This winter, the third annual Winter Waters regenerative seafare series is coming to the Oregon Coast!
During the month of February 2025 (and a couple days of March), Winter Waters will partner with chefs and tastemakers across Oregon to celebrate regenerative seafood, with an emphasis on seaweed as well as other local sustainable seafoods such as line-caught albacore tuna, dive-harvested purple sea urchin, and many other abundant species such as black cod, Dungeness crab, and cold water pink shrimp.
A Blue Foods Forum
This year, we are especially excited for the Blue Foods Forum in Portland, which includes three days of seafood-centric programming for seafare producers, processors, innovators and eaters. The Forum will include an industry focused Symposium, Oyster Social by Nácar Oysters, an Ocean Art! Xperience at Oregon’s premiere art design hub ADX, and a Seafaring Speakeasy at Union Pine celebrating all of our winter ocean’s bounty, featuring live urchin touch tanks and incredible bites and sips from Alumbra Cellars, Bar West, Chef Maylin Chavez, Chef Andre Uribe, Chefs Brendan and Haley Byer, and visiting Chef Cesar Figueroa.
Other coastal event highlights include a whole weekend of events in Cannon Beach and Port Orford, and the kickoff of a Winter Waters Seafare Series at Local Ocean Seafoods in Newport, Chef Enrique Sanchez-Rodriguez has invited special guest chefs – students from the Siletz Valley School enrolled in the High School Seafood Butchery Program.
See the full Winter Waters Event Line-up here!
About Winter Waters
Winter Waters was created when passionate seaweed advocates Alanna Kieffer and Rachelle Hacmac teamed up with Oregon Coast food systems value chain coordinator Kristen Penner. They decided it was time to bring a seaweed-centric seafood series to the Portland and Oregon Coast area! These three women are working hard to make regenerative seaweed and local, sustainable seafood familiar and favorite foods in our communities and help everybody source locally. They are foodies, farmers, and fishermen, who want to share the unbelievable work being done in our backyards with you. The state of Oregon boasts some of the most sustainable fisheries in the world, yet much of the seafood produced is exported, and a significant portion of consumed seafood is imported (about 90%!). There is a disconnect between the people and the process and we’d like to help bridge this gap through education and delicious culinary experiences. The Winter Waters non-profit beneficiary is Oregon Kelp Alliance, a multi-sector partnership working to protect our wild Oregon kelp forests. Last year’s dining series brought in over $116k in revenue for Winter Waters restaurant partners, and over $6k was donated to Oregon Kelp Alliance.
Event sponsors include Travel Oregon, Oregon Seaweed, Oregon Coast Visitors Association (OCVA), Ocean Cluster Initiative, Union Pine, Oregon Albacore Commission, Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce, Main Street Port Orford, Travel Curry Coast, and KEX Portland.