NOWFE Louisiana Seafood Cook-off brings out culinary stars

Story and Photos by Dwight Casimere

The Louisiana Superdome, site of more Super Bowl NFL Championship games than any other venue, was the fitting location for New Orleans’ greatest chefs to compete in the Louisiana Seafood Cook-off. The contest, sponsored by Louisiana Seafood, is the focal point of the final Grand Tasting of the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience and is designed to call attention to the Louisiana seafood industry. With the Gulf Oil spill continuing to threaten the livelihood of fishermen who depend on that industry to a living, this year’s contest had an especially poignant undertone.

Among those competing for bragging rights for the year were Executive Chef Anthony Spizale of the Rib Room located at the Royal Orleans hotel in the French Quarter and Chef Tom Wolf of Maximo’s New Orleans and Minh Le of Houma. Tony McPhail, Executive Chef at Commander’s Palace, a New Orleans culinary landmark, walked off with top honors with the winning recipe for Louisiana Seafood Grill.

Watching the prep and cooking was a gallery of spectators, munching on menu samples and sipping wine from the nearly 100 food stations around the perimeter of the Superdome. As the steam rose from the makeshift kitchens of the competing chefs, the crowd in the gallery began to build. Celebrity Chef Paul Deen flew in from the ‘low country’ of Savannah, Georgia to declare the winner along with New Orleans Favorite Culinary Son, Chef John Besh. Both are past winners of the competition.

The judges had a difficult time picking the winner. One can only envy their daunting task of having to taste the best that New Orleans and Louisiana has to offer to declare a winner.

2010 New Orleans Wine & Food Experience:Mardi Gras and Super Bowl combined

Story and Photos by Dwight Casimere

"Super Bowl" of wine tastings at the 2010 New Orleans Wine & Food Experience

Story and Photos by Dwight Casimere

It was the Super Bowl of wine tastings at the Louisiana Superdome, home to the New Orleans Saints and the site of more NFL Super Bowl games than any other city, as the Grand Tasting of the 2010 New Orleans Wine & Food Experience got underway in true Mardi Gras fashion. A Mardi Gras-style parade, jazz musicians and celebrity chefs and winemakers created the atmosphere for hundreds of foodies and gourmands as they roamed amidst food stations and sampled gourmet bites prepared on site by chefs from 75 of New Orleans’ most famous restaurants and tasted offerings from among a thousand wine varieties.

Earlier in the day, participants in the 2010 NOWFE attended seminars at the Hotel Monteleone that covered the gamut of the gourmet experience. Subjects and hands-on tasting demonstrations, led by expert producers, restaurateurs, winemakers and sommeliers included “Thinking Outside the Bento Box” featuring Champagne and sushi pairings from Rock-n-Sake restaurant in New Orleans’ Warehouse District and “Romancing The Rhone” which featured Rhone style wines from California’s Central Coast paired with tastes from Le Floret, another rising-star restaurant in New Orleans’ burgeoning SoHo New York-style Warehouse District.

In keeping with the “Super Bowl” theme, one of the winemakers was former NFL football star for the New Orleans Saints Terry Hoage, now of Paso Robles, California, who presented his Terry Hoage Vineyards 5 Blocks Cuvee wine($50) and his 2007 Terry Hoage Vineyards Skins Grenache($48). Hoage has been a winemaker for the past 20 years and has garnered considerable praise and awards for his deeply concentrated, rich, dark berry fruit wines. Terry and his wife Jennifer’s winemaking approach is to create wines that are minimally processed. Their fastidious adherence to sustainable farming practices and low yield production results in wines that are exceptional.

Over at the Superdome, the Grand Tasting party rolled out into the full moon night with the sounds of Paul Sanchez and the Rolling Road Show and another Mardi Gras parade, complete with floats and the customary throwing of the Mardi Gras beads and coins to the revelers. The Grand Tasting of the 2010 New Orleans Wine & Food Experience was a chance to experience a taste of New Orleans’ most decadent culinary delights along with fine wines from around the world—all against the backdrop of one of the most famous sports arenas in the country and one of the most beautiful and unique cities in the world. They just don’t throw a better party anywhere else!

The faces and places of the 2010 New Orleans Wine & Food Festival Royal Street Stroll

photos and story by Dwight Casimere

It was an evening presided over by Bacchus himself! The 2010 New Orleans Wine & Food Festival Royal Street Stroll is one of the most anticipated events of the spring and summer culinary festival season. Because of its Mardi Gras-like atmosphere, it attracts gourmands from around the globe who descend on New Orleans and its French Quarter for a night of unprecedented night of revelry.

Music, mimes and culinary magic made this a night to remember in the Vieux Carre. As they say in the Big Easy Laissez Le Bon Temps Roulet, Let The Good Times Roll!

Spirit of Bacchus reigns at 2010 NOWFE Royal Street Stroll

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by Dwight Casimere

Bacchus led the Mardi Gras-styled parade along with the Krewe of Cork and singer/dancer Ms. Jennifer Jones at the annual Royal Street Stroll, one of the centerpieces of the 2010 New Orleans Wine & Food Experience.

One of the world’s largest block parties “the stroll,” as locals affectionately call it, is the definitive evening event of NOWFE with street musicians, mimes and novelty acts interspersed among the revelers, and some clad in Mardi Gras costumes.

Local chefs constructed field kitchens to dispense shrimp ettouffee, mussels mariniere and Cajun spiced ribs. Inside the rare antique shops, jewelry makers and fine arts galleries, fine wines were being dispensed, such as Cain vineyards 2006 Concept ($54.99), a small production Bordeaux-styled blend from the Spring Mountain District overlooking Napa Valley, poured from crystal decanters and Chateau St. Michelle’s 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon ($13.99), an award-winning wine from Washington state’s oldest and most acclaimed winery near Seattle.

