Category Archives: Enticing Events

Scenes From Star Chefs & Vintners Gala

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Tasmanian ocean trout with potato rosti and quail egg

Take 80 of the Bay Area’s celebrated chefs and 76 top vintners. Put them together in one venue, and what you have is the 22nd annual Star Chefs & Vintners Gala last Sunday at San Francisco’s Fort Mason.

The lavish event is the main annual fund-raiser for Meals on Wheels, which provides more than 16,000 meals each week to homebound seniors in San Francisco. Yours truly was invited as a guest to enjoy the festivities that featured almost every well-known chef imaginable — from Chris Consentino of Incanto in San Francisco to Maggie Pond of Cesar in Berkeley to Daniel Patterson of Coi in San Francisco to Charles Phan of the Slanted Door in San Francisco to Richard Reddington of Redd in Yountville. For the sixth year in a row, Chef Nancy Oakes of Boulevard in San Francisco was the gala head chef.

Rabbit terrine with pickled ramp salsa

The $400-per-person gala started off with a walk-around reception, where 40 chefs doled out specialty hors d’oeuvres throughout the cavernous hall.

Saddle of lamb with shelling beans and foraged mushrooms

Hiro Sone and Lissa Doumani of Ame in San Francisco set up their popular Nagashi somen station. Made of bamboo and looking a little like an amusement park game, you “catch” your somen with a small sieve as a tangle comes shooting down a bamboo trough flowing with water.

Catch your somen if you can.

You didn’t have to worry about missing, either. Doumani stood at the ready with her own handled basket to catch it if you didn’t. Once you nabbed your somen, you transferred it to a small cup filled with dashi, chopped ahi, salmon eggs, and konbu slivers to enjoy.

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Events To Drink To

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Renowned restaurateur and winemaker, Joe Bastianich, comes to San Francisco. (Photo courtesy of Joe Bastianich)

Restaurateur (with Mario Batali), son of Lydia, winemaker, and author, Joe Bastianich will hold court in San Francisco May 20 for two delicious events.

First up, 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., Bastianich (whose restaurants include Del Posto in New York; B&B Ristorante in Las Vegas; and Pizzeria and Osteria Mozza, both in Los Angeles) will host a talk, tasting, and book signing at Spuntino di Ottimista on Union Street in San Francisco.  Enjoy tastes of his wines from the Bastianich and La Mozza labels, as he signs copies of his book, “Vino Italiano” (Clarkson Potter). Price for the event is $20.

Next, join him at Ottimista Enoteca-Café across the way. This wine dinner also will feature Chrystal Clifton of Palmina, the Santa Barbara winery that specializes in Italian varietals.

This is a six-course dinner, in which every course will be paired with a Bastianich and a Palmina wine of the same varietal. Price is $100 per person.

An array of fresh shellfish at Waterbar. (Photo courtesy of Val Atkinson)

On Monday nights at San Francisco’s Waterbar restaurant, indulge in the “Shellfish & Champagne” special. For $60 per person, enjoy a three-course prix fixe dinner featuring shellfish, and accompanied by three sparkling wine selections. The menu will change weekly.

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Free Scoop Day

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(Photo courtesy of Haagen-Dazs)

Drop by any participating Haagen-Dazs store, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. May 12, for a free scoop of any “bee-built” flavor.

Don’t worry, that’s not ice cream with bees mixed into it. Rather, it’s ice cream flavors made with ingredients that bees help pollinate.

As you may know, one in three bee colonies in the United States has mysteriously vanished over the past few years. Bees are essential to our food supply, as they are responsible for pollinating one-third of it.

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Duckathlon Leftovers

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Following the trail of the ducks.....

For those who couldn’t get enough of the wild and woolly Duckathlon held last Sunday in New York, here are a few more pics to entertain your peepers.

As you recall from my original post on the crazy event, this was the fifth annual Duckathlon, hosted once again by D’Artagnan. Teams of chefs from some of New York’s most celebrated restaurants competed in the most off-the-wall events ever conceived to garner the title of Top Duck.

The Pluckemin Inn’s sardonic T-shirts:

The BLT Steak team attempts to “Put the Piggie Together Again.”

Team DB Bistro Moderne competes in “What the Fork?” — in which chefs have to make mayonnaise by whipping oil and egg yolks with a barbecue fork. Yeah, you try that at home.

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Scenes From New York’s James Beard Gala

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Women chefs in the opening parade of chefs.

Monday night, the country’s most celebrated chefs traded their whites for black-tie (though Mario Batali still wore his trademark orange clogs) for the Oscars of the food world, the James Beard Foundation Awards.

Renowned chefs and big-name cookbook authors walked the red carpet leading up to Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. As the lights dimmed, a bevy of the country’s most talented women chefs took their bows in a salute to this year’s theme, “Women in Food.”  As they retreated back to the lobby to finish prepping the show-stopping food they would be serving after the ceremony, co-hosts, actor Stanley Tucci, restaurateur Lidia Matticchio Bastianich, and a very pregnant Cat Cora  of “Iron Chef America” took the stage. Cora, who is expecting a baby boy any day now, joked she had been craving chocolate big-time lately.

Celeb Chef Mario Batali.

As a judge for the cookbook awards this year, I was invited to be a guest at this year’s festivities.

The Bay Area contingent applauded ecstatically when the first big award of the evening was announced: “Rising Star Chef Award” for the most promising chef of the year under age 30. It went to Nate Appleman of A16 in San Francisco.

An elated Nate Appleman of San Francisco's A16.

Chef Douglas Keane of Cyrus in Healdsburg took home the “Best Chef Pacific” award.

A victorious Douglas Keane and his wife, Leal.

San Francisco’s Yank Sing restaurant was honored with “An American Classic” award. Dan Barber of Blue Hill in New York pocketed the “Outstanding Chef” award. Jean Georges won the “Outsanding Restaurant” honors.”

Jeans-Georges Vongerichten accepts his award.

Best New Restaurant” went to the impossible-to-get-into, 12-seat Momofuku Ko in New York.

David Chang of Momofuku Ko. (center)

Daniel Boulud’s chic Daniel restaurant won for “Outstanding Service.”

Daniel Boulud (center).

Gina DePalma, pastry chef of Babbo in New York, had been nominated six times before and come away empty-handed.

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