Monday, September 5, 2011

The Taste with Giada

(sarah, giada de laurentiis, me)

We attended The Taste event yesterday in Beverly Hills, hosted by Giada De Laurentiis. To highlight the Labor Day holiday, the theme was "picnic in the hills," which translated to picnic/BBQ food, blankets and pillows set out for picnicking, and a make your own lemonade stand. There were also dozens of wineries, breweries, and distilleries pouring unlimited tastes for all the attendees. We kept returning to the Justin Vineyards stand since they brought a few cases of their delicious Isosceles with them.

(picnic benches and blankets)

We bought tickets through Gilt City and were able to walk in 30 minutes before everyone else. This was huge! We scoured the stands before all the crowds and were able to grab samples from pretty much everywhere we wanted to. We felt the repercussions when food coma set in at around 2pm, partially due to the heat but mostly because we ate about 75% of the plates available.


(FIG's ray garcia)

The event had cooking demos, interviews with chefs, and wine tastings in the demo tents throughout the day. We attended Ray Garcia's (FIG restaurant) homemade mozzarella and panzanella salad cooking demo. We were shocked at how simple it is to make homemade mozzarella at home - 1) buy cheese curds from a local cheese store or online source 2) cover cheese churds with 150 degree water for about a minute or so 3) drain the cheese curds 4) pull cheese curds with very clean hands until it gets to a consistency you're satisfied with 5) form into mozzarella ball and store in water.

Yes, we will be making homemade cheese soon :)

The food highlights:

(honeycomb polenta, mole braised short rib, carrot, cauliflower, and quail egg; Inn of the Seventh Ray)

(chopped salad, bacon, croutons, egg, dijon vinaigrette; Pizzeria Antica)

(corn bread muffins, blueberry compote, whipped cream; Huckleberry)

(belgian waffle; Waffles de Liege)

(iced hot chocolate; Richard Ruskell of the Montage)

(burrata crostini, grilled grapes; BLD/Grace)

(lasagna with meat ragu and fried spinach; Angelini Osteria)

1 comment:

  1. I am beyond jealous that you have a picture with Giada! What was she like? Was her daughter and cute hubby there?

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