More than 150 people came to the Courtyard by Marriott on Monday night to feast on locally grown and produced foods - a turnout that City Councilor Rob Werner said warrants making the local growers dinner an annual event. Werner, who leads the city's Energy and Environment Committee, told us a little more about the dinner and why he believes in eating local.

How did you decide to do this? The local energy committee had a statewide conference in June . . . it was all local food, salad and so forth, that had been collected from local farms. They thought it was in keeping with the whole aspect of energy and food, that they would do that. The executive chef of the Courtyard by Marriott, Trish Taylor, was interested by this and wanted to do more.

What was on the menu? Organic chicken, beef from Miles Smith Farm in Loudon, local cheese from the Smoke House in Canterbury, locally produced wine from Flag Hill. There was all sorts of salads, potatoes, those kind of things . . . apple desserts from Apple Hill Farm in Concord . . . also some vegetables they gave us. The (Concord) co-op provided the organic flour and organic pasta.

What do you think brought so many people to the dinner? I think there's a growing awareness of food, in terms of really wanting to eat healthy. I think there's certainly an appreciation of wanting to help the local economy . . . but also films like Food Inc., that's sort of raising the aspect of these issues as well . . . some of the themes (of the dinner) were echoed in that film.

What kind of themes? I think it's fair to say that our food production system has changed more in the last two generations than it had in the last thousand years. On the one hand, our system has helped feed billions around the globe. But it has come at a cost, in terms of energy use and environmental impact.

For people concerned about their energy use, what should they do in terms of how they eat? I think number one, try to buy local. Vote with your food dollar, so to speak. The co-op is obviously a good place to go, but more and more local grocery stores are getting onto this as well.