For the first time, the Homer Chamber’s Taste of Homer event partners with local art organizations to offer a combined Taste of Homer and First Friday event on September 4th. Five art locations in town: Bunnell Street Arts, the Art Shop Gallery, Homer Council on the Arts, the Pratt Museum and Grace Ridge Brewing will open their doors for visitors to enjoy art, food and community. Food will be provided, one per gallery, by the Stickleback Fish Company, Adventure Harvest, Udder Delights, Vida’s Thai Food and Lil’ Tutka Brew Pub. As Joelle Restad, with the Art Shop Gallery said, Friday’s event is kind of a multidimensional art opening if you consider food a form of art. Lindsay Trieweiler with the Homer Chamber provided these comments on the combined event:
“So what happened with the Taste of Homer this year is that it falls over a first Friday event. So I had the idea to reach out to the first Friday art galleries and see if they would be interested in pairing off, partnering off with a restaurant to provide small bites, so people could come in, visit their art gallery, and then also have a small bite of a restaurant for kind of a taste of Homer theme,” Trieweiler said.
People interested in the Taste of Homer can pick up a “passport” to collect stamps from participating organizations at the Chamber or at each location and passports will be collected at the end of the event to be entered into a drawing for the final prize: transportation and a chef’s dinner for two at the Meandering Goat, redeemable through 2027.
The Taste of Homer has several other events happening and Trieweiler shared some of those as well:
“So we have tonight, which is Wednesday, we have a dinner and a movie at the Porcupine Theater. So they're playing an older food-based movie called The Big Night. We had a chef's dining experience at the cannery on Tuesday night. It was wonderful. They sat everyone family style, so there were up to 20 people, and they brought out three different appetizers and four different entrees. Tomorrow we have a guided tour that'll start here at the taste or at the Chamber of Commerce, and people will meet here. And Adventure Harvest will be in the lobby giving out some samples, and then we'll walk over to the Fat Olives and have a tasting there, and then walk to the cannery, have a tasting there, and then we'll have a shuttle pick us up, take us down to Johnny's Corner, have a tasting there, and then end at the boardwalk where we'll have an ice cream at Shoreline Scoops, and then get a little goodie bag from Sea Suites,” Trieweiler said.
In the past, the Taste of Homer was held in the spring but this year the shift to the early fall allows the Chamber to create a richer more locally rooted experience while spotlighting Homer’s end-of-season atmosphere. The full Taste of Homer schedule offers a week of restaurant specials, culinary experiences and food events that showcase creativity and flavor. The full schedule of events is available on the Chamber website: homeralaska.org.
Homer’s Pratt Museum is offering “A Celebration of Octopus” to unveil Edward Whetstone Hutchinson’s white on white oil painting of “Octopus” as a new addition to the Pratt’s marine gallery. Whitney Harness, director of the Pratt, provided more details:
“Ed Hutchinson has been affiliated with the Pratt Museum. He's received awards from Homer Council On the arts, he has really supported both arts and culture in Homer for many years. And something that was special to him here at the museum were the tanks and the touch tank downstairs in our marine gallery that were home to a variety of different marine sea life, including an octopus, many different octopuses over the years, and Ed even went on a supply run to get food for the different fish and the octopus from Anchorage multiple times, and so we felt that his octopus painting would be a great addition to our marine gallery to sort of honor his own contribution to the museum, as well as to honor the legacy of exploring marine life, including the octopus that we've had in our tanks over the years.”
Food at the Pratt on Friday will be provided by Vida’s Thai Food.
Reporting from Homer, this is Emilie Springer
