For Elizabeth Dry, the spirit behind Okrapalooza is simple.<\/p>\n
“Abundance. It’s abundance of love,” Dry said.<\/p>\n
That spirit was on full display Sunday at The Venue at Cope Ranch, where chefs from across Texas came together for Okrapalooza, an okra cook-off benefiting Promise of Peace Gardens.<\/p>\n
The event brought food, music and community together while raising money to support school and community gardens and help fight food insecurity in Wood County.<\/p>\n
For Heritage East Executive Chef and Owner Lance McWhorter, the event is also a chance to share a personal connection with one of his favorite ingredients.<\/p>\n
“Anytime that you’re able to kind of reach out into the community, explain your love for a particular ingredient,” McWhorter said. “I mean, one of my earliest memories is running around the family farm in Athens, Texas, with a pocketknife and cutting baskets full of okra with my grandparents.”<\/p>\n
For McWhorter, okra is more than just an ingredient. It is a connection to his childhood and a way to give back to the community.<\/p>\n
“To be able to take your favorite thing and put it on a plate for hundreds of people and do a lot of good in the process is a really good time,” McWhorter said.<\/p>\n
Chefs at Okrapalooza showed just how versatile the vegetable can be, serving up creative dishes ranging from okra sushi to okra chocolate pudding.<\/p>\n
But organizers say the goal of the event extends far beyond the food.<\/p>\n
Okrapalooza is designed to bring people together, encourage communities to grow their own food and help make sure families have access to the food they need.<\/p>\n
“We have to start thinking local, really local \u2014 who’s doing good things around us and then support those people,” Dry said.<\/p>\n
Promise of Peace Gardens said proceeds from every ticket sold at the event will go toward helping feed families in need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Elizabeth Dry, the spirit behind Okrapalooza is simple. “Abundance. It’s abundance of love,” Dry said. That spirit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[148905,148906,66589,148904,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-428551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-elizabeth-dry","tag-heritage-east-executive-chef","tag-mcwhorter","tag-okrapalooza","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}