Fresno Famous

“I’m very worried about the bees,” says publisher Bette Peterson “Our whole valley depends on the bee!”

Vineyard Farmer’s Market invites you to celebrate the valleys tiniest heroes at the first annual Bee My Honey Festival on Saturday April 2nd, 2011 to be held during it’s regularly scheduled market located at Blackstone & Shaw in Fresno, California. The market will also be celebrating the release of a new locally published children’s book; The Honeybee and the Butterfly Tumble Through the Air written by local author Kierstin Allbergottie and Illustrated by local artist Joseph G. Garcia that was inspired by longtime Vineyard vendor “Bee” Bob Nyberg.

Publisher of the book, Bette Peterson says "This delightful book is a great way for children to learn about the importance of the bees. We all need to help, bees are very important to our food production."

Bette asked if I would help her put together a celebration to launch her new children's book at the market, and if you've ever met Bette, you know how hard she is to say no to. Hmmm, a celebration of honey has to include inviting our "Market Chefs" to sweeten up the festivities with a demonstration of honey inspired culinary skill.

It wasn't hard to convince Vatche Moukhtarian of the Cracked Pepper Bistro, Scott Sauer of Max’s Bistro, Michael Shackleford of Trelio, Dustin & Kristin Stewart of Dusty Bun’s Bistro Bus and Chef Doug Wakida of Marian Farms to cook up some celebratory honey creations. 

Next I called Patti Torrey. Patti is a singer with an amazing repertoire (somewhere on the other side of 600 songs, I'm told) of all manner of songs under her amazing guitar playing fingers. She said " Oh perfect, I'll play my honey songs..." and began to launch into one honey song after another. Oh this is gonna be good, I thought. 

After some additional thought and reading the book I decided a little story time rendition of the book would be a lot of fun. So yours truly will be voicing the entire 35 pages of text for the little ones. Yes, I ordered my bee costume today, thank you. In addition  I have asked my good friends at Intermountain Nursery to bring out some bee-friendy native plants for folks to encourage our little friends to hang around a bit more. So there you have it, a Honey Festival with all the trimmings.

For a five-dollar ticket you will enjoy a feast for the senses with honey infused dishes from five of Fresno’s most innovative chefs, native bee friendly plant sales, a children’s book signing and storytelling and live honey inspired music by the multi - talented Patti Torrey. There is no admission necessary for the book signing, storytelling, or native plant sale aspect of the event.

I hope to see you there. Our whole valley depends on the bee.