Winter Waters 2024 - a regenerative seafare series

We are thrilled to announce our second annual Winter Waters regenerative seafare series. During the month of February 2024, Winter Waters will once again partner with chefs and tastemakers across Oregon to celebrate regenerative seafood, with an emphasis on farmed sea vegetables 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.

This year we’ll up the game with ticketed prix-fixe fine dining events as well as casual a la carte events, seaweed art classes, free community events, and menu specials all month in multiple regions across Oregon.

Event highlights include a Seaweed Beer Night at Loyal Legion, co-hosted (and judged) by The Oregonian Beer Writer Andre Meunier, a seaweed and seafood-centric prix-fixe meal prepared by Executive Chef Aaron Bedard at Cannon Beach’s Stephanie Inn, plus the Winter Waters Kickoff Weekend: Newport: Friday, February 2nd-Sunday February 4th. Starting off the Winter Waters Seafare Series, our Kickoff Weekend in Newport, Oregon, will feature 3 days of seafood-centric programming, including an educational experience at Central Coast Food Web’s Yaquina Lab, a pre-fixe dinner at Local Ocean Seafoods with Chef Enrique Sanchez-Rodriguez and guest chef Luis Cabanas, the former Executive Chef at Paley's Place. Plus, there will be a family-friendly, free event at The Pacific Maritime Heritage Center.

We have several chef collab events planned, including a pop up at Chef Kyle Christy’s Street Disco featuring Chef Jeff Kim, of Aji Fish Butchery, plus Morchella’s Chef Cameron Dunlap has invited Salem-based Epilogue Kitchen’s James Beard Award nominated Chef Jonathan Jones to the restaurant for a seaweed and local seafood feast. Menu specials and seaweed cocktails are also in the works.

See Winter Waters Event Line-up HERE
Winter Waters newsletter sign up for updates and access to presale ticket access, HERE

Winter Waters was created when passionate seaweed advocates Alanna Kieffer of Oregon Seaweed Hacmac of Blue Evolution 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 seafood a familiar and favorite food 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 Pacific Northwest draws visitors from far and wide and is home to some of the most sustainable and regenerative fisheries, yet 90% of the seafood eaten on the Oregon Coast is not from here. There is a disconnect between the people and the process, and we’d like to help bridge this gap through education and delicious shared meals. The Winter Waters non-profit beneficiary is Oregon Kelp Alliance, a multi-sector partnership working to protect our wild Oregon kelp forests.