I had no idea what we were preparing, or even what the demo was supposed to be about, and we had to fill sixty minutes of possible silence. As I felt the terror rising inside me, wondering why on earth I agreed to this, a good friend had the presence of mind snap me back into place. “Mike, here, you look like you need this, and remember we have two cases.”
Ahhh, tequila. A plan forms. I turn to Chef Landry, “Brian just get the first dish together and start cooking, I’m gonna stall them till you’re ready to speak.” I took another shot, shook off the daze and just opened my mouth hoping for the best.

I’m not exactly sure how we did it over the next hour, but we succeeded in getting the crowd to help us polish off the two cases. I spent a good portion preaching the good news of being a born-and-raised New Orleanian who spent his summers on the Gulf coast fishing and crabbing. The rest was spent heckling poor Chef Brian as he tried to actually be a professional, lead a cooking class and show people true technique. Something must have gone right, because by the end, the crowd was cheering and clapping as we handed out servings of oyster pasta and roasted pompano.

As I came down off the stage, and down off the surge of alcohol and charged adrenaline brought on from standing in front of a rapt audience for what ended up being eighty minutes, I realized I still had a long day and night ahead of me. There was only one way – gotta keep it going. Pulling from years of experience waking up at 7am to get to the Mardi Gras day parades with my family, starting with mimosas, fried eggs and grits, moving on to King Cakes and hard liquor around noon and finishing at 2am with duck and oyster gumbo with beer, I knew I could do it. I stashed the last bottle of tequila in my knife-bag; it was already time for us to get across town to start prepping for our New Orleans themed dinner.

The next four hours were spent in close company with an amazing team: Chefs John Currence, Kelly Fields, Brian Landry and Alon Shaya. Alon had missed the demo so we spent most of the time trying to catch him up with shots. Chef Currence, for one reason or another, was already pretty well liquored, but gladly jumped in round for round. I sliced nearly 400 paper thin discs of slow-cooked calves head roulade on a deli slicer. I still have all my fingers – don’t know how I accomplished that.

Alcohol, when consumed over the course of a day, has a tendency to speed up time. Before long the guests were arriving and we were sending out platter after platter of hors d’oeuvres. The next moment, I am standing in front of a group of diners waxing nostalgic about how I grew up eating hogs-head cheese on triscuits, and how it inspired the dish I prepared for them.

Flash forward two courses as Alon runs to me, visibly shaken, “Mike, we’re in trouble!” 30-second pause, evidently time has not sped up, I have slowed down. I stare questioningly. “Someone shut off all the equipment and the entrees are fired!” It’s an open kitchen, all of this is happening in front of the guests, and I’m sure we are speaking louder than we intend. “Just start talking about the dish!” I said and dashed into the storeroom to grab two large braising pans, I crank the heat and start pouring in olive oil. As Chef Shaya is presenting his course I have taken these beautiful slow-cooked short rib roulades, lovingly stuffed with slow poached eggs and Parmesan, and begun deep-frying them in extra virgin olive oil. As Alon goes in to grab the first roulade so he can start slicing the oil reaches flash point and flames jump up. We didn’t realize till the next day that his eyebrows were mostly gone. He slices, perfect, the eggs are just cooked through, the yolks like custard. A sigh of relief as the entrees go out, and we’re almost there.

Six Stella Artois glasses arrive filled with a dark amber liquid. “This is delicious!” I exclaim. “Of course it is, “ says Chef Currence, as he stares at me incredulously and says, “it’s 20yr Pappy.” “What the hell is it doing served in a beer glass, what’s the matter with you people!” “Look Mike, if you’re gonna get all bent outta shape go ask Mr. Julian, he poured it himself.” My eyes grew wide. “He’s here?!”
A slow pan across the room. It is at this moment that the faces and names of all the Southern food stars sitting in the room, people we had just served, came into focus. I had no idea, in the rush it had all gone unnoticed. And to think I had been up in front of them pontificating about my views and feelings of coming up as a Gulf Coast kid immersed in the surrounding food culture, at multiple times throughout the night. I can only guess that Chef recognized my sudden silence for what it was – awe. “Come on Mike, I’ll introduce you.”

It’s funny that I started the day terrified at the idea of teaching 300 people how to cook a few dishes. As I think about it now, that terror was justified; nothing would be more boring than listening to someone drone on about how to exactly replicate a particular dish. That is certainly not how I cook.

