What Happens In Vegas… 2009 Vegas Uncork’d Begins This Week!

Posted by Jennifer Heigl

The Daily Blender staff had such a great time at the 2008 New York Wine & Food Festival that we just couldn’t wait to get ourselves to the 2009 Vegas Uncork’d event!

Kicking off this Thursday with a champagne toast hosted by Bon Appetit’s Editor-in-Chief Barbara Fairchild and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, the Vegas Uncork’d show looks to be a blast!

Follow our live coverage of the weekend’s events here at Dailyblender.com and via our Twitter feed. We’re even introducing a new Las Vegas Daily Blender correspondent! Could it get anymore exciting!?

Some of the events we’re attending include:

• Thursday’s after-hours cocktail reception at the Caesar’s Palace PURE nightclub, benefiting Three Square, southern Nevada’s only food bank, featuring chefs Cat Cora, recent James Beard Award winner Paul Barolotta, Rick Moonen, and Kerry Simon.
• Cocktails & Cuisine at the Wynn, hosted by Bon Appetit’s Wine & Spirits Consultant, Steven Olson, and celebrity mixologist, Tony Abou-Ganim.
• The Grand Tasting at Caesar’s Palace featuring 150 top chefs and spirit mavens!
• And, perhaps the big event we’re most looking forward to -  the Celebrity Chef Blackjack Tournament, at the Wynn’s Encore! Hosted by actor Kyle MacLachlan, the players list includes a number of our favorite celebrity chefs – Tom Colicchio, Daniel Boulud, Rick Moonen, Bobby Flay, Carla Pelligrino, François Payard, and Joël Robuchon, among many others.

Bon Appetit’s BA Foodist Andrew Knowlton, who’ll also be attending this weekend’s events, chimed in earlier this week with his favorite Uncork’d picks as well.

2008 NYC Wine & Food Fest: TimesTalk with Ferrán Adrià and Anthony Bourdain

Posted by Jennifer Heigl

Famed chefs Anthony Bourdain and Ferrán Adrià in one place? Where do I sign up?! Sadly, unless you were really on top of things and ordered your tickets to Saturday’s TimesTalk super early, you may have missed out on Eric Asimov’s chat with Bourdain and Adrià. Tickets to ‘A Revolution of Food’ sold out in record time, but luckily, your favorite Daily Blender blogger had her name at the top of the waiting list and shimmied in just as the talk was about to begin.

Chef Ferrán Adrià is one of the world’s culinary leaders in ‘avant-garde’ cooking. Since the age of 18, Adrià has been making waves as head chef at Spain’s legendary El Bulli, expanding the creativity and innovation of each culinary dish in his kitchen. Utilizing syringes, nitrogen, and other assorted unconventional techniques, Ferrán Adrià has pushed the limits of food since day one at El Bulli. Restaurant magazine has even named it the best restaurant in the world a record four times (2002, 2006, 2007, 2008).

Touring with Phaidon to promote his first book in English, <a href= A Day at El Bulli, Ferrán Adrià sat down with New York Times chief wine critic Eric Asimov and El Bulli documentarian Anthony Bourdain, to talk about his gastronomic innovations.

“Ideally, I’d like to cook for you all,” Adrià began to explain through his interpreter. Instead, the crowd had to settle for a beautiful viewing of two of El Bulli’s dedicated customers enjoying a meal at the famed restaurant. From the joyous smile on the woman’s face to the expressive eyes of her dining companion as they took each bite, you could tell it was meal to be savored. With seventy staff members for only fifty diners, there is a great attention to detail, obvious in the short film clip. “Cuisine is a language. When you cook, you’re creating a dialogue with the diners,” he noted.

“I think you’re the only person who has dined with me at El Bulli,” Ferrán comments to Tony, who’s 2006 documentary, “Decoding Ferrán Adrià”, tracks Ferrán’s culinary process at El Bulli.

“The restaurant is very comforting,” Bourdain responds, “It’s a succession of dishes and surprises. But it’s like Eric Clapton seeing Jimi Hendrix play guitar. You come out thinking, ‘What do I do now?’” It’s the responsibility of the diner, he notes, to arrive for dinner at El Bulli with an ‘open mind, open heart, and a sense of humor’.

“A meal at El Bulli is like a film in which I want to establish a dialogue with the diner,” Ferrán Adrià interjects. “It’s one thing to have a dialogue [about avant-garde cuisine] but it’s another thing for people to understand.”

Awarded four Michelin stars over the years, El Bulli, only open six months a year, has a menu that changes with each season. What’s the process like to develop new dishes each time? “It’s like standing in a room with forty paintings. Starting on June 15th of each year, we take down the first painting and replace it individually, and you continue in this manner. If I kept the menu the same each time, why bother going back to work?”

