Los Angeles Food and Wine Festival Part 1

I had the opportunity to go to 3 nights of the LA Food & Wine Fest courtesy of Eater LA.  I entered the "poem" contest and actually won (see below)! Woohoo!  My prizes were tickets to the red carpet arrival event, featuring over 100 wines and food from about 25 celebrated chefs, tickets to the after party at Lucky Strike: "Pigs, Pins & Pinot", tickets to "Heat", the second day after party, and "Decadence" on the third night hosted by Wolfgang Puck's pastry queen extraordinaire, Sherry Yard. I met some of my chef idols and took pics of me grinning like a idiot next to Morimoto.

Thanks, EaterLa!  I had a blast!

Red Carpet Arrivals

Beef brisket sandwich and a thyme infused cosmo? Yes, please!

Food & Wine's best new chef  award winner Ricardo Zarate!!  He made an amazing alpaca crostini. If you haven't been to his restaurants, Picca or Mo Chica, you MUST!  I knew 4 years ago when we worked together at a little Japanese restaurant he would be great. Congrats, Ricardo! 

Daniel Boulud and his amazing charcuterie

yes, some of those has been bitten into already. I have a hard time waiting....

Iron Chef Morimoto needs no introduction

Chris Cosentino & Michael Cimarusti laughing as they make comments about "sandwiching me" Oooooh chef humor.

Such a gentleman, Hubert Keller....

In HEAVEN.



My entry:

Ode to LA Food & Wine

In a town known for being scandalous,

We go by the name Los Angeles.

In La, we got all kind of spots,

Son of a Gun, Mozza are the ones that's hot

Fresh produce, root veg, gotta love the yam

Gjelina's vegetables make me say, "hot damn!"

We eat food produced by the local farms,

Jitlada's in my mouth setting off alarms.

Beef, fish and pork of any cut

Tail, tongue, the shoulder and of course the butt.

Good wine to us is just like a ballad

Pair a nice white wine with a quinoa salad.

In LA, we know the way to eat

Sippin wine til we buzzed falling off the seat.

Friends saying, "Too much and you get sick, yo".

That's ok, spend my day watching Colicchio.

So many great choices for one lil chica,

Down a frothy pisco over at Picca.

Hot chefs, good food yeah we know the deal,

Los Angeles will host my very last meal.