Royal Street was closed end-to-end along the length of the French Quarter, giving revelers free reign to wine and dine to the sounds of local musicians, such as singer/songwriter and Polymer Clay Artist Margie Perez and her New Orleans Funk band and the Doo-Wop vocal stylings of Jay-Ray & Gee.

It was a celebration orchestrated by Bacchus himself!

Chef John Besh of New Orleans: A passion for preserving the Gulf Coast and America's culinary heritage

by Dwight Casimere

The 2010 New Orleans Wine and Food Experience is underway in the French Quarter of this historic and legendary city. One of the first stops made by Dwight The Wine Doctor, was a visit to Chef John Besh’s American Sector restaurant, just a mile south of the Hotel Monteleone, a French Quarter landmark and headquarters hotel to the Wine and Food Experience. Chef Besh was ebullient in greeting Dwight The Wine Doctor in the gleaming kitchens of his newly minted creation. In spite of the joy of opening a successful new venue in the depths of the nation’s worse financial depression, he was more concerned about the plight of Gulf Coast fishermen who have been impacted by the BP oil spill debacle. Chef Besh was born and raised in Louisiana and comes from a family steeped in the traditions of the Gulf fishing community. He speaks with a conviction that is part of his birthright.

"This is our National Treasure and it’s vital that we move into action NOW to save not only our wildlife, but a very important part of our national heritage." New Orleans chef John Besh was sounding off about the travesty in the Gulf Coast while standing in the pristine stainless steel kitchen of his sparkling new American Sector restaurant, the flagship of the National World War II Museum, located in the Warehouse District, the direct beneficiary of the construction boom, post-Katrina. "In the early 1900's, this was known as the American Sector.

It's hard to imagine, but, at that time, there really wasn't that much of an American presence in New Orleans. So, in honor of that, we decided to name the restaurant the American Sector. Besh, a Marine veteran, has a special affinity for the National World War II Museum that the restaurant anchors.

Standing in the midst of the midday crush like a general coordinating the efforts of his Sous Chef and line cooks, Chef Besh pointed proudly to his many culinary creations that reflected his own twist on American Classics. "Smell the freshness of our tomato soup, made with Heirloom tomatoes grown on our very own farm about an hour west of downtown New Orleans. We also raise our own Heritage pigs. We make all of our pulled pork sandwiches and sausages from our own, farm-raised pigs." The mile-high Onion Rings were a personal favorite, along with the pulled pork sandwich, washed down with a generous glass of McManus Cabernet7, Paso Robles ($15) and a smoked lamb rib that was so redolent of aged wood smoke that one patron yelled "does anyone else smell something burning?!," which brought a knowing laugh from the assembled diners.

An Andrews Sisters-USO styled show followed in the adjacent Stage Door Canteen, sending diners trucking out into the afternoon swelter to the beat of Chattanooga Choo Choo. It was the opening day of the 2010 New Orleans Wine and Food Experience and a fitting experience to kick off the nation’s biggest culinary block party.

Vizcaya: A Venetian Night Under the Stars

by Dwight Casimere

Miami’s Vizcaya Museum and Gardens is one of the most breathtaking venues in the country. The legacy of agricultural industrialist James Deering, it is an exact replica of a Venetian Castle with lavish gardens and a canal complete with footbridges and gondola docking poles that would be right at home under the Bridge of Sighs. Built in 1916, in remains one of the historic and architectural monuments to luxury and Italian Renaissance Art.

The Vizcayans, the not for profit foundation which oversees the preservation and operation of the Museum & Grounds held its 13^th Annual Evening Under the Stars, a food, wine and entertainment extravaganza that is a fundraiser for their continuing School, Youth and Family Programs. Nearly a dozen of Miami’s finest gourmet restaurants, wine purveyors such as Volteo wines of Spain, and spirits, represented by the House of Bacardi, which maintains its American headquarters in Coral Gables, afforded an unprecedented opportunity to tour the main house and grounds and revel in the luxurious surroundings. A nearly perfect spring night afforded the appropriate ‘kiss from the Roman Gods’ that made the night a treasure.

Chefs from the Epic’s Area 31, El Scorpion, Gibraltar at Grove Isle, another exquisite venue in Coconut Grove, Mercandito, RED, South Beach’s acclaimed new wave steak house, Sugarcane, Wish at The Hotel and the Palme d’Or, the award-winning top-rated French fine-dining restaurant at The Biltmore, all worked feverishly throughout the night preparing gourmet goodies. Their efforts were especially challenged by the uniqueness of the venue, which has no available kitchen facilities. Yet, the chefs were able to provide such specialties as hand-rolled sushi, duck confit crepe and grilled stuffed poblano peppers. A particular hit were the handmade strawberry crepes made to order by the master chefs of the Crepemaker. The deft artistry of the crepe makers attracted lines the stretched across the waterfront palazzo of the Vicaya Main House.

Inside, a fabulous silent auction featured bidding on luxury cruises, hotel suite weekend packages and gourmet dining experiences from local five-star venues.

The Vizcaya regularly offers tours for individuals and groups. A minimum of ten students is required to qualify for group rates and visits must be booked at least three weeks in advance to be eligible for a volunteer guided tour. A word of caution, the grounds and walking paths of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens present quite a challenge for the ladies in heels and not all areas are wheelchair accessible or support visual or hearing impairments. Otherwise, a visit to Vizcaya is an incomparable experience. I attended and photographed a wedding there a few years ago, and even with the occurrence of persistent showers, it was still a breathtaking experience. For information, visit www.vizcayamuseum.org.