To us Southerners, it is our culture, our way of life, which makes our food entertaining. The stories we share while we cook, the coming together around a pot of gumbo, a platter of fried seafood, or a whole roast pig. It was the same stories I’ve shared with my friends and family that I was now sharing with all of these guests in Atlanta. Not so much a class on cooking but instead an energized revelry of Southern roots and how that affects each person’s view of food. More fights have been started amongst the closest of friends over who boils the best crawfish and who needs to just mind their damn business. To then carry that energy into a dinner surrounded by my peers and betters, mostly betters, to have them graciously lend me their ears while I shared those personal stories, made it so much more than just stressfully trying to get picture perfect plates out of a kitchen. It once again became a communion of friends celebrating the things we’ve come to cherish and what the festival celebrates. And, apparently it must have all tasted okay – because Atlanta Food & Wine has invited me back!

-Chef Michael Gulotta (chef de cuisine, August, New Orleans)

Blackberry Farm sat down with Food and Beverage Director Andy Chabot to find out a few secrets and tidbits about the wine cellar at Blackberry!  Here is what we discovered:

 1.  A lot or a little? We have more than 350 selections of half-bottles from great producers.  It’s perfect for couples wanting to pair different selections with one meal or someone wanting a glass or two.  On the other end of the spectrum we have more than 1,000 magnum selections.  

2.  We display our wines with the most elegant decanters around! Inspired by Martine Saunier, when I first purchased our Ercuis decanters, colleagues gave me flack for their feminine style, but now they’re our most complimented pieces.

Want more secrets? Find out more here… 

With four chefs (John Besh, Ashley Christensen, Kelly English, Duane Nutter), a chocolate maker (Kristen Hard), a mixologist (Neal Bodenheimer), a publicist (Tara Murphy) and a recent culinary graduate (Syrena Johnson, the first scholarship recipient of Chef Besh’s ChefsMove program), we ventured to London to host three events in three days for more than 200 people and to spread the “gospel” of Southern food and drink.  

The hilarity included everything from trying to “import” more than 60 lbs of Anson Mills grits, rice and Sea Island red peas in our luggage; transporting via taxi more than 200 lbs of beef, pork, and seafood and 30 cases of bourbon, Virginia wine, rum, and Sazerac from one location to the next; and trying to explain collard greens to our host chef who happened to be French and quite confused. “What are deez co-laird greens?  I do not know zeez.”   But the fun didn’t stop there. Imagine a six-foot-eight chef trying to sleep in his European twin bed, or all the chefs trying to prep their meals in a 12 x 12 kitchen, or simply the impact of serving bourbon to our tea-drinking British cousins. As one guest put it, “this bourbon is lovely, but I would say quite strong, dears.”

When we started the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival in 2010, our goal was simple:  we wanted to shine a national spotlight on the rich food and beverage traditions of the South from Texas to D.C.  We also had a secondary goal of positioning Atlanta as the gateway to the epicurean South.  As reviews came in following our second Festival in May 2012, including one by award-winning writer Josh Ozersky with TIME and RachelRay.com that called us the “only indispensable food event in the country” and the South the “new gastronomic capital of America,” we knew we were well on our way to achieving our goal.  

But as determined entrepreneurs and proud Southerners, we couldn’t help asking ourselves, “is spreading the ‘gospel’ of Southern food and drink domestically enough of a goal?”  Of course, we answered with a resounding “No, ma’am.”

Driven in part by good business sense (the UK is a leading source of tourists to the U.S., our hometown partner Delta Air Lines had increased its UK presence with the acquisition of 49 percent of Virgin Atlantic, and dozens of international journalists come to our region each year to cover our food and beverage culture) and in part by ego, we set our sights on creating a promotional tour in London: a Southern invasion, if you will.

Working in collaboration with the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Services, the U.S. Embassy in London, Delta Air Lines and Hilton Hotels Worldwide, we managed to pull off what in hindsight seems like an insane feat of three events in three days, including a cocktail reception at the home of the Deputy U.S. Ambassador Barbara Stephenson, who happens to be Southern, a luncheon for British food, beverage, travel and lifestyle media, and a party at a private club for American ex-pats and prospective Festival attendees.  We were also able to squeeze in a little cultural exchange between chef Syrena and the students of British Chef Jaime Oliver’s Fifteen Apprentice program.

