The next Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, June 15–17, 2012, will be a 30th anniversary blowout, and tickets are now on sale. Among the all-star tastings, cooking demos and chances to meet chefs—everyone from Jacques Pépin to Giada De Laurentiis—Bobby Flay will host a seminar titled “Parisian Flair, American Flavors.” Here, Flay bakes Honey Mustard Chicken as the centerpiece for a traditional Southern meal with a little French touch: Dijon mustard. He also puts fresh goat cheese in the accompanying grits.

 

Related: Food & Wine Classic in Aspen 2012 
Bobby Flay Recipes
Christmas Recipes

One of my favorite parts of my job is chatting with chefs like Michel Nischan, founder of Wholesome Wave and chef at Dressing Room in Westport, Connecticut. Nischan will be discussing his commitment to sustainability in the kitchen at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen next week, and he recently shared shared his smart and simple approach to eco-friendly cooking at home:

 

“I like to cook everything out of one vessel. That way, you’re minimizing dish soap, water and fuel energy—things that have a hidden impact on our environment. A good cast-iron pan is very eco-friendly because it lasts forever and uses heat very efficiently. I start by frying very thinly shaved garlic chips, then sautéing onions and kale. I scoot the kale aside and move the pan half off the heat, and then sear chicken or rabbit on the hot side of the skillet. You can do the same thing with a roasting pan: Roast something and keep adding vegetables and starches at different times throughout the process. That’s how really great cooks cooked a century ago because they only had one cooking vessel. We need to move forward by looking back. It takes longer, but my belief is if you take a little bit longer to get from start to finish, and you’re standing over one pot, smelling the food and watching it develop, it makes you hungrier and you’re more in touch with the dish when it’s finished. That’s what brings true joy to cooking.”

This past Saturday marked the first-ever TEDx Manhattan: Changing the Way We Eat, a conference devoted to sustainable-food issues. The daylong series of 18-minute talks covered topics ranging from how farmers in Illinois are dealing with the environmental impact of industrial dairies to how organizations like the Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger are creating amazingly productive community gardens. Elizabeth Meltz, an exuberant former cook who oversees food safety and sustainability for Mario Batali's restaurant group, talked about the challenge of educating the staff about green practices: "We can barely get them not to throw out the silverware." Michel Nischan of the Dressing Room Restaurant in Westport, Connecticut, described the efforts of his nonprofit, Wholesome Wave, to make produce accessible and affordable in poor communities. Food & Wine proudly supports Wholesome Wave, and we're raising money now with these awesome Green Passes to the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen this June.

How many highlights do I have from this year’s Classic? A million. They won’t all fit here. But there were a few brand-new experiences that I hope become key to all Classics.

Private Bombardier Jet to Aspen
All I’ll say is that if you want to make the flight to Aspen one of your highlights, this is how to do it. See if Tom Colicchio, Dave Chang, Morimoto, Jacques Pépin, Joe Bastianich, Drew Nieporent  and Momofuku Milk Bar’s Christina Tosi can come, too. And make sure you’re open to drinking some Dom Pérignon.

Jean-Louis Chave Tasting
The legendary Rhône winemaker came to Aspen for the first time. And he brought his 2000 Hermitage Blanc and 2004 Hermitage Rouge with him (plus several other outstanding vintages). It was so extraordinary that Best New Chef 2010 Jonathon Sawyer had to be there—even though his BNC dinner was just two hours away.

Mario Batali’s Best of Ligurian Cooking/Charity Demo
So, Mario’s demos are always the best. But this year, he closed it out with an unprecedented double fund-raising event. KitchenAid auctioned off Batali-signed mixers in part for their Cook for the Cure (which supports the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation), and also for Batali’s newest cause: Help for Jose, which is raising money for his employee Jose Mendoza, who lost both his legs in a subway accident. (The good news: It’s not too late to send messages to Jose or to donate to the cause.)

I have a countdown going to Mario Batali’s T-Bones & Tequila party on June 17 at the upcoming F&W Classic in Aspen 2010 (as I write this, it’s T-minus 10 days and 2 hours, counting the MT time change). I’m especially excited because Mario just told me more details about the party, which benefits the Mario Batali Foundation to keep kids well fed, well read and well cared for. Among the crazy highlights: Mario’s business partner Joe Bastianich performing Springsteen songs with Tom Colicchio. Hurry up June 17, hurry up.

Mario says: “We will be eating killer T-bones donated by my pal Pat LaFrieda, and we will have the traditional white beans al fiasco, killer bruschetta and nontraditional Milagro tequila shots. Joe will be playing with Tom Collicchio; they’ll play some of my fave jam-band songs à la “Sugaree” by the Dead and “Rosalita” by Springsteen. Cool, right?”

