Crazy things happen in Aspen during the week of the Food & Wine Classic, even when you’re not at official events. It’s Saturday afternoon. We’ve left the grand tasting tents (where 2012 Best New Chefs Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi served raw fluke Americain, one of the antipasti from their 20-course Torrisi Italian Specialties tasting menu) and wandered to the weekly farmers market.
There’s a booth with two ridiculously cute alpacas — not for eating, just for petting — and a crowd is swarming. The group running the booth is Eden Vardy’s Aspen T.R.E.E., which has a camp that teaches children about sustainable living and farming. Adults are also welcome for tours.
Vardy recently purchased a new toy for Aspen T.R.E.E.: a parabolic solar cooker, which looks like a satellite dish, with a spot in the center for a pan. This contraption, Vardy says, isn’t so different from a stove. We have to call his bluff, so we buy a steak from the adjacent Crystal River Meats booth and also grab some onions and heirloom tomatoes.
The steak quickly sizzles in our pan. OK, it works. And this is more fun than cooking on a stove. An even bigger crowd swarms. Many are concerned that we’re cooking alpaca meat. They relax when they learn that’s not the case. Then one passerby takes a keen interest in our steak.
It’s meat master Michael Sullivan, who runs the charcuterie program at Blackberry Farm, a food-focused luxury resort on 4,200 acres in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains. One day earlier, Sullivan and his excellent cured meats, including a 2 ½-year aged ham, were at an event that introduced three Blackberry Farm small-batch beers.
But today, he’s the guy squeezing our steak and telling us that we want it rare but should cook it a little longer. Then he slices it for us, and we share pieces with the crowd, including nose-to-tail chef John Fink of San Francisco’s The Whole Beast catering company.
The scene is insane — Sullivan’s actual nickname is The Reverend of Fat. This is like standing on the street making sushi for the first time and having Masa Takayama show up, give you tips and then start carving raw tuna to show you how it’s done. But also, we are grilling premium meats (we got some sausages from Crystal River, too) on something that looks like a satellite dish.
You can try it yourself at Aspen T.R.E.E., but let’s be clear: Although chefs we ran into including Boston nose-to-tail maven Jamie Bissonnette (who’s soon opening a New York outpost of his popular tapas joint Toro in the same building as Del Posto and Colicchio & Sons) and LA Peruvian food king Ricardo Zarate (who just opened his new rendition of Mo-Chica) had recipes in mind when they saw the alpacas, Vardy isn’t giving them up for consumption.
Around the festival
* Food & Wine and Aspen’s St. Regis have partnered on the new Chefs Club restaurant. Every six months the menu will change, with contributions from four Best New Chef winners. George Mendes of New York’s Aldea, James Lewis of Birmingham, AL‘s Bettola, Alex Seidel of Denver’s Fruition and Sue Zemanick of New Orleans’ Gautreau’s are up first.
* Chefs all over the festival went ham all weekend.
At the Casa Dragones party on the Dancing Bear rooftop, which drew a crowd including Thomas Keller, Grant Achatz and Bobby Flay, revelers sipped the $275-a-bottle tequila while co-hosts George Mendes, Sean Brock and Linton Hopkins took turns slicing a smoked Edwards ham from Virginia.
The luxury ingredient of the festival, though, was clearly iberico pork.
At Paul Grieco’s Summer of Riesling house party, Ricardo Zarate smartly positioned himself in the kitchen next to all the iberico ham (”This is pata negra!” he said joyfully.) while Marcus Samuelsson took pictures of all the wine bottles with his phone and chatted with Geoffrey Zakarian.
At the Chefs Club opening party at the St. Regis, Mendes sliced pata negra de bellota, what he called “an awesome iberico ham.”
But nobody went as iberico mad as José Andrés, who took over a mountain mansion (listed for $26.9 million if you’re in the market) for the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and Wines of Spain party. There was plenty of cured porky goodness there, of course, but it was the iberico short ribs that had many waiting patiently for seconds and thirds.
And a couple nights later, Andrés was at the festival’s 30th anniversary party and Elvis Costello concert. “It’s worth the wait!” Andres shouted to the people in line for his iberico ham topped with Spanish sturgeon caviar. Nobody argued.
* What happens when you’re Thomas Keller and show up at the Macallan party? They break out the 64-year scotch just for you. Everybody else seemed fine settling for the 18-year and the 25-year.
* How much of a perfectionist is Grant Achatz of Chicago’s Next? The man who changes his menu every three months and sells seemingly impossible-to-get online tickets for his restaurant has a quite specific troubleshooting policy for his staff: “If there’s any food left on the plate, you bring it right to me.”
During an American Express Restaurant Trade Program panel, Achatz told the crowd that it’s crucial for his staff to ask customers for feedback about dishes, especially ones they don’t finish. Sometimes, Achatz, known for keeping diners in his restaurant for three hours or more, is told, “Chef, they’re getting full.” But often, he discovers something he should tweak.
* Three memorable bites at the Grand Tasting: Jenn Louis, the 2012 Best New Chef from Portland’s Lincoln restaurant, served grilled octopus with fennel, arugula, oil-cured olives and pimenton. Chris Ford, who makes desserts at Michael Mina’s Wit & Wisdom in Baltimore and won the 2012 reader’s poll for Best New Pastry Chef, served pistachio rocky road pudding in the Godiva Parlour. Edward Lee, the “Top Chef” contestant who runs 610 Magnolia in Louisville, KY, served seafood sausage at the Red Boat Fish Sauce booth. A Vietnamese, anchovy-based sauce might not seem like an everyday household condiment, but Lee’s bold flavors and passion for it make a strong case for why it should be.
* Mike Isabella, the “Top Chef” contestant behind Washington D.C.’s Graffiato, knew exactly what to pair with the cocktails on tap (including a refreshing punch) at the Patron party: shrimp pizza, sausage pizza, crab tacos. Elevated bar food at its best.
* Our favorite plate at the post-Classic Grand Cochon heritage-pork throwdown was Jamie Bissonnette’s delightfully funky Asian rice bowl, with pig-face croutons and fried pork bones as sides. (He had some serious help at his station, including “Top Chef” alums Lee Anne Wong and Jen Carroll.) Bissonnette’s food was, as mixology maven Elad Zvi of Miami’s Broken Shaker noted, “the most complete plate for sure” at Grand Cochon. Our favorite Grand Cochon moment, though, was watching John Fink’s look of absolute triumph and glee holding up a pig carcass during a butchering demo. These men love their meat.
* Sarah Grueneberg of Chicago’s Spiaggia and “Top Chef” threw what was billed to us as a “pretty chill” house party. Of course, pretty chill on a week like this meant grilled shrimp and salmon, lamb, soft-shell crabs and, not surprisingly, a spectacular pasta: fusilloro with dandelion greens, bacon, English peas, tomatoes, goat butter and ricotta salata. Ted Diamantis of Diamond Importers co-hosted the all-were-welcome bash (both Gruenenberg and Diamantis tweeted public invites), and guests drank gorgeous Greek wines and planned their next adventures together. Burning Man was mentioned more than once.
* Which Best New Chef might have a navel fetish? The line he used on one industry gal: “I want to make out with your belly button.”