Rhys Pender: Orofino Vineyards & The Similkameen 1.6 Mile Diet…

Forget the 100 Mile diet. Orofino Vineyards and Bogner’s restaurant of Penticton have redefined the redefining of local. Last month the team put together two dinners that really celebrated local cuisine, sourcing everything from within a radius of just 1.6 miles (2.57 km) of the Orofino winery.

With the trend towards eating and celebrating local food gaining momentum all the time, it was fantastic to see what could be unearthed and discovered from within such a tiny area. John Weber, owner of Orofino, and Darin Paterson, owner and chef of Bogner’s, toured the local farms and hungrily eyed the unsuspecting local livestock in order to come up with a menu to showcase the Cawston region.

Cooking only ingredients grown this close to home is never easy, particularly having to forego some of the staples of the kitchen – oil, most spices, butter, salt. In spite of these, Paterson was very creative – making his own cheese and butter from local milk, cooking chicken confit style and marinating lamb in some delicious Orofino wine. The precious butter was used to luxuriously poach chicken breast and then to give gloss and flavours to the sauces. The team did make an exception for salt justifying it’s history of being traded as currency. Read more