Despite a little chaos and navigating foreign surroundings, Southerners should be proud of what our chefs accomplished.  They served beautiful, delicious and inspired dishes, each expressing a special Southern element. From Chef Christensen’s white North Carolina sweet potato soup with pickled “co-lairds” and a quenelle of chicken liver butter, or Chef English’s Mississippi catfish hush puppies, to Kristen Hard’s chocolate cake with chocolate bourbon ganache and peanut brittle glass, unique and enticing dishes were served to perfection.  Each meal was accompanied by a wonderful New Orleans-style cocktails by Neal Bodenheimer, including a classic Sazerac and a Four Roses salted sorghum old-fashioned, or lovely wines from Virginia.  

And the feedback was just as we had dreamed.  Our guests gobbled each bite with oohs and aahs and brief pauses to comment on how “surprising” the food was. “After all,” as one guest remarked, “I thought the South was only fried chicken and barbecue.”  And, when they weren’t eating or drinking, they listened carefully as we extolled the treasures of our region – our exceptional agricultural products, our centuries-old traditions, our unwavering devotion to keeping our region’s food and beverage culture alive and vibrant. We encouraged them to experience a broader view of the South at the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival.  

From dish to commentary, we triumphed.  We came, we saw, we ‘Southernized!’ And if all goes as planned, the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival and the rest of our region should be prepared for a British invasion in May.

Today, Chef Kevin Gillespie shared his personal fried green tomatoes recipe with fans in the Acura tent at the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival to rave reviews. But Kevin is no stranger to great reviews. After taking on the competition on Season 6 of Top Chef, Gillespie returned to his position as Executive Chef at Woodfire Grill in Atlanta prepared to wow.

Fresh, in-season food is a staple at Woodfire, and Kevin wants you to make it a staple in your home. With a couple cookbooks in the works, Gillespie’s recipes will soon be yours to impress friends and family. The first of his books, Fire in my Belly, includes over 120 recipes focused on great ingredients and delicious results worthy of a restaurant kitchen, but easily accomplished in the home.

Acura is excited to grant us all a sneak preview of that amazing fried green tomatoes recipe so your kitchen can be as exciting as the Festival this weekend. So what are you waiting for? Here is Chef Kevin Gillespie’s classic Southern dish with a modern twist, with an introduction from the man himself:

There are as many ways to fry a green tomato as there are to scramble an egg. My granny always dredged them in cornmeal and cooked them in bacon grease. I liked the bacon, but the breading got soggy. I like my fried green tomatoes supercrunchy. You have to crisp them up fast enough so that the tomato doesn’t get mushy. I use flour, egg, and panko bread crumbs for crunch. It’s not traditional. But it works a lot better than anything else I’ve tried. I totally ripped this method off my friends Kevin and Lisa Clark, who run Home Grown restaurant in Atlanta. However, I serve the tomatoes with a creamy, spicy sauce, which is hardly ever done in the South. In this dish, I experimented once again with crossing Southern and Indian cuisine. The spice trade routes naturally bring these two cuisines together. So I made a raita out of whole goat’s milk yogurt spiced up with Indian green chile pickles. The spicy-tart, creamy yogurt works perfectly with the fried green tomatoes. If you can’t find goat’s milk yogurt, use the milder cow’s milk variety. For the Indian chile pickles, try an Indian food market or order them online. Hot mango pickle also works well in a pinch. Or substitute any Indian pickle and add some finely minced jalapeno chile pepper.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Ingredients:

Grapeseed oil (about 2 cups, for frying)
3 baseball-size green tomatoes
Salt and ground black pepper
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 large eggs
1 cup panko bread crumbs, finely ground and sifted
Espelette pepper
Spicy raita (recipe follows)

Directions:

1. Line a platter with paper towels and set aside.

2. Heat a deep skillet over medium-high heat and add 2 inches of oil to the pan. Heat the oil to 350° F. Or heat the oil in a deep fryer to 350° F.

3. Cut the tomatoes into 1/2-inch thick slices and season with salt and pepper. Bread the tomatoes with the flour, egg, and panko, one step at a time. Add the tomatoes to the oil and fry until GBD, about 3 minutes per side. If you’re using a deep fryer, the cooking time will be about 4 minutes total. Transfer the tomatoes to the paper towels and immediately sprinkle with salt, black pepper, and Espelette pepper. Serve with a generous portion of the raita.

