A new Nanaimo event is bringing in the bacon for a good time and for the Vancouver Island Symphony.
The inaugural Bacon Bevy Bash puts pork on pedestal while raising a toast to the Island’s craft brewers, cideries, wineries and distilleries for an evening of bacon-inspired fine fare from finger foods and salads to main courses and desserts.
Event organizer Teri Smith of Pacific Island Entertainment came up with the idea for Nanaimo’s first bacon bash while at an event in the Okanagan in last summer hosted by a college’s culinary department.
“I have lots of family in the Okanagan, so I got a whole big gang to go and they basically put a big huge buffet out, all done by the students and the culinary staff … all bacon-inspired, but it was just cider … but we went anyway and we had a lot of fun,” Smith said. “I thought we should do something like this in Nanaimo, but expand it more where we’re inviting distillers – like, really a local kind of flavour, Vancouver Island, all our wineries [and] we have so much craft beer, so I went with that.”
Smith teamed up with Nanaimo’s Piccadilly Bistro, which she said has “come up with a wicked menu of really fun stuff” such as bacon-wrapped prawns, bacon-wrapped scallop, Piccadilly egg, bacon cream cheese puff pastry tarts, bacon feta cheese turnover, bacon-wrapped jalapeno stuffed pickle, panko breaded chicken tenders with cheddar and bacon, bacon corn chowder, apple-smoked bacon in Belgian dark chocolate and donuts dipped in Belgian milk chocolate topped with, of course, bacon.
The bash has drawn a bevy of 15 brewers, distillers and wineries from across the Island and Okanagan to be showcased and sampled alongside the evening’s “smoky, porky treats.”
Each Bacon Bevy Bash ticket includes finger foods, three beverage taster tokens and a keepsake beverage glass.
Music, a photo booth and free gaming tables by Casino Nanaimo are all part of the evening’s entertainment, plus patrons get a chance to win the event’s grand door prize, a weekend for two at Cable Cove Inn in Tofino.
Event tickets, $52, are limited to 350 and available online only until noon Friday, March 15, and beverage taster tickets are $2 each throughout the evening. The Vancouver Island Symphony is the event’s charitable partner.
“There’s not really a synergy between pork and the symphony, but I love to support the symphony in any way that I can, so it’s a good opportunity for me to do that this time,” Smith said.
The Nanaimo Bacon Bevy Bash happens Friday, March 15, 6-10 p.m. at Beban Park social centre.
To purchase tickets and learn more, visit the event website at https://baconbevybash.com/.
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