Top toques like Paul Qui (Uchi), Susan Feniger and Andrew Zimmern (Food Network), along with wine luminaries including Houston-born Ray Isle (Food & Wine Magazine wine editor), left their talented mark on Austin this past weekend among hundreds of adoring fans, hard-core foodies and national media at the Austin Food & Wine Festival sponsored by Food & Wine magazine and HEB. Dozens of fabulous wine, beer and spirits producers were on hand pouring samples along with Texas restaurants and food producers.
Here are some of the tasty highlights:
Chef Tim Love, owner of The Lonesome Dove in Fort Worth, has a heavy following for his freewheeling personality and smoking-hot expertise: “If you cut the meat right, you’ll be a bad ass.” Throngs of students stood in Love’s backyard hands-on grilling pavilion at Butler Park with their own Weber grills turning out grilled asparagus, chops and juicy steaks. At his Tailgate Time class, they parted with a few tequila shots.
Among the food truck vendors, a highlight was the Veuve Clicquot Airstream bubbling over with Champagne – the only way to travel, I’d say. They even provided pretty VC paper fans for fanning thyself in the 80-degree weather. Oh, my!
Beloved celeb-chef and author Susan Feniger (photo below) graced the grounds with a cooking class and book-signing of her newest, Street Foods. She then competed in Rock Your Taco along with celeb chefs Marcus Samuelsson, Marc Murphy, local Austin chefs David Bull, Rene Ortiz and others. Yet again, chef Tyson Cole of Uchi took home the gold for favorite taco, deemed by a panel of judges including Adam Richmond of the Travel Channel’s Man Vs. Food.
Houston chefs Terrance Gallivan and Seth Siegel-Gardner (photo below) of The Pass & Provisions dished outrageousness at the Taste of Texas kick-off event Friday night by way of their bone marrow-stuffed brioche. The Friday night event was heavy on Houston chefs, including Danny Trace of Brennan’s, Chris Shepherd of Underbelly and Jamie Zelko (photo at left) of Zelko Bistro. Jamie served a salad and gorgeous fruit and cheese display including Height’s Honeybee Project’s sweet and gooey honeycomb.
At the Spring Into Wine seminar with Ray Isle, the savvy, sharp and frequently hilarious Isle led captivated wine lovers to the perfect global repertoire of crisp whites, sensational French and California roses and reds (tip: chill those reds before serving) for warm days. “Everyone knows how to drink wine, right? But to taste wine, you have to think about it,” says Isle.
Author and chef of Barbuto New York, Jonathan Waxman (photo at left), cooked up a Lotta Lobster at his demo on Sunday at Butler Park. “Contrary to popular belief, lobster is not endangered; there are lots out there,” he says. He enlightened drooling guests on a few unconventional ways to cook the king of crustaceans.
Andrew Zimmern (photo at left) rubbed shoulders with the hungry crowd at the Taste of Texas kick-off on Friday night. The next day, he taught guests at the HEB Pavilion how to cook Wild Birds Three Ways in one of the ultra slick kitchen build-outs by Kitchen Aid. Awesome set-ups by the talented event team at C3 Presents.
photos by Robin Barr Sussman, Taylor Byrne Dodge and Austin Food & Wine Festival
