VinOlivo Grand Tasting Saturday; Joe-to-Go sold; Bocuse d’Or at Williams-Sonoma; St. Paddy’s Day events; Food in the movies
Happy lucky Friday the 13th!
Two months in a row. Best of good fortune and health to all of us today.
HHH
VinOlivo, Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers’ fundraiser and celebration of wine and olives, starts tonight with a sold-out dinner at Williams-Sonoma featuring Auteur wines, and continues through Sunday, March 15.
The Grand Tasting is Saturday, March 14, at The Lodge at Sonoma Renaissance Resort & Spa. It features more than 50 Sonoma Valley wineries’ best and food tastes from Aventine Glen Ellen, B&V Whiskey Bar & Grill (formerly Burgers & Vine, I presume), Crisp Bakeshop, Drums & Crumbs, EDK, Glen Ellen Star, HelloCello & Prohibition Spirits, Hopmonk Tavern, Krave Jerky, Olive & Vine, Q Craft Barbecue, Sonoma Market, Epicurean Connection, the girl & the fig, The Red Grape and Wild Thyme Garden & Events. $75 advance, $85 at door. $95 VIP. Three-day ticket for Valley wine tasting $50, one-day ticket $25. $130 VIP Grand Tasting and three-day ticket. VIP tickets admitted at 6:30. Main event 7 to 10 p.m. Tickets at 935-0803 or Sonomavalleywine.com.
HHH
Heidi Stearn has sold her popular coffee bar, Joe-2-Go at Friedman Bros., leaving a whole fan club homeless in the mornings.
By the sheer force of her hilarious gregarious personality, Heidi attracted a loyal following of poets, chefs and many others who would join her for a cup of coffee and more every morning just inside the lumberyard’s entrance. Personally, I lusted after her collection of old coffee cans.
Heidi says she sold her coffee bar to “Hare & Hatter, a local Sonoma-based coffee company.” Googling the name, I only found a closed restaurant in Indonesia. She said she was unable legally to reveal the new owners’ names and that they will make their own announcement.
The stand is closed now, but will reopen sometime.
Meanwhile, Stearn says she “has reinvented herself with Go-2-Gal, offering concierge services, business, personal and family assistance and household estate management.” She told me in the past that she used to provide all of these services for movie stars and other rich and famous characters.
HHH
Ready for an escargot burger? That means snail burger. You can test yourself at Bisou Bistronomy on Market Street in San Francisco near the Castro where chef Nicolas Ronan, originally from Paris, is making mini snail burger sliders with parsley aioli, coleslaw, tomato, caramelized shallots and sauce, all of which will pretty much disguise the flavor. If I am going to enjoy snails, I want them loaded with garlic butter and a little parsley – a different disguise.
HHH
Can you imagine a food event here with at least 60 people seated and 20 more standing outside on the sidewalk with their noses pressed to the window?
That’s what happened when the famed chef Thomas Keller and his Team USA came to Williams-Sonoma on Broadway a couple of weeks ago to demonstrate some of the recipes and techniques that helped them win the second place trophy at the Bocuse d’Or cooking contest in Lyon, France.
As I arrived, some friends outside were upset that they “weren’t invited.” Actually, everyone was invited to pay $75 to attend, ostensibly to help pay for the team’s expenses. Since this event had been postponed due to rain and floods (remember those?) in December, people who paid then got first entry priority this time.
Keller described the Bocuse d’Or, which I call the Cooking Olympics, in minute detail, complete with blow-by-blow year-long preparation, meticulous design of foods and serving dishes, flights, crates getting lost and much more. Explaining that competing chefs from 24 countries were assessed by judges from all 24 of those countries, he also highlighted and introduced one of his chefs at Per Se in New York, Phillip Tessier, and Tessier’s commis, 21-year-old Skylar Stover. Tessier defined commis as an “assistant.” In a book I wrote called “Career Opportunities in the Food and Beverage Industry“ (2010) a commis serves the chef (or person above him or her) as a mentee. According to 2015 Bocuse d’Or rules, the commis could not turn 22 before Jan. 7 of this year.
Guests enjoyed the finite details of perfect peas, Keller’s French warehouse of equipment for the annual contest, and the full history of American participation and America’s lack of wins prior to this year.
With carefully choreographed precision, when Tessier spoke a certain word, Stover and other aides in the background began to move and do their jobs silently with only facial expressions to communicate, to assist in the demonstration as Tessier and Stover created some of their winning dishes. Probably the most surprising nibble was a corn silk appetizer.
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