Field Guide Festival Returns With Huge Portions and Huge Passion

Photo by Jane Eaton

Austin’s love of both food and festivals is well-established and well-documented, so food fests tend to thrive in our city.

When an event focuses on sustainable agriculture, regenerative farming, and the connection between chefs and farmers, local diners respond with a resounding “yes, please.”

That’s certainly been the case for Field Guide Festival, a weekend-long event launched by Blue Norther Live’s Lindsey Sokol and Urban American Farmer’s Trisha Bates. Presented in partnership with the Central Texas Food Bank, the fourth-annual convergence took over a couple of select green spaces in East Austin last weekend.

Field Guide Festival kicked off on Friday evening with Land to Larder, a ticketed and seated dinner at Boggy Creek Farm. Upon arrival, guests could swing by the beverage booth to grab a welcome cocktail made with Tito’s vodka and hibiscus tea, a beer from Starbase Brewing, or a nonalcoholic beer from Best Day Brewing. Once seated under tents – wisely provided by the festival/venue, as rainstorms hovered overhead for the first hour of the dinner – organizers introduced Land to Larder as a unique opportunity to enjoy the skills of acclaimed Austin chefs working with ingredients sourced from sustainable and regenerative farms.

Ana Torrealba's Gulf shrimp aguachile (Photo by Jane Eaton)

The meal began with a fresh and clean-tasting Gulf shrimp aguachile prepared by El Naranjo chef Ana Torrealba and plated with garden roots and cucumber grown at Boggy Creek Farm. Chef Ian Thurwachter of Intero next provided ricotta gnocchi tossed in a ragu made with Hi-Fi Mycology mushrooms, a vibrant highlight of the dinner. The main course consisted of dry-aged ribeye provided by Nantz Land & Cattle – a regenerative ranch in Graham – cooked by chef Janie Ramirez of Dai Due and served family-style with a crisp salad of arugula and fennel, roasted potatoes, and roasted Lesya peppers for a touch of sweetness.

Finally, dessert came courtesy of chefs Daniel A. Martínez Faccio and Aurora Torrado Arroyo of Mercado Sin Nombre, who offered a postre made with cornmeal from Barton Springs Mill and paired with a fresh espresso pour from Mercado Sin Nombre’s single origin beans. This brilliantly well-balanced feast was enhanced by wine pairings from regenerative vineyards: Gundlach Bundschu in Sonoma, Alta Marfa in West Texas, and Oddbird, a zero-proof natural winery. The Land to Larder team also made plant-based alternatives available for all of the meat-and-dairy dishes.

Festival attendees eager to talk shop with other sustainable food enthusiasts found plenty to keep them intrigued and informed about how responsible farming and ranching practices and excellent farm-to-table cuisine go hand in hand. Saturday, at an outdoor theatre space at Fiesta Gardens overlooking Town Lake, attendees could learn about regenerative cattle ranching from Stacy and Robert Nantz of Nantz Land & Cattle, or urban farming from Drew Steans of Pristine Produce in San Antonio. Aubrey Noelke and Sam Moffett of Local Pastures discussed their farm stand operations, Larry Franklin of Black Lives Veggies shared his approach to addressing food insecurity, and Melody McClary of Fourteen Acres Farm discussed fostering an organic farm in a food desert. Among others, Chef Kevin Fink explained how he turns organic and regenerative plants and ethically raised meat into memorable dishes at Emmer & Rye.

In past years, the symposium happened in conjunction with other festival goings-on, which could make it challenging for attendees to hear the speakers and engage with the topics without outside distractions. This dedicated event removed those obstacles and turned Saturday into a day of friendly and fun education for farming-curious visitors of all knowledge levels.

Edwin Marty, food policy manager for the Office of Climate Action and Resilience in Austin; Lisa Barden, executive director of Keep Austin Fed; and Larry Franklin, founder of Black Lives Veggies at the Field Guide Festival Symposium (Photo by Jane Eaton)

Field Guide Festival hosted its flagship event on Sunday at Fiesta Gardens. From 1 to 5pm, Austin restaurants, cafes, bakeries, and more set up stands and served signature dishes prepared with ingredients provided by partner farms and ranches, while spirits brands, wineries, and beer-makers with a vested interest in regenerative agriculture offered beverages to wash it all down.

The dishes ran the gamut from plant-based items to meat and dairy plates, and each chef partnered with a farm or ranch with the goal of hyperfocusing on their products. Buzzy offerings included the vegan-friendly “taco omakase” served by chef Joseph Gomez of Sana Sana Taqueria – which featured a beet ceviche, swiss chard slow-cooked in mole, and a carrot tostada with pepitas and fresh herbs – and a tender beef tamale with mole amarillo made by chef Rick Lopez of La Condesa and garnished with micro cilantro and micro radish from Joe’s Microgreens.

Chef Derek Zampacorta of Bar Toti used produce from the Este Garden to create a confit lion’s mane mushrooms with a peanut and sesame seed macha, while chef Amanda Turner of Olamaie conjured a “jambalaya” corndog with ingredients provided by Shirttail Creek Farm. Smoked and grilled True Bird chicken wings with house hot sauce from chef Evan LeRoy of LeRoy & Lewis and a honey chamomile bun with honey from Two Hives baked by chef Amanda Rockman of Rockman Coffee & Bakeshop rounded out the menu.

As a slightly smaller and more intimate event than other Austin food fests like Austin Food & Wine and Hot Luck, Field Guide Festival felt uniquely personal. Combining skillful cuisine with educational programming, the passion that all of these chefs and farmers showed for regenerative farming and ranching was enough to inspire even the most cynical of attendees.