Los Angeles Food & Wine (August 22-25) + 2012 Recap

Last year I was able to attend a couple of the Los Angeles Food & Wine events courtesy of Knork, which was the festival's official flatware! (They also sent me a set of knorks, which is officially the best flatware I've ever owned.)

LA Food and Wine is not just a big tasting event, but they also hold special lunches, cooking demonstrations and tastings around town throughout the four days. Among this year's events, which are coming up on August 22-25, I'm excited about the Mixology Lunch at Hinoki & The Bird, Asian Night Market with Iron Chef Morimoto, Best of Belgium - Beer and Bites (because I love Belgian beers), a cocktail demonstration with Grant Achatz (I love The Aviary and The Office in Chicago), and Bacon and Bourbon with Chef Edward Lee.

Now, back to last year. I attended a Southern Brunch cooking demonstration with Chef Dean Fearing from Dallas and Michelle Bernstein from Miami.

It's hard to see the actual stoves but this mirror above really helped.

First Chef Bernstein shows us how to cure salmon. She cured wild Alaskan Cohoe salmon in Jim Beam! I haven't personally tried it but she made it sound pretty easy. The real process takes about a week so, of course, we ate the salmon she had already cured beforehand, sitting atop of crispy potato latkes and further topped with caviar. What a fancy Southern brunch!

Then, Chef Dean Fearing prepared chicken fried quail with his special spice mix (available for sale), served with some amazing bourbon jalapeno creamed corn and pickled onion and mango slaw. I'm loving the bourbon theme.

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Decorating Cakes with Duff Goldman for LA Food & Wine

The LA Food and Wine Festival brings back a series of food events over four days on August 22-25, from Italian festival with Giada De Laurentiis, Asian Night Market with Iron Chef Morimoto, lunches at restaurants around town, to the Lexus Grand Tasting on the last day.

The last event of the series is a cooking demo with Duff Goldman. As a preview for the festival, I got to go to Duff's Cake Mix on Melrose to decorate a cake. Duff Goldman was also in attendance. Before getting down to decorating we mingled with some wine and Chef Eric Greenspan's grilled cheese sandwiches.
We started with a white cake, just like a white canvas for painting.

The theme was California cuisine so we decided to make a "kale salad" and started rolling out the green fondant. I used a leaf mold to make the "kale", made red fondant balls for cherry tomatoes. We made sliced carrots and avocadoes, copying LA OC Foodie and Shop Eat Sleep's cake of avocado, sushi, and taco.
Voila! Our kale salad cake!

The other attendees' cakes were pretty impressive.
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The 4-Day LA Food and Wine Festival Returns Aug 9-12, Recap of 2011 Lexus Grand Tasting

The LA Food and Wine Festival is a four-day extravaganza with various lunches and dinners around town featuring celebrity chefs, with two days of a grand tasting event on Saturday and Sunday. This year's events include an Italian fiesta with Giada, an Asian Night Market with Bizarre Foods host Andrew Zimmern, a champagne and caviar night, and dinners with Graham Elliott, Ming Tsai, the Voltaggio brothers, Michael Chiarello, etc.The full event listing can be seen here, and you can buy tickets for each event separately.

Oh, let's not forget the most important part. These events benefit St. Vincent's Meals on Wheels. They provide about 3000 meals a day for seniors!

Last year, thanks to Lexus, I was lucky enough to attend a lunch featuring the Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto at WP24, and one of the Lexus Grand Tasting Event. While most of the food festivals in LA features LA's best chefs and restaurants, the Lexus Grand Tasting Event brings some from out of town, so we get to try food from some of the best in the country. This year's out-of-town list includes Gale Gand from Tru (Chicago), Francois Payard, and Stephan Pyles.

Here are some photos from last year's Lexus Grand Tasting:

Duroc Pork Tenderloin, corn pudding, gremolata or bacon and corn, blackberry cipollini by Bradley Ogden's root 246.

The Lexus lounge is definitely worth a visit, offering some of the more luxurious items like foie gras (well, I guess not this year...), lobster, and truffles.

Foie gras lollipops, almonds, cocoa nibs, banana cotton candy

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A WP24 Lunch with Iron Chef Morimoto, LA Food and Wine Festival

The first LA Food and Wine Festival kind of snuck up on me. Suddenly there are a slew of celebrity chefs in town doing special lunches and dinners, and grand tastings, totaling to about 70 events!

Thanks to Lexus, I was lucky enough to attend a lunch at Wolfgang Puck's WP24 (normally not open for lunch) prepared by WP24's chef Sara Johannes and Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto.

Chef Morimoto

I've always admired the view from WP24, but this was the first time I've seen it during the day. Lucky for us, it was a beautiful day!

The party started in the front bar area with some Scharffenberger Cellars "Brut Excellence", Mendocino (Anderson Valley). This sparkling wine was made with a base from 2007, using 2/3 Chardonnay and 1/3 Pinot Noir. I missed out on most of the passed hors d'oeuvres - they went fast. If I had known the bao was filled with foie gras instead of pork belly, I would've tried harder to procure some.

Oh well, I had a great meal ahead of me anyway.

We alternated courses made by the Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto and WP24's chef Sara Johannes.
The first course was by Morimoto: Kin Medai Snapper with geoduck, papaya, peanuts and coconut foam.
This was paired with a glass of Grieve Sauvignon Blanc, Napa 2009

I loved the Southeast Asian flavors that come out in this dish, especially from the peanuts and chili. I don't think I've had sashimi with southeast asian flavors before, but it certainly worked wonderfully.

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