Eco Appetito raises $4,000 for ecology school

Yesterday's Eco Appetito tasting event packed the house at Cinque Terre in the Old Port. Roughly 100 people turned out for this benefit event for the Ferry Beach Ecology School and its innovative Food for Thought program. The school raised $4,000 from the party.

The school's director Drew Dumsch talked briefly about the school and the work it does around food. Providing residential science programs to kids across the state, the school puts a big emphasis on the role food plays in the health of our bodies and our environment. While at the school, students learn to compost food waste, explore the on-site organic garden and eat a variety of locally-grown foods.

Sampling locally-grown food and drink also was the theme of Eco Appetito. Here Leslie Oster of Aurora Provisions pours a glass of Allagash Grand Cru.

Eats included these white bean soup shots

And these Winter Point oysters on the half shell.

As part of the school's Food for Thought program, staff members put together dinnertime skits that communicate environmental messages with humor. The talented eco-thespians shared one of their performances: The Wizard of Ag. Here's Dorothy, two worms and the sun heading to see the Wizard of Ag, who they hope will solve the soil infertility problems in Kansas and rid the world of the genetic engineering scourge. Unfortunately, the Wicked Witch has other plans.

But after some singing and skipping, Dorothy and her group of eco-activists manage to defeat the Wicked Witch and her industrial food ways. How'd they do it? With compost, of course.