There are two things that top my wish list for F&W’s upcoming Classic in Aspen 2010. The first is to party with Mario Batali. The second is to try and do something charitable in the middle of all the ridiculous chefs’ demos and wine tastings and general craziness. Well, Mario’s making this very easy for me this year by hosting his second annual T-Bones & Tequila party on Thursday, June 17, to benefit the Mario Batali Foundation for kids. (“I’m excited to be kicking off the Aspen Food & Wine Classic with my kick-ass party,” he says.) Basically, it’s going to be the ultimate house party, and here’s why:

1. It features some of Mario’s best Italian grilling recipes. (Maybe, just maybe, he’ll preview some dishes from his upcoming Eataly market in NYC.)
2. It’s got all kinds of tequila drinks and a tequila-tasting bar.
3. It boasts a musical performance by the inimitable Joe Bastianich, Mario’s business partner and resident wine genius.
4. It takes place at the impossible-to-get-into Two Twelve house.
5. It benefits MBF, Mario’s excellent foundation, which works to ensure that kids are well read, well fed and well cared for.

Tax-deductible tickets for Mario's excellent party are $175. They’re available at mariobatalifoundation.org or by calling 630-618-4756.

My cousin co-owns a tattoo studio in Brooklyn and is always telling me about how he has an unusually high number of customers who are chefs. His theory: “Chefs are extremely passionate about what they do—and anyone who loves something deeply will get tattooed to express that love or passion.” Just look at Food & Wine’s 2009 Best New Chefs for proof. At the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, Riesling fanatics (including myself and colleague Kristin Donnelly) were rocking giant Riesling tattoos to show our love for the wine.

Other obsessive eaters who have been inked with their favorite foods can enter Sonoma County's first Food and Wine Tattoo Contest. Entrants submit a photo of their coolest food- or wine-themed tattoo here and the public votes online. The grand prize: a year’s worth of bacon from Zazu restaurant.

 

 

Bored with plain water and in need of nonalcoholic liquids to help me get over the post-Aspen cold that's knocked out several F&W editors this week (possibly from late-night parties at 212 House), I stopped by Green Canteen, the first restaurant to become LEED certified in New York. After a fragrant house-made ginger soda and a peanut butter-banana milk shake, I'm on the mend and ready for more drinks. Here are a few I'll make this summer, whether I'm sick or just hot:

Gingery Fuji Apple Soda (above)
Rhubarb Soda
Green Tea Soda
Almond-Tea Milk Shakes
Prune Whip Shakes

It isn’t all wine and meat here at the F&W Aspen Classic: at the Tasting Tent I was glad to find Amano Chocolates’ new single-origin milk chocolate bars, and to meet founder Art Pollard. I got to write about Pollard for F&W Across America: Salt Lake City, but we’d only spoken by phone. It’s sort of like meeting the Ferran Adria of chocolate: while he’s a little more soft-spoken than the Catalan crusader, he’s got a similar magnetic enthusiasm for his work that left me convinced I should eat and think about chocolate all day like he does. In fact, in another life I would like to be him: the chocolatier not only builds (and launches) rockets for a hobby, but he travels all over Venezuela, Madagascar and more recently, Indonesia and Ecuador, hunting for beans. He’s just found one that yields a distinctive flavor never tasted before in chocolate; he says that one should be out in bar form soon. Meantime, to tide us over we have his licorice-tinted Jembrana milk chocolate from Bali and—for all the meat lovers—the milk version of the mildly bacony Venezuelan Ocumare.

I’m in the midst of a wine tasting marathon. I’ve gone from the elegant, aromatic red Burgundies of Domaine Dujac to the weightier, more fruit-driven Pinot Noir from Sonoma County. Next up: A flight of Barolo from legendary estate Giacomo Conterno. More details will come on all these wines later, but one of the most fun parts of my day was learning that winemaker Jamie Kutch proposed to his wife, Kristen, in 2005, during their first harvest, after eight years of dating. He set the ring on the sorting table and sent it down her way. Luckily, she found it and the rest is history. Actually, the young couple is just at the beginning of something exciting: The 2007 Kutch Pinot Noirs are exceptionally balanced, pure, fresh wines with relatively low levels of alcohol (below 13.5%). Perhaps it’s because Jamie honed his palate in New York City with some of the East Coast’s most vocal wine geeks who champion finesse over power (including Lyle Fass of RockssandFruit fame and a former coworker of mine). Jamie makes a very small amount of wine but is hoping to eventually amp up his production to 2000 cases. I encourage any Pinot lover to get in on these wines now--before they're even more impossible to get.