August 12, 2014 – Dining in the fields of a farm and reflecting on the bounty of the surrounding soil has become a fairly common offering in our region. This September 14, local residents and visitors will have the opportunity to partake in this ritual beside another rich part of our foodshed—the ocean. The first annual Boat-to-Table Santa Cruz dinner will take place at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center on the far coast of Santa Cruz’s Westside.
“It expands the idea of the farm-to-table event into another environment that people depend on for their food supply,” says organizer Anne Freiwald.
Surrounded by one of the area’s premier ocean research facilities, participants will enjoy seafood from the bay—possibilities include white seabass, sablefish, spot prawns, California halibut, market squid, and albacore—freshly caught by local fishermen and prepared with seasonal ingredients from Route 1 Farms by Ella King of Watsonville’s Café Ella, and Andrew Cohen, the chef-in-residence with the Monterey Bay Certified Farmers’ Markets. Libations from local wineries and breweries will also be on hand.
“We hope to increase exposure [to seafood that is] and educate people on how their meal choices directly affect the health of their local ocean environments and economies,” says Freiwald, an organizational consultant who focuses on helping nonprofits that promote personal and environmental health.
The dinner is as much about celebrating the people who research and conserve our ocean ecosystems as it is about those responsible for bringing fish to our plates.
Local scientists and fishermen will be among the guests, and proceeds from the dinner will benefit Santa Cruz-based organizations Reef Check California and Collaborative Fisheries Research West (CFR West). Reef Check California is the state chapter of a global organization that provides education about reefs and trains volunteers to monitor their health; CFR West aims to foster sustainable fisheries by forming research partnerships between fishermen and scientists.
The directors of the two organizations, Jan Freiwald (Anne Freiwald’s husband) and Peter Nelson, helming Reef Check California and CFR West, respectively, share an office and hatched the idea for a boat-to-table dinner as a way of supporting each other’s efforts to promote ocean conservation.
Their hope is that, immersed in a celebration of fruits of the sea, diners will feel more connected to their hometown fisheries and begin to feel a greater sense of ownership over the health of the ocean, its fish populations and the fishermen who harvest them. And with that, the intent is to encourage the guests to make more fishery-friendly choices by choosing seafood that is harvested locally with methods that preserve fish populations and their habitats, rather than imported.
Ocean pollution, sustainable versus unsustainable fishing practices, and the fact that much of the United States’ seafood is imported (as much as 90 percent, in fact) are all issues the event wants to raise awareness about.
“Eating local, sustainably-caught seafood is one of the most important actions consumers can take to ensure that the fish they eat come from sources that are responsible in their fishing methods,” says Friewald.
Tickets are $100. For more information, email Anne Freiwald at boat2table@reefcheck.org or visit facebook.com/boattotable.
About the author
Elizabeth Limbach is an award-winning journalist living in Santa Cruz, California. In this fruitful region and beyond, she finds the intersections of food, ag, health and the environment to be the most intriguing realms to write about. A bookworm and vegan foodie, the San Diego native has lived in Santa Cruz for a decade, relishing its redwood forests, fresh produce, delicious wines, and sparkling sea.