Spicy Raita

Ingredients:

3/4 cup plain yogurt, preferably goat’s milk
1 clove garlic
1 carrot, peeled
1 lime
1 tbsp finely chopped spicy Indian green chile pickles
1 tsp dijon mustard
2 tsp cumin seeds

Directions:

1. Spoon the yogurt into a medium mixing bowl. Grate the garlic on a Microplane grater directly into the yogurt. Again, using the Microplane, grate and measure out 3 tablespoons of the carrot and mix it into the yogurt, carrot juice and all. Squeeze 1 tablespoon lime juice into the mixture, then stir in the pickles and mustard.

2. Toast the cumin seeds in a small dry skillet over low heat until they turn a shade darker and develop a deep nutty aroma, about 4 minutes, shaking the pan now and then. Slow toasting gives the cumin a real depth of flavor that releases into the sauce over time. Tilt the cumin from the skillet directly into the yogurt. Let stand for at least a few hours before using. The raita is best made a day in advance so the flavors can fully develop. Store it, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Recipe from Fire in My Belly by Kevin Gillespie/Andrews McMeel Publishing. Fire in My Belly by Kevin Gillespie is available beginning October 9th, 2012. Click here if you wish to preorder your copy.

Their pop-up exhibition features works by artists Ellen Kooi, Matt Collishaw E.V. Day and Rob De Mar who all seamlessly explore the blurred lines between organic and manufactured nature. Get cozy in oversized Fatboy® beanbags while watching Jennifer Steinkamp’s dancing digital tree, which envelops viewers in a site-specific projection of a tree, cycling endlessly through the seasons. The AstroTurf carpet and collection of Pink Snails (pictured here) by international artist collective Cracking Art Group will further suggest that you have stepped into a portal to a world beyond.

21c chefs Michael Paley (of Proof on Main and Garage Bar) and Matt McClure (of 21c Bentonville, opening early 2013) will be serving up what they do best: seasonally inspired food with references to the culinary traditions the American South. Their event and tasting tent menus pay homage to the local farmers, artisanal producers and sustainable agriculture that are at the heart of the 21c food and beverage program.

Born out of a desire to integrate contemporary art into everyday life, 21c Museum Hotels was founded in downtown Louisville, KY in 2006 by contemporary art collectors Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson. Come explore for yourself and discover how 21c is redefining the art of modern Southern hospitality.

Learn more at 21cMuseumHotels.com.

Featured in the Welcome Lounge – The Olivia Mirrored Side Table

Ballard Designs is the official home furnishings sponsor of this year’s Food & Wine Festival and outfitted special areas throughout the event. Their interiors can be seen inside the Welcome Center, Grilling Terrace, Tasting Tent, Connoisseur Lounge & The Pop-Up Restaurant. 

Since its founding in Atlanta in 1983, Ballard Designs has brought a unique combination of exclusive products, trusted design expertise and competitively priced, classically inspired home furnishings to your door. In addition to online and retail stores, a full-color catalog is published monthly, with over 50 million copies circulated throughout the U.S. each year. Traveling the world in search of inspiration and obsessing over the smallest details helps us to ensure that every piece that we produce embodies Ballard’s guaranteed quality and exceptional value.

Featured in the Tasting Tent – A Mix of the Orb Chandeliers

In addition to seeing some of Ballard’s most sought-after interiors, event attendees will have the chance to preview the newest items from their summer collection, which will include:

-       Susan Kasler’s Directoire Collection  

-       Patras Side Tables

-       Chevron Striped Indoor/Outdoor Rug

-       Southern Living Versatile Beverage Bucket

-       Auto Tilt Sunbrella® Umbrellas

-       Leather Cube Ottoman 

-       Julian Apothecary Floor Lamps

Be sure to take a seat in one of the couches from our Davenport Collection if your feet get tired or enjoy a delicious meal on one of the Messina Dining Tables. Stay tuned to the blog to see the video on how all of these beautiful installations came together!  

This guest blog post was written by 2012 Advisory Council member Chef Lee Richardson (Ashley’s at the Capital Hotel). Chef Richardson will be busy on Saturday, May 12 at the Festival: you can find him at ‘Chefs Eat Wild’, ‘Chefs Gone Wild’, and the Wild Game Dinner. For details on each of these events, visit his profile.

Down in New Orleans, we’re virtually raised on rice.  Where would red beans be without it?  But my adoptive state of Arkansas takes its rice just as seriously — in fact, 50% of all rice produced in the U.S. is grown there.

