Charleston Wine & Food Festival: Opening Night Party

Last weekend was the sixth annual Charleston Wine & Food Festival.  I was really excited to get to help out at the opening night gala.  It took place in Marion Square, and much like last week's Chef's Feast, about twenty local restaurants had tables set up with small plates for the partygoers to dine on while they drank and mingled.

Blake, John, me, and Chef Ramon 

We had time to snap some photos before the crazy influx of people happened.  There were over 1,000 attendees there, which made for a busy night, to say the least.

John and me

Blake and me

Chef Frank Lee and his Chef de Cuisine, Russ Moore

our dish

I was happy that, unlike at the Chef's Feast, our plate was cold rather than hot. There were so many people, we were busy enough as it was without having to actually cook or heat the food to order.

gorgeous tuna, fennel and radish salad, blood orange puree, 

crispy beet chip, olive oil powder, and micro greens

The crudo tasted really great, too. All the flavors together made for a very refreshing, light couple of bites. I think it was a nice contrast to some of the other heavier (but still delicious) charcuterie-oriented dishes I saw.

 I tried to get a crowd shot to show how many people were there

After the crowd started to die down, we enjoyed tasting some of the other restaurants' dishes.  Chef Bacon from Oak was doing a gorgeous homemade (oxtail? not quite remembering...) ravioli, while Chef Brock from Husk was putting out pig's ear sliders which were pretty much amazing.  Overall, it was a lot of fun, and I've enjoyed getting to go to so many exciting events in the past few weeks.

U Cook with Chef Bob

As soon as I finished my long summer semester in school, I took a week off work to help out with Chef Bob Waggoner's cooking show, U Cook with Chef Bob.  We filmed all 12 episodes of the second season during that week.  The days were really long and tedious, but it was enjoyable work, and I especially enjoyed learning about the filming and media side of the project.

The set.

Each episode is divided into two parts.  First, Chef Bob cooks a first course and serves it to his panel of 3 "foodies", who are sitting to his right in the above photo. The foodies could be anyone from food writers to wine importers to fellow chefs to personal friends. 

 Can I please mention these bad ass, personalized butcherblock cutting boards Chef Bob had made? Eventually, they'll be available for sale through Charleston Chops. I am drooling over the dark cherry octagon one in the top right.

Okay then, for the second part of the show, Chef would invite someone out of the audience to cook a main course (hence the "U Cook").  While Chef was on screen with his guest chef, his former sous chef and good friend, Jason Houser, would be behind the scenes preparing the dish for the audience. The audience was generally around 25 people or so.

The "kitchen".

So keep in mind, we were in a production studio, not a professional kitchen.  This is the set up the cooks worked off of for the week.  Yes, that is a four-burner electric stove Houser is working off of. It was certainly an interesting and challenging feat.

Jason seasoning Waygu ribeyes. Yum.

I feel like now is an appropriate time to share some of the dinners I got to enjoy, with special thanks to Jason for making sure I was properly fed the whole time. :)

 Beef tenderloin with salsify, morels, shallots, white wine reduction, and shaved black truffle.

A freakin' slab of foie gras with blueberry gastrique, hazelnuts, and roasted figs.

So, you wonder, what the hell did you do besides eat, Dani?  I actually did do some work, guys.  I was pretty much in charge of the front-of-house stuff.  Aka setting the tables, taking care of wine and water, etc.  Which was no small feat considering there was only one faucet in the place, halfway across the warehouse, to fill up my only water pitcher.  Also considering that some of these shows took some time, what with technical difficulties and all, so these people were drinking.  

 Tons of wine.

 My little station.

Let's not forget the production crew. Here is Jose, the sound tech, in front, with Tim, the director, behind him, and Chad in the background.

I felt like even though the filming only lasted a week, I really got to know everyone and made a lot of good friends.  It was certainly a great experience.  Seasons 1 and 2 are supposed to be airing on PBS in the late fall, make sure to look out for it!

A Trip to Chapel Hill

Last week, I went on another fun trip to the triangle area.  The main reason for going to was to take the intro level sommelier exam in Raleigh through the Court of Master Sommeliers.  My friend, Morgan, who works at McCrady's, also took the test.  It involved a pretty intensive two-day seminar prior to the exam, and I was happy to have a friend there with me.  There was a lot of information to absorb, and I think I might have felt a bit more overwhelmed had I gone by myself.

Morgan and I just before taking the exam

I couldn't help but to be a little nervous about the exam, even though I was overall fairly confident about it. Much to our relief, however, we both passed!

So that was pretty exciting. I've been pretty stressed out about the whole thing, and I'm glad to have one less thing looming over my head right now.

~

The other purpose of the trip was to celebrate my birthday!  Tuesday was my actual birthday, but I didn't want to party too hard because the wine exam was the next day.  But, you better believe, on Wednesday after I found out I passed, it was on. 

We finally had dinner at Lantern, after having drinks there my last two visits.  My sister and I asked the bartender to just pick dinner for us because, truly, I would have been happy with any single item on the menu.  He happily obliged us, and I loved every bite.

To start, I got Chaat, which is kind of like a warm salad with roasted chickpeas and cauliflower, crispy potatoes, pickled red onion and a nice, refreshing herbed/minty chutney.  I absolutely adore both chickpeas and cauliflower, and I thought this dish was delicious and certainly unique, with lots of fun texture.

