Three more delicious festivals to mark down on your calendar:
Pebble Beach Food & Wine, April 12-15
East Coast and West Coast seafood masters unite when New York’s Dave Pasternack and Las Vegas’ Paul Bartolotta team up for an Italian dinner. French icon Jacques Pepin takes you through six decades of his “culinary magic.” Terrific Texas chefs including Dean Fearing and Tim Love offer their rarefied takes on comfort food. An ultra-decadent “Farewell to Foie Gras” lunch where chefs including San Francisco offal master Chris Cosentino stuff you with the fatty liver that’s become taboo in some areas. An “Iron Chef” dinner with Masaharu Morimoto, Michael Symon and the newly crowned Geoffrey Zakarian. That’s just a handful of the many reasons to hit the fifth edition of this West Coast extravaganza. (pebblebeachfoodandwine.com)
Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, May 10-13
Alabama’s Chris Lilly hosts what promises to be a raucous barbecue bash with nearly 70 chefs and four mixologists. John Besh joins four other chefs for a dinner celebrating New Orleans’ international influences. And, of course, what’s a Southern-region food festival without South Carolina’s Sean Brock (creating a dish from his hometown) and Georgia’s Hugh Acheson (participating in a lamb dinner with “Top Chef” finalist Bryan Voltaggio and more)? (atlfoodandwinefestival.com)
Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, June 15-17
It’s the 30th year of this original gangster food festival. And the lineup is, not surprisingly, stacked. Gail Simmons (author of the new “Talking With My Mouth Full”) and fellow “Top Chef” judge Tom Colicchio host a “‘Top Chef’: Salty & Sweet” seminar. PDT’s Jim Meehan and lovably indefatigable Food & Wine magazine restaurant editor Kate Krader shake it up at seminars about cocktail classics. Best Cellars founder Josh Wesson, who now has his own retail and restaurant incubator, is around if you care less about mixology and more about wine. And, oh yeah, Bobby Flay, Giada De Laurentiis, Emeril Lagasse, Mario Batali, Andrew Zimmern, Rick Bayless, Grant Achatz, Thomas Keller, Spike Mendelsohn, Danny Meyer, Marcus Samuelsson, Ming Tsai, Jacques Pepin, Stephanie Izard, Johnny Iuzzini, Andrea Robinson and Paul Grieco are here too to keep things savory, spicy, sweet, red, white and bubbly. (foodandwine.com/classic)