On developing his own culinary style:
“Imagine you needed to create a language. The first thing you would do is create an alphabet. From there, you can create words, sentences, poems, novels.”

On creativity and cooking:
“I think the first amendment of a creative person is to change and evolve. There are many different ways of cooking many different ways of being a chef, and I respect them all.”

On fellow chefs attempting to emulate El Bulli:
“There are people who try to copy who are not doing it well, but there are also people who make bad pizzas.”

On the future of avant-garde techniques being used by home chefs:
“Without a doubt. Ten years ago the discussion of avant-garde cuisine didn’t exist. Who knows what we’ll see in [the next] ten years.”

The Short Buzz: Drinking the Essence of Douro Valley

Posted by R.K. Gella

The last day of the NYC Wine and Food Festival finished with a spectacular arrangement of seminars hosted by notable beverage writers, educators and producers. 

On Sunday afternoon at Del Posto, George Sandeman – representing the seventh generation of the legendary House of Sandeman – talked about the tradition of tawny port and its future.

Trying through the ports in ten-year increments, one captured baked cherry and vibrant peach in a young 10 year and ended with hazelnut, cedar, leather and vanilla in a mature 40 year.

For many, Port evokes thoughts of an old boys club, pontificating aloud after dinner centered on topics of the economy and politics through a rich haze of cigar smoke.   Recently, a more sensual image has been fostered, aligning port with romance, chocolate and seduction.

Granted, a versatile marketing team is pertinent, but also acknowledge the pliability of the product.

Port wine or Vinho do Porto or Porto, is a fortified Portuguese wine that comes from the specific area known as the Douro Valley.  Any port style wine not from the designated Douro Valley cannot officially be labeled as a port.

The character of Douro wines is influence largely by the river that cuts through the hillsides.  Because of the sloping hillsides on which the vineyards rest all the fruit must be harvested by hand. 

The five key grapes used in production are Tinta Barroca, Tinta Cao, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Francesca and Touriga Nacional, although there are over a hundred varieties that can be utilized.

During fermentation, a carefully observed process, distilled grape spirits  (brandy) is added to kill the yeast therefore ceasing fermentation.  This technique not only raises the alcoholic content of the wine, but also results in a presence of residual sugar, which adds sweetness to the wine.

Of the various styles of port the most popular are the bottle aged ruby ports and the barrel aged tawny ports. 

With rich red tones and luscious berry fruit, ruby ports are claimed to be better suited for Portuguese palates, while tawny ports, with baked fruit and cooking spice flavors, are overwhelmingly more appreciated by English palates.

And as mixologists have rediscovered their roots, port cocktails have become trendy once again.  The earliest cocktails were not made with vodka or its flavored counterparts instead bartenders used a mixture of aperitifs, digestifs, bourbons, gins and ports.

Death and Co. here in NYC is known for classic flavored cocktails.  Here is one of their port cocktail.

The Baltasar and Blimunda

0.5 oz. Sandeman 20 Years Old Tawny Port

2 oz. Beefeater Gin

0.5 oz. bitters

0.5 oz. vermouth (Punt e Mes recommended)

Stir. Serve up and garnish with flamed orange twist.

2008 NYC Wine & Food Fest: TimesTalk with Nigella Lawson

Posted by Jennifer Heigl

Nigella Lawson

During my NYC Wine & Food extravaganza over the weekend, I had the opportunity to sit in on two of the TimesTalks discussions held on Saturday afternoon. The first TimesTalk I attended featured New York Times Magazine editor at large Lynn Hirschberg interviewing ‘domestic culinary goddess’ Nigella Lawson, who spoke candidly and animatedly about her food experiences. And yes, she’s just as outspoken and beautiful in person as she is on her shows, “Nigella Express”, “Nigella Feasts”, and “Nigella Bites”.

Wearing a brown boatneck top and a long black skirt, Lawson spoke about her move from political writer to culinary writer to television food host, her struggles with the passing of her first husband, and the similarities between writing and cooking.

While Nigella began as a writer, penning columns for The Sunday Times, The Spectator, and British Vogue, she made the transition into television shortly after her first cookbook was published. Lawson noted that before she moved into writing culinary features, she realized she was using cooking “in order to marshal [her] writing thoughts.”

“Cooking is manual, practical, and wholly consuming,” she explained, “I think there’s a story and truthfulness in writing about food.”

When Lawson’s first husband, journalist and educator John Diamond, was dying of throat cancer, she found solace in cooking, sometimes struggling with John’s inability to truly enjoy the food she created. She found the best gift she received during this difficult time was a delivery of groceries from a friend.

