alum, is creating a tantalizing dinner using a cornucopia of just-picked vegetables, fruits and herbs; red veal, grass-fed beef and fresh ocean fish, plus a pairing of 100 percent Kona coffee and chocolate made from island cacao.

Throughout the event, door prizes will be awarded featuring products from the Farm Bureau’s weekly Saturday Keauhou Farmer’s Market.

Earlier in the day, the market stages its free monthly Farmer-Chef presentation that highlights local growers, their products and an island chef preparing them — brought to you in partnership with the USDA Farmers’ Market Promotion Program.

The weekly farmers market at Keauhou Shopping Center is 8 a.m.-noon with the Farmer-Chef presentation at 10 a.m. the last Saturday of each month through 2011.

Tickets for the Farmers & Friends Dinner-A Localvore Experience are $65 and available online at www.konafarmbureau.org They can also be purchased at the Keauhou Farmers Market, Kona Stories at Keauhou Shopping Center and Kailua Village Artists Galleries in Alii Sunset Plaza and at the Keauhou Beach Resort.

The host Keauhou Beach Resort offers a “Localvore” overnighter rate that includes a breakfast buffet for two with a partial ocean view room for $119 plus taxes, phone 808-324-2515 for reservations.

For more event info, phone 808-324-6011 or visit www.konafarmbureau.org