Eating Green for Earth Day
Earth Day Texas dials up allure with celebrities and fine dining
The 2016 Earth Day Texas, aka EDTx, is offering two new features sure to lure in the crowds: food and celebrities.
For the first time, EDTx will serve beer and food from what it calls sustainability-minded restaurants and breweries through its partnership with the Untapped Beer Festival and Savor Dallas.
The restaurant lineup runs from obvious "green" places like Kalachandji's, the vegetarian restaurant at the Hare Krishna temple, to more culinary-focused options such as Stock & Barrel and The Porch.
Participants include Bbbop, Café Momentum, Common Table, Crisp Salad, Down to Earth, Front Room Tavern, Garden Café, Chef Jennie Kelley, LYFE Kitchen, Nature’s Plate, Patina Green, Chef Patton Robertson, Pink Magnolia, The Porch, Salum, Small Brewpub, START: Real Food Fast, Tacodeli, and Unleavened.
The Untapped Sustainable Beer Garden will feature breweries that ostensibly champion environmentally responsible practices, including Alaskan Brewing, Deschutes, Franconia, Full Sail, Harpoon, Odell, Real Ale, SanTan, Sierra Nevada, and Uinta.
Food and drink will be sold via a sample card system. A $5 fee gets you six samples, either of food bites or 2 ounces of beer. Full pours and additional sampling cards will be available for purchase in the Beer Garden.
Vendors serving samples and snacks include Gardein; NadaMoo; Ben & Jerry's; Buda Juice; Samson’s Gourmet Hot Dogs; D-Lish; and Little Herds, a nonprofit that promotes edible insects.
If all that food isn't enough, there will also be celebrities, coming in for the first-ever "Celebrities for Change" Gala on April 22 to raise awareness and drive solutions for the future of our environment.
The lineup of environmentally minded celebrities includes Lance Bass, Malin Akerman, Ed Begley Jr., Frances Fisher, Amber Valletta, Wendie Malick, Amy Smart and Carter Oosterhouse. There'll be a "green carpet" walk — green because it's Earth Day, duh — and reception at 6:30 pm, followed by the dinner and program at 8 pm. There's a full list of luminaries here.
EDTx 2016 runs from April 22-26 at Fair Park and is free. A preliminary kick-off party organized by the new Earth Day Texas Young Professionals group will take place on April 14 at the Dallas Farmers Market, followed by an after-party at Eastwood's Bar. If the YPs are on board, then you know it's a winner.