“The enjoyment of food is an important part of life. In times of suffering, people tend to ignore [the grief], but it hasn’t been forgotten. Even when people are ill and unable to eat, it’s not as if they’ve forgotten about food. In the end, food is about sustenance and nourishment.”

On organics:

“It’ll be very interested to see how [the organic market] fares in the current economic climate…I would rather not eat meat than eat meat that’s been raised both inhumanely and dangerously.”

On her script-less, conversational television tone:

“It’s as if someone’s in the kitchen with you. You don’t really know what you want to say until you say it.”

On praise for supporting a healthier body image for woman by encouraging the enjoyment of food:

“I like being applauded for eating…We should be grateful that we can buy all kinds of foodstuffs year round.”

On having guests over for dinner:

“[My friends] aren’t as nervous as I am when I have people over to my place. I feel like [my guests] expect more.”

All Natural at NYC Wine & Food Festival

Posted by R.K. Gella

An uncommonly warm Friday afternoon only piqued temptation as the thirsty filed into an imbiber’s paradise on Pier 54 where the NYC Wine and Food Festival’s Beverage Media Trade Tasting was taking place.  The salsa tunes and warm weather only bolstered the flavors of the first tent, headed by Food Network star and celebrity chef Wilo Benet, whose succulent lechon sandwiches were quickly catching praise.  A sandwich and three rum punches later, one was prepped to enter the main tent that sprawled the entire pier and contained over 80 eager vendors with plenty of product to sample.

Maneuvering through the oasis with an empty glass promised to be difficult, and after one assessing lap the lechon sandwiches proved effective not only as a delicious appetizers but a saturating buffer.  Wine, liquor, beer, even carbonated sake were represented, from established houses to micro brews, from new entries to old favorites.

Yet, it was the new kids on the block that made the biggest impact, partly because of the attention to organic production and green practices. 

As one keen participant expressed, “It’s not about buying a green product, but it’s about buying a decent product and having the added incentive.”

Producers are investing in this sentiment providing consumers products they can feel good about and get behind.  The three designations that are used most commonly are organic, green and all natural.

All natural?

I heard this status most of the afternoon.  Achieving an organic status can be quite arduous and very expensive forcing many producers to utilize the term “all natural”.

“All natural” tequila, as wonderful as it may sound, is not likely to be any healthier than other tequilas on the market, and there is no stipulation of what “all natural” entirely means.

There are a handful of organically recognized distilleries out there, plenty of organic wineries, but the only proven benefits seem to be intrinsic as opposed to physical.

Although I would like to have believed that consuming “all-natural” tequila was a healthy measure, I hadn’t completed enough laps of the pier to be fooled.   The only item I could be assured were that producers were making greater efforts to give back, demonstrating to their consumers that they could be green conscious, even if solely for the marketing rights.

From the use of recycled glass, to the replenishing of farms, to employing farmer’s wives, liquor producers are finding ways to be more eco-responsible and presenting agendas imbibers can feel good about too.

Schrager’s Suggestions for the 2008 NYC Wine & Food Festival

Posted by Jennifer Heigl

A mere three weeks until the New York City Wine and Food Festival, and I’m already giddy!

Kate Krader, our fave editor over at Food & Wine Magazine, made sure to check in with the festival’s founder, and mastermind behind the ever-popular South Beach Wine & Food Festival, Lee Schrager, on his five favorite events at the upcoming culinary extravaganza. The first New York event of its kind, it’s a do-not-miss for foodies everywhere! You might even run into Rob and I!

#1: The Burger Bash (Friday, October 10)
This event, which started in the sand on South Beach, will be recreated on the Dumbo waterfront. Hosted by Rachael Ray, who says burgers are her favorite food, the event will feature 20 or so contestants, from Adam Perry Lang of Daisy Mae’s BBQ to Craft’s (and Top Chef’s) Tom Colicchio to whoever is the burger maker at Shake Shack. The crowd selects the best burger after eating as many as they want. “Honestly,” says Schrager, “people have a better chance of trying a Shake Shack burger here than at Madison Square Park.”

Tickets On Sale Now for the NYC Wine and Food Festival!

Posted by Jennifer Heigl

Tickets went on sale this week for the upcoming 2008 New York City Wine and Food Festival, sponsored by the Food Network and presented by Food & Wine magazine. Events include evening soirees with Bobby Flay, Tom Colicchio, and what’s hot website, DailyCandy.com; talks with Chef Gordon Ramsay, Chef Anthony Bourdain, Chef Alton Brown, Chef Masaharu Morimoto, and the legendary Chef Alain Ducasse. So, essentially the event features every chef you can imagine from the Food Network – with a few other culinary masters thrown in!

Don’t miss out on what looks to be a fantastic food event this fall! Maybe I’ll see you there!