Ecstatic Cuisine will participate in Edible Austin Eat Local Week by cooking for the Zhi Tea Festival on Saturday December 5 at 10 am at the Zhi Tea Gallery at 4607 Bolm Road. (Click here for a map).

The Edible Austin Tea Festival is a gathering of the Austin area’s fine tea purveyors and tea rooms who will sample and demonstrate all that is mysterious and wonderful about tea. Chef Jesse Bloom of Ecstatic Cuisine will offer tea-paired food plates for $10/ plate. Also featuring tea talks, demonstrations, traditional tea ceremonies and tea products for sale. Tea participants include Barefoot Botanicals, Buddah’s Brew, Jade Leaves, Sesa Tea, Steeping Room, Sweet Leaf Tea, Tea Embassy, Texas Medicinals and Zhi Tea. The Tea Festival is also a stop on the Urban Farm Bicycle Tour

A portion of proceeds go to Urban Roots, a youth development program that uses sustainable agriculture as a means to transform the lives of young people and to increase the access of healthy food in Austin. 15 farm interns, ages 14-17, are hired to work from February to July, growing more than 22,000 lbs of produce every year—donating 40% of that to hunger relief and selling 60% at farmers’ markets and farm stands run by the farm interns.

Photo courtesy of www.youthlaunch.org

For more information, check out our Facebook invitation and Do512 Event Listing.

Ecstatic Cuisine will host Austin bloggers Thursday, December 10 at 12:30pm during Edible Austin Eat Local Week! Follow this link to our Facebook event invitation for more information.

Our menu at the cafe will be totally locally sourced from Dec. 8 – 11, so please come out to support Central Texas farmers and try some seasonal delicacies!

(For more events and activities during Eat Local Week, check out Edible Austin’s event page and here to check out foods in season and farms and resources involved in next week’s festivities.)

Some members of the Ecstatic Cuisine crew will be serving tasty treats at the Austin Junior Forum Women and Wine Event tomorrow at Caswell House. As of 10pm tonight there are still 65 tickets left, so come out and support an Austin non-profit institution. You can do some Christmas shopping and sample some yummy food and delicious wine!

On Saturday Oct. 24th, Slow Food Austin will host the third annual Feast in the Field fundraiser at Green Gate Farms. The event will benefit the Austin Discovery School, a local elementary school that teaches children to garden outdoors. Jesse Bloom and Ecstatic Cuisine will cook a multi-course, gourmet dinner using local produce and meats from Green Gate Farms for the event.

Slow Food is an international, member-supported, non-profit organization that works to promote biodiversity in our food supply, gastronomic education in our communities and facilitate connections between ethical and delicious food producers and co-producers. Slow Food seeks to help people rediscover excellent food and better understand where their food comes from, who makes it and how it’s made.

The organization has chapters in every major city throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Brazil, Singapore, Australia, Japan and many other countries.

Slow Food organizes fairs, markets and events locally and internationally to showcase products of excellent gastronomic quality and to offer discerning consumers the opportunity to meet producers.

The Austin Discovery School/Slow Food Feast in the Field is Saturday October 24 from 7pm – 11pm. Purchase tickets for the event or become a Slow Food member.