HTA-0595: Eat Real Festival — Oakland Food Festival with Anya Fernald

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Summary

Henry covers the Eat Real Festival in Oakland with its creator Anya Fernald.

Full Transcript

00:00
The Eat Real Festival in Oakland has become a local hit, folks.

00:06
And we have with us the woman who basically created it, Anya Fernald.

00:11
And Anya, what's the name of your company that you run overall?

00:15
Belcampo Incorporated.

00:17
And Eat Real Festival is its own company.

00:19
And we're also starting a nonprofit this year called the Foodcraft Institute, which is going to manage the festival.

00:23
So explain the concept.

00:25
And it's at Jack London Square, the concept of the Eat Real Festival.

00:27
It's not your average food fair.

00:29
Eat Reels free of charge.

00:31
Everything's under $5 and is all made with great, safe ingredients.

00:35
So my dream in creating the festival in 2008 was, can I create a new world for a few days in downtown Oakland where you can find all this great cheap food, which is delicious, healthy, and affordable?

00:49
So, boy, that's delicious.

00:52
So munching on a little bit of star anise and habanero beef jerky.

00:57
What kinds of merchants are here?

01:00
We have two big categories.

01:01
We've got lots of street food vendors.

01:03
So guys with trucks and carts, the kind of people that you see at some of the street food festivals and also at farmers markets.

01:08
But we bring them all from around the Bay Area and we get the very best ones.

01:12
We work with them, too, to source the very best ingredients.

01:15
Then we also have a craft marketplace, and that's a new direction for E-Real.

01:18
We're actually featuring products like these, which are all basically artisans taking things like beef that's locally made and turning it into terrific Oaktown jerky.

01:27
Apple sauce makers from Sonoma, chocolate makers from downtown Oakland.

01:31
We've got some people from Alameda making beautiful jams.

01:34
An incredible selection, about 40 of these craft vendors.

01:37
Dry pastas, seasoned salts, all sorts of things.

01:40
Who knew that you could have artisanal salt?

01:43
This is called Green Sea Salt, Salis Verde, and it's got rosemary, oregano, sage, basil.

01:48
And it's also salt from Redwood City.

01:51
All the way local.

01:53
Local more salt.

01:54
It is.

01:55
Right out of the Bay.

01:55
You really can't eat it all.

01:57
And you know, local's a focus for us, but we also got all sorts of things like plantain chips, dried pineapple, all things made locally.

02:03
But it's really about supporting local businesses.

02:05
Our festival generates over a million dollars for local businesses in the Bay Area producing quality foods.

02:10
foods that you can feel safe and comfortable eating and nothing's going to go wrong.

02:13
And there are also things that you can be happy that you're supporting your local community.

02:17
I'm really paying attention to what you're saying.

02:18
You just want to have some food.

02:21
I really want to try this.

02:22
It's called saor.

02:25
And it's organic onions and champagne vinegar, white wine vinegar.

02:30
It's an Italian-style pickled onion.

02:32
It's pretty delicious.

02:33
Traditionally, that's eaten with grilled fish.

02:36
You didn't bring any grilled fish with you?

02:37
I didn't, but I...

02:38
I'm gonna...

02:40
Five minutes, Henry, five minutes.

02:41
All right, dig in.

02:42
It's funny, I said, let's get a spoon, and she said, two spoons.

02:46
You don't think I'm not going to be eating.

02:49
Now, where else can you get this stuff?

02:51
I don't even know if you can get it at farmer's markets.

02:53
These are a lot of these are brand new vendors.

02:56
At Oakland, in the Eat Real Festival, they can, in one weekend, do enough for their business to be able to really get them through five or six months.

03:02
So they really get a leg up.

03:03
So we feature a lot of new businesses, hope to help them earn enough money that they can keep on going and keep on making their great food.

03:10
How many vendors do you have altogether?

03:11
In total, about 120.

03:13
And 40 of those are our craft food vendors like these guys,

03:16
and the rest are really the street food carts and things.

03:18
Now, we're going to do a little bit of a dessert thing here now

03:22
with Nana Mae's Organic Wild Blackberry Applesauce.

03:25
That's good stuff.

03:27
Where the heck does she do this?

03:28
Do you happen to know?

03:29
This is all made in Sonoma County.

03:31
It's Gravenstein Apples, which are a traditional variety from California.

03:35
They're a really early season apple, and these guys are an incredible resource.

03:38
They work with apple orchards from 30 different farms across Sonoma County.

03:42
Eat Real Festival today, 11 to 7, Jack London Square in Oakland, eatrealfestival.com.

03:48
Bring your appetite.

03:50
Marty, back to you.

03:51
I'll be right over there.

03:52
Thanks, Henry.

03:53
That's going to wrap things up for us for this Sunday morning.

03:55
I'm Marty Gonzalez.

03:56
For all of us here, thanks a lot for joining us, and we'll see you right back here next Saturday at 7.

04:00
And be sure to join Cron 4 News tonight at 9.

04:03
Have a good day, everybody.