While the celebrity chef demos and wine sommelier seminars are some of the things I look forward to at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, there's nothing quite like the tasting tent. Or tents, I should say. Three gigantic tents fill Wagner Park, and inside, you can find everything from orange wine to tasty tacos to top chefs. Here's a glimpse at what I saw earlier today in the tents.
At his live cooking demo in Aspen, Ming Tsai revealed that he's mixing things up for the ninth season of Simply Ming on PBS. This time around, the show's going to be called Simply Ming: On the Fly.
"I'll be combining my love of Iron Chef and just regular cooking shows," he told the audience, recounting a visit from guest chef Jacques Pepin two weeks prior. "We had two mystery ingredients to work with; he played my sous chef, and I played his. Jacques said, 'Chef, I'm your commis,' which, if you don't work in a restaurant and don't speak French, might make you think: Jacques Pepin, a communist?"
As with Iron Chef, all the dishes on the PBS show will be made off the cuff. (Not one to be bitter about his loss, Tsai acknowledged, "I made a rookie mistake — too much stuff on a plate is no good.") "The best part of the show is that since it's done on the fly, I don't have to write 120 recipes like I normally do, and neither do the guest chefs." This season, that'll include the likes of Andrew Zimmern and Jonathan Waxman.
After a glut of redundant reality TV shows, I'm looking forward to a new cooking show with a change of pace. Do you feel the same way?
This morning at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, chef John Besh took the stage and discussed the new cuisine of his beloved New Orleans. The hands-on chef, who describes his cooking style as "chaotic," cooked up an amazing-looking shrimp and heirloom tomato gumbo, black pepper blue crab, and deep-fried soft-shell shrimp.
He talked about the history of the city and how its wide variety of settlers, from the Spanish to the French to the Vietnamese, added to the colorful cuisine that NOLA is known for. "Everyone that comes to the city adds and leaves something to the food. The Spanish brought the sofrito, the French the roux, the Africans and Native Americans — they all helped build the food of New Orleans."
Besh also provided some tips on how we can incorporate the spirit of NOLA into our own kitchens. Find out what they are, after the break.
We love to attend food events, and so does member senorita, who just attended her first crawfish boil.
I went to my first crawfish boil, lots of fun and tons of tasty food! I would still contend the crawfish were delicious plain, however, a baked potato and corn on the cob could have definitely used some butter. These delicious crustaceans are some work but well worth the effort.
Attending a food festival, or just love taking tasty pictures? Be sure to share them in Savory Sights, and if it looks scrumptious, we just might feature it.
