Wellspent Market & The Culinary Breeding Network To Host Festa Italiana: An Outdoor Festival
Featuring Italian Food, Drink, Produce, Plants, Seeds, Wares, Live Italian Music and More!
WHEN
Saturday, June 12, 2021
12:00pm – 6:00pm
WHERE
Wellspent Market, 935 NE Couch St, Portland, OR 97232
FREE and open to the public
Registration is recommended via Eventbrite but not required for entry
WHAT
Join Wellspent Market & Lane Selman of The Culinary Breeding Network to celebrate La Bella Vita (the good life) at their inaugural Festa Italiana. Have a Tuscan sandwich from Aurelia Galimbert’s Sorbu Paninoteca and a scoop from Sando Paolini’s Pinolo Gelato bike. Wild Roots Farm will have local organic produce, including some Italian specialities. Selman, Wellspent Market’s sorella Siciliana, has put together an incredible Italian-inspired marketplace with molte items including imported Italian radicchio seeds and hand-carved marzipan molds to make your house and garden tutto Italiano, Kate Blairstone vegetable-themed wrapping paper, prints from Tatti Stampa, vegetable jewelry, and more.
Wellspent Market’s obsession with Italy started more than 20 years ago with extra virgin olive oil, but olive oil is just one part of la bella vita. Along with taking simple food seriously, spending time with friends and family, and just slowing down, la bella vita means appreciating the beauty of everyday life.
WHO
TO EAT & DRINK
Gelato & Sorbetto from Pinolo Gelato
Hailing from Pisa, Owner Sandro Paolinia creates some of the best, most authentic Italian gelato this side of the Atlantic. Paolinin will be onsite with the Pinolo Gelato bike featuring seasonal gelato and sorbetto.
Tuscan Sandwiches from Sorbu Paninoteca
Beloved NE Portland food truck will be parked on-site and in full swing serving authentic Tuscan sandwiches like the porchetta with giardiniera and the “cinque e cinque” with eggplant, mozzarella, and a soft, chickpea flour flatbread called torta di ceci. Sorbu is a collaboration between husband and wife team Chris Ericsen and Aurelia Galimberti who grew up in the small village of Sorbugnano near the hills of Cecina in Tuscany.
Italian Wine & Vermouth from Wellspent Market
TO BUY:
Fresh Produce from Wild Roots Farm
A small, ecologically-oriented market farm, owned and operated by farmers Mary Colombo and Brian Shipman, growing over 200+ varieties of high-quality vegetables and herbs for the Portland Community
Gusto Seeds & Vegetable Starts from Culinary Breeding Network
Founded in 2012 by Italian-American Lane Selman, The Culinary Breeding Network builds communities of plant breeders, seed growers, farmers, produce buyers, chefs and other stakeholders to improve quality in vegetables, fruits and grains.
Italian pantry ingredients from Wellspent Market
Olive Trees from Colibri Flowers & Plants
Wares & Other Fun Things including:
Kate Blairstone wrapping paper
Portland-based designer and illustrator creating adventurous, botanically-inspired surface designs that allow people to express their personal style through an unconventional use of color and love of pattern
Tatti Stampa prints
The smallest print shop in Maremma, Southern Tuscany; hand-made prints from Linoleum and wood blocks
Plant Posse vegetable earrings, radicchio pins, zines, posters, magnets
A posse of plant-powered people producing jewelry and art promoting plant pride
Sicilian marzipan molds from The Cheeky Chef
Real Good Food to Wellspent Market – A History
Real Good Food was started by former food writer and James Beard journalism award finalist, Jim Dixon, more than 20 years ago when he started shipping in olive oil from a farm he and his wife discovered on a trip to Italy. In order to support his own habit, he’d bring in a few bottles and sell some to his chef friends and neighbors. Once a year, chefs and food lovers would strive up his driveway, empty wine bottles in hand, ready to capture and take home some liquid gold. The business grew into a brick and mortar with a talented team, and during the pandemic blossomed into a national distributor of local and internationally sourced products under a new name, Wellspent Market.