For dinner, I had the steamed wild striped bass, which was served with lots of herbs, crispy ginger, a fermented black bean-type broth, baby bok choy, and rice.  This was excellent as well, along with Margaret's lacquered pork tenderloin lettuce wraps, and Sam's crispy duck noodle soup.  Gotta say, though, I did enjoy mine the best.

The dessert was rave-worthy.  Roasted banana ice-cream with peanut brittle, caramel, and whipped cream. To.die.for.  And I'm really not even the kind of person who just raves over dessert.

Here's one of the sis and me at Lantern.  Sissy bought me the dress for my birthday :)

And one of the sis and her hunky boyfriend, Sam, whom I got to officially meet.

~

So that's about all I have to share with you, except for a couple gem photos from our hungover trip to the Maple View Dairy Ice Cream Store in Carrboro the next day.

*mmm...*

Don't be jealous of the fact that I ate really delicious ice cream two days in a row.

Daring Cooks' March Challenge: Risotto!

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of Melbourne Food Geek and Jess of Jess the Baker.  They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto.  The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from The Australian Masterchef Cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf.

~

Hey guys, I feel awful that I had to post this challenge late (Daring Cooks are supposed to post on the 14th of each month!). I've been so busy that I put it off til the last minute, and then the past few days I've been stricken with a nasty little spring cold.  So, I'm sorry, but I just haven't felt like standing over the stove stirring risotto.  But today, I'm feeling better and am dosed with DayQuil, so I got it done for lunch!

I've been thinking about this dish since I first found out what the challenge was nearly a month ago.  It's a red wine and goat cheese risotto with roasted asparagus.  I really wanted to sear a few nice, fat sea scallops as a protein accompaniment, but that seemed a little overkill for lunch.  So, I went vegetarian (except for the chicken stock).

basic ingredients: Arborio rice, garlic, onion, red wine

 Start by sweating some chopped onion and garlic in a little EVO.  Add the rice and stir to get a nice coat with the olive oil.

Add a generous splash of chicken stock and stir until absorbed.  At first, this will happen pretty quickly.  Although I didn't make it specifically for this challenge, I did use my own homemade stock. Repeat this step with red wine.

 Keep repeating the stock and wine process, stirring continually.  Don't stop stirring for long.

Not there yet!  Keep stirring!

You can stop when the rice has a nice, soft bite.  I probably cooked mine a good 30-40 minutes before adding the goat cheese. 

 cheese makes everything better 

Then, when you think you're done, add a bit more stock and wine for good measure, season with salt and pepper, stir a bit more, and you're probably good to go.

 creamy goodness

As for the asparagus, just a toss with some EVO, salt and pepper, and into the oven it goes on a baking sheet at 425 until the tips brown.  Sprinkle with a bit of lemon juice and yer done.

 

 Delicious! Thanks for the new plate, Margaret!

Tim's Birthday Feast

I've got to start this post by apologizing for the annoying gap between posts! I've been super-busy this week, which is no excuse, so here is a nice long one for those of you who've been so loyally keeping up with my little blog.

 

The lineup

My buddy Tim celebrated his 25th birthday this past weekend.  Much to my dismay, I had to work Sunday night, so I was unable to join our little group of friends at Charleston Grill.  So, I promised him that our next day off together we would get together and cook a big feast. 

We didn't really have a plan for what we wanted to eat, so we shopped around until we found something we liked.  We ended up with a pork loin roast, which is kind of silly because the last time we cooked we did a pork roast too.  But, they're good, and affordable, and can feed several people at once.

We decided to rub the roast down with a paste of finely minced garlic and rosemary, salt, and pepper.

 All rubbed down.

Then, we seared it to give it a nice head start on the browning process.

  Onion bed.

So, in the oven it went, and we got started with a fun game of Apples to Apples, which always seems to get broken out when this particular group of kids gets together.  While everyone got started playing, Tim and I puttered around in the kitchen and whipped up some Caesar salads.

I love a good Caesar salad.

Tim's girlfriend, Amanda, got started on a kickass risotto, made with lots of chicken stock and wine.

 Tim was a big helper.

When we got closer to eating, we made some green beans with bacon (one of my favorite things to throw together)...

  Bacon makes everything better.

...and some carrots with chile and mint, inspired by this recipe from the March 2010 issue of Bon Appetit magazine.  We didn't roast them because the pork was roasted.  Instead, we blanched them and sauteed them with butter, mint, and crushed red pepper.

Carrots are good for you.

Finally, it was time to eat.  I'm not gonna lie, we managed to overcook the pork, because, well, you saw the wine lineup.  So we threw together a simple red wine-pan sauce-reduction-type-thing for a little moisture, and it tasted fine.  Granted, the pork could have been a little more on the medium-rare side for us foodie restaurant kids, but the taste was there.

 

 Mmm.

It was all good, but I've gotta give it to Amanda- the risotto was outstanding.  She stirred it the entire time- I don't have that kind of dedication.  But it was sooo creamy- and it didn't have a drop of cream or milk in it (one thing we forgot at the store)!

Happy birthday Timmy!

And now for the post-dinner, full-belly, wine-drunk pictures that everyone will just love that I posted:

Patrick, Cindy, Tim

Amanda, me, Brandon  

Let's not forget sweet Stella.

 She was so GOOD the whole time!

Mmmkay so that's about all I've got. Cheers to Timmy on his quarter-century!