Food and Wine Show, with pictures
On Saturday Elery and I took my mother to the first annual Wine and Food Festival in Grand Rapids. There were over 600 wines and microbrew beers available for tasting, along with "small plates" from local upscale restaurants, demonstrations by various chefs, everything from how to make mozzarella to people selling cookware and SubZero freezers.
The festival was held at the DeVos Center in downtown Grand Rapids:
The festival took place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and I was told they sold somewhere in excess of 100,000 tickets for admission. It wasn't too crowded when we got there at about 1 pm on Saturday,but it got a lot busier later:
We went to a demonstration with my old "friend" Eric Villegas who was making Michigan Shrimp and Smoked Whitefish Chowder. Yes, Michigan has the only farm raised shrimp in the United States, in Lansing. Eric does a PBS show that just went national, called "Fork in the Road".
He shared the fact that he loves gas stoves but now that he sold his restaurants and just does the TV show, he doesn't have anyone to clean these except himself. That's why he now has an induction cooktop, LOL.
Elery's favorite wine was a nearly black Carmenere from Chile:
Mom's favorite was an imported Italian Chianti that comes in very cool bottles:
Her second favorite was a dry red made by Newman's Own. Well, actually, she's always just loved Paul Newman, so she liked his wine, LOL:
My favorite was a locally roasted....um.....coffee. You know I still haven't learned to like wine, LOL. Hey, I got a WHOLE CUP for my ticket, instead of just a sip.
Elery reminded me that I was the designated driver, I should just drink my coffee.
Lots of food was available. Everything from these oysters on the half shell:
to Mom's Lamb Ragout with Polenta:
To Elery's Vietnamese Chicken in a lettuce wrap:
To my spinach and artichoke in bread bowls:
Mom had some pasta alfredo:
Elery had insalata caprese on a skewer, that's fresh mozzarella balls, cherry tomatoes and basil leaves. they got drizzled with balsamic after being plated:
My seared ahi tuna on micro greens with wasabi, ginger and lime was delicious. So good I didn't think about a picture until I'd already eaten it, sorry....
We all got a souvenire wine glass:
We all went home, I got to drive Mom's new Impala, very nice car. By the time we got home we were hungry. Again. I made some chicken and wild rice soup:
We also had some honey wheat bread for dipping:
and some blue cheese and rosemary wafers I made for Elery, he loves blue cheese and I have a LOT of rosemary from the wreath sent by lpinkmountain:
So, Mom had a great time. Elery had a good time and I had a good time watching them have a good time, LOL. The food was very good, the wines were interesting. I did sample one Moscato di Asti that I liked and Elery found an apple beer called Unibroue that even I didn't think was horrible.
It's definitely something I'd go to next year, I understand that attendance was good enough that they're already planning next year's festival. So, anyone want to come along next year?
Annie
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compumom
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