{"id":181505,"date":"2023-09-22T10:36:40","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T14:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=181505"},"modified":"2023-09-22T10:36:40","modified_gmt":"2023-09-22T14:36:40","slug":"les-friands-festival-celebrates-brome-lake-producers-and-culinary-creators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/les-friands-festival-celebrates-brome-lake-producers-and-culinary-creators\/","title":{"rendered":"Les Friands festival celebrates Brome Lake producers and culinary creators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">The Town of Brome Lake is launching the first edition of its new Les Friands festival this weekend to showcase the culinary expertise, producers, and artisans of the area.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Les Friands festival is described as an\u00a0extension of Tourism Lac-Brome's successful <a href=\"https:\/\/tourismelacbrome.com\/en\/la-grande-tablee\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Grande Tabl\u00e9e<\/a> events that were offered this summer. The Grande Tabl\u00e9e invited local producers Vitality Elderberry, L\u00e9on Courville Vigneron, and Cheeky Creek Farm to open up their grounds to locals and visitors alike to share a five-course meal created with the help of a chef. The goal was to experience what these producers offer in an enhanced setting that also saw musicians, artists, and story-tellers make an appearance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cYou can say it\u2019s a continuation, or the next line, of la Grande Tabl\u00e9e with the gourmet concept. I think the difference is that with an event or a festival like Les Friands we have the opportunity to bring the community together,\u201d explained Kevin Brunelle, coordinator of communications and promotion of recreation, tourism, culture, and community life for the Town of Brome Lake. \u201cThe Grande Tabl\u00e9e is more of a dinner, it\u2019s more private. With an event and a festival, you have the chance to get people out and enjoy all of the great food, wines, beer, and coffee, and enjoy all of that with your community basically.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">For Brunelle, integrating shared gourmet experiences as an important part of community life within the municipality is one of the most valuable aspects of events like Les Friands.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cI want people to have a good time. The community aspect for me is really important. If people can discover a new product, a new producer, and at the same time spend time with their neighbours, I\u2019m happy,\u201d he said.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Organizing a gourmet event like Les Friands made sense for a municipality that has an abundance of \"quality\" products and produce to promote and that wants to \u201cencourage people to buy locally,\u201d mentioned Brunelle.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cWe are so lucky to have great producers, products, great ingredients, great chefs and restaurants. We have to take advantage of this and showcase this quality of food that we have in the region,\u201d he said.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">According to Brunelle, the Les Friands festival will have some \u201cfamiliar faces\u201d with the likes of Brome Lake micro-brewery Knowlton Co. and coffee brewer Virgin Hill, whom will both be conducting tastings.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cWe\u2019re also going to have a sommelier guiding wine tasting workshops. We are going to more than 20 different wines from La Route des vins that people will be able to taste,\u201d he highlighted.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">On the food side of things, there will be a number of \u201cculinary kiosks\u201d and two local chefs from Le Sapin Bistro du Lac and Quilliams Restaurant will be whipping up something special for festival-goers.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cThey\u2019re going to prepare around ten finger food kind of tastings, so we\u2019re going to have a lot of choice from people to taste [from]. You know there\u2019s the food, the beer, the wine, and the coffee, but we also wanted to make sure the weekend was family friendly,\u201d noted Brunelle.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Which is why Les Friands will also have a \u201cfamily zone\u201d designated with different activities and games, including a petting zoo, and there will be concerts put on by local bands. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cI think people of all ages will be able to enjoy the weekend,\u201d said Brunelle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">As the first edition of Les Friands, Brunelle hopes that it will be a success and grow to become an annual tradition in Brome Lake.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cIt\u2019s a first step, we are trying something new. But of course, it\u2019s the type of event that benefits so many different people and we would be happy if it would repeat over the next years,\u201d expressed Brunelle.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Les Friands is taking place on Sept. 23 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sept. 24<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m in Coldbrook Park, Knowlton. More details can be found<a href=\"https:\/\/tourismelacbrome.com\/en\/lesfriands\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"s1\"> here.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cI don\u2019t know if you knew this, but \u2018les friands\u2019 translates in English to \u2018be fond something.\u2019 So in our case, we are pretty fond of all of the great food and wine, beer, and coffee that we have in the region. That\u2019s the main motivation for us is to showcase and highlight all of this,\u201d Brunelle emphasized to CIDI.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><b><i>Listen to the full interview with Brunelle below:<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Town of Brome Lake is launching the first edition of its new Les Friands festival this weekend to showcase the culinary expertise, producers, and artisans of the area.\u00a0 The Les Friands festival is described as an\u00a0extension of Tourism Lac-Brome&#8217;s successful Grande Tabl\u00e9e events that were offered this summer. The Grande Tabl\u00e9e invited local producers&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":181515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,219],"tags":[2021,14610,30593,30591,7603,15141,1766],"radio":[246],"origine":[274,259,260],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181505"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181753,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181505\/revisions\/181753"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181505"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=181505"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=181505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}