Not long ago I had what I can only describe as a rice epiphany.  Why not grind rice the way one grinds corn to make grits?  Now that I treat rice like that other favorite southern grain staple, it transcends its traditional role at the table.  The result is creamy – unlike the hard, dry texture of corn grits, and with a little milk, salt, and butter, my “rice grits” are a real improvement on the original corn product, if I may say so myself — and with all due respect to grits traditionalists.

At Ashley’s, I’ve been pairing rice grits with hearty Southern entrées to get plates like Grilled Quail, Rice Grits, Granny Beans, and Bacon.  Or how does Red Beans and Rice Grits with Poached Eggs sound?  Come taste for yourself at the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival.  

Blackberry Farm will bring a number of its unique features to Atlanta the weekend of the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, and it will take the whole farm to do so. We look forward to welcoming the property’s team of artisans and chefs to Atlanta for the Festival, including:

• Joseph Lenn, Executive Chef and James Beard nominee
• Dustin Busby, Farmstead Manager
• John Coykendall, Master Gardener
• Jeff Ross, Garden Manager
• Sam Beall, Proprietor
• Wine Team

The team will share their products, cuisine and personalities with Festival attendees all weekend long, from Tasting Tent tables showcasing original farmstead products and food and wine-focused forums & panels to a very special dinner at a gorgeous Buckhead estate that will delight guests and honor the region’s prized farmers.

In Blackberry Farm:  An Inaugural Tribute Dinner to Southern Farmers, 150 guests will enjoy a decadently delicious meal of regional flavors including Craig Rogers’ Lamb, Muddy Pond Sorghum Cocktail as well as quail from Manchester Farm. Cultivate Wines will share their story as guests dine amid lanterns, glass votives and crystal candelabras, and the presence of Blackberry Farm’s own live sheep and sheep herding dogs will complete the experience.

Of course, once you get a taste of what the resort has to offer, there’s no doubt you’ll want to visit this hidden treasure: click here for information and to book a once-of-a-kind vacation at Blackberry Farm.

Okay, full disclosure and fair warning:  I am chef-spokesman for the National Honey Board, and can happily talk your ear off on the subject.  Those of you reading this blog can cut and run at will, but I’m mighty excited to be cooking with honey at the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, where I’ll have a captive audience of friendly and curious folks who are too polite to up and leave after the umpteenth honey fun-fact. 

There are 300 unique types of honey in the U.S., but I like to classify honeys into two broad categories:  cooking honeys and finishing honeys.  Much the way you use sea salt differently than you would kosher salt.  A household honey, or one without an over-powering flavor, is a key addition to my BBQ sauce, together with 17 other ingredients.  By the same token, I wouldn’t put a distinctive and less common Tupelo or sourwood honey into a salad dressing, where it would just be sacrificed to all those other flavors.  Those more interesting honeys have a place on my cheese plates, or a real edge to mustard for the Andouille Sausage, or on panna cotta, where you’ll really taste it and appreciate its fine qualities.  For God’s sake, a honey bee did all that?

Honey offers balance to anything salty, savory, or sour.  I use it in marinades, vinaigrettes, and in poaching liquid or brines.  One of my favorite dishes is a Honey-Poached Duck, quickly poached in a honey brine, then roasted with a honey glaze, which caramelizes beautifully. 

Honey is an inverted sugar, making it ideal for use in ice creams, because it won’t crystallize.

I use honey in all my muffins – because of its liquid retention properties, honey keeps things moist, and acts as a preservative. 

At Bayou Bakery, we go through about 45-50 pounds of honey per week.  The average U.S. per capita consumption of honey is a little under one-and-a-third pounds a year.  I like to think that figure is a little higher among my regulars. 

Our Welcome Center (which you’ll have to pass through to get your credentials, wristbands, and a healthy dose of Southern hospitality) is set up at the corner of 11th & Juniper Streets and will open its doors on May 7. In the meantime, you can use our Festival Toolkit to plan your weekend with schedules, maps, dinner overviews, and everything in between.

Of course, there’s still time to get tickets: whether you’re looking for a great gift for Mother’s Day or just a little weekend getaway, view all your options here.

We’re looking forward to greeting y’all for an unforgettable weekend!

Cheers,

Dominique Love & Elizabeth Feichter
Atlanta Food & Wine Festival Co-Founders