SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 2013
Food & Wine Festival Palm Desert™ Saturday Grand Tasting
This event included, grand tasting, celebrity chef demonstrations, wine tasting, wine seminars, and book signings. The chefs for this great event included: Deborah Scott, Jan Boydstun, Sara Moulton, Adam Gertler, Sean Kanan, Luciano Pellegrini, Alejandra Schrader, Chris Mitchum, Mark Peel, Martin Yan, Maria Sinskey.
I got to watch Luciano Pellegrini make fresh pasta and Martin Yan do stir-fry. I am a big Martin Yan fan, host of PBS Martin Yan’s China and the celebrated host of over 3,000 cooking shows. Martin Yan has written 30 cookbooks, including the award-winning Martin Yan’s Feast, Martin Yan’s Asian Favorites, Chinese Cooking for Dummies, Martin Yan’s Chinatown Cooking (intro by Julia Child), Martin Yan’s Quick & Easy, and his latest, Martin Yan’s China. He invited me to come in for a tasting at his modern new restaurant M.Y. China in San Francisco. He did some great demonstrations with his knife as well as boning a chicken in 18 seconds. With all of his slicing and dicing he always says “Cut, Cut, Cut, Cut, Cut, Cut”, about a thousand times over and over again. Chef Yan is super entertaining, and from what I tasted his Black Bean Chicken stir-fry was outstanding.
All of the food was spectacular; lots of yummy braised meat dishes, as well as some nice savory salads. The wines were nicely chosen, and a lot of them paired great with the food items served. My favorite dish was a braised beef with celery root puree, made by IW Club, by far the best thing there for me. Another great one was wild mushroom pasta, fantastically prepared by Sullivan’s, but sadly they ran out of it very quickly. So much lovely food and libations under one tent.
This was my first hopefully of many Food and Wine Events, the whole experience was very enlightening, and educational. It was very well organized, the only recommendation I would give the organizers was to air condition the large white tent, and it got just a little bit stuffy during the afternoon hours. Otherwise it was very enjoyable, to be able to taste and savor the great restaurants of this area. This really made me want to attend every Food & Wine event in every upcoming city! http://www.foodandwine.com/promo/events
www.palmdesertfoodandwine.com/
This is all of what was offered:
Products:
Stick Figure Salsa
Sweet Fire Jelly
Caesar’s Favorite
Restaurants:
Sullivan’s
Roy’s Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine
Mastro’s Steakhouse
Catalan Restaurant Mediterranean Cuisine
Campanile LAX International Cuisine
Island Prime
IW Club
3rd Corner Bistro
Zin
Wineries:
Callaway Vineyard & Winery
Clos Pegase
Gainey Vineyard
Grgich Hills Estate
Gundlach Bundschu
Hess Collection
JAQK Cellars
Kenwood
Laroche Wines
Liberty School
Ménage à Trois
Monte De Oro Winery & Vineyards
Napa Cellars
Peju
Seghesio Family Vineyards
Sequana
Sonoma-Cutrer
Stonegate Winery & Vineyards
Treana
Walt Wines
First Press
Folie à Deux