chez pim

F&W Classic in Aspen: the Cook-off, José vs Ming

The final round of the Cook-off at F&W Classic in Aspen pitted the ever hilarious José Andrés, helped out by Jamie-Lynn Sigler, against Ming Tsai and an audience member who won the bid to cook with Ming.

For this round, I got over my reluctance to jump up and get close to take photos. Urged on by Jill, I was out there pushing my way in with the pack of real photographers. There was one photographer I willingly gave way to, though. She was from San Francisco’s 7x7 Magazine, and was there in the blue jeans, sneakers, and huge appareils pack with the others, but unlike them she was in miniskirt and a pair of high wedges. Now that got my respect!

As José was happily ensconced in his corner with the gorgeous Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Ming put the position of his sous chef up for auction to benefit charity. Ming at one point offered up the key to his room as well, in an effort to drive the bids up. At least I think it was to drive it up(!) Alas, the highest bidder was a man, Robert Hatoff the owner of the meat company Allen Brothers. Alan turned out to be a perfectly competent, if a lot less cute, than José’s.

This round was even more rebel rousing than the previous one. Ming’s bravado, José’s effusive-self, and their rapport combined had the audience in fits. I laughed so hard I had trouble stabilizing my camera.

F&W Classic in Aspen: the Cook-off, Harold vs Jacques

I have a scattering of stories to tell still from the Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen a couple of weeks ago. The most fun, of course, came from the final events, the two rounds Cook-off: the first between the Top Chef winner Harold Dieterle, aided by his ex-judge Tom Colicchio, against Jacques Pépin and his best friend Jean-Claude Szurdak, and the second between the ever hilarious José Andrés, helped out by Jamie-Lynn Sigler against Ming Tsai and an audience member willing to pay top dollar to charity for the honor of cooking next to Ming himself.

The cook-off took place in a huge room, big stage, lights, massive production and all that jazz. The line formed early, and when the room opened every seat in that room was occupied in no time.

I grabbed a seat near the front but toward the side of the stage, which happened to be right next to Jill Davison who runs PR for Amex Publishing. Jill was quite a good cheerleader, urging me to get up near the stage and take more photos. I must say I was a little intimidated by everything, so most of my photos from the first round are from a bit of a distance.

Taking a cue from Iron Chef, the cook-off chefs were surprised with secret ingredients that were supposed to be incorporated into the dishes. The theme here was quite cute, using up leftovers from the other demonstration: pasta from Giada de Laurentis’s session, watermelon from José Andrés, fava beans from Suzanne Goin’s and some liver from, well, frankly I have no idea.

Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen: José Andrés

I'd been a little ambivalent about going to see José Andrés –I thought if I wanted to see a boy play with his chemistry set I could always go hang with Sasha- but Dana Cowin, Food & Wine magazine's stylish editor, convinced me with her enthusiastic recommendation the night before.

So, the next morning, with a slight altitude sickness -it wasn't a hangover, I swear- I fumbled my way into a crowded auditorium. José Andrés had already taken up his spot on the stage, accompanied by his two adorable daughters Inez and Carlotta, and also by Katsuya Fukushima, the Chef de Cuisine of his restaurant Café Atlantico.

Having one's children around was quite de rigueur at the Classic. Mario also had his sons with him when I was at his demonstration the day before. And there were a constant stream of kids and their respective nannies coming through the press room, who knew whom they belonged to, but probably some important people. José's daughters were far more than decoration though. They were right on stage, interacting with their father and adding quite a hilarious comic touch in the show.

José Andrés is an amazing spokesperson for what Hervé This calls Molecular Gastronomy, which normal people might refer to as the 'weird food' movement. The high priests of this movement are mostly from Spain, or es-spain as José charmingly called it.

Have you ever noticed that Spanish people can't say Spain, but always es-spain? Supremely cute, no? Ok, I digress again. Back to the auditorium we go.

Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen: a little update

For those of you who've been waiting for the next installment, my apology. The trip home from Aspen was quite harrowing, with the same dance -will I make it or won't I?- out of Aspen airport, only to find myself loitering for hours on end at the Denver airport waiting for a delayed flight. I finally got home and promptly sick, only to recover late yesterday in time to spend just a couple of hours in the sun at the market.

Now that I'm back -online and somewhat recovered- I'll be blogging more fun stuff from Aspen for the next couple of days. Got to milk it until it's dry, no?

Meanwhile, Chez Pim has again been mentioned in interesting places, in a feature on Food Blogs in Delicious Magazine, for example, which included my friends Clotilde and Heidi of Chocolate and Zucchini and 101 Cookbooks, and also Kate of the Accidental Hedonist. Also some very kind words were found on the Guardian in London, which also mentioned the new All Food All the Time Megnut.

Check back a little later today for more blogs from Aspen. See what magic José Andrés conjured with plain old Watermelon, the epic multi-vintange tasting of Quinto do Noval's venerated port, lots of other fun stuff, and -of course- the Cook-off. Yes, that cook-off that pitted Top Chef Harold against the beloved Jacques Pépin and Ming Tsai mano a mano with José Andrés. See who won, who lost, who got the biggest laugh, and who had his knickers all tied in a knot, all coming up just a wee bit.

(Graphic from Delicious Magazine, by Alex Green.)

Food & Wine Magazine Classic: Publisher's Party

If there were a Friends episode it would have been called "The One Where Pim Finds Out She Sucks at Party Photography."

What can I say, I really am horrible. It dawned on me this Saturday morning while uploading the paltry photos I took from the fun party last the night before. I spent hours at the party, brushing shoulders with all manners of stars in the food world, and what did I have to show you? Like ten photos. Yeah. Sad, isn’t it? Sorry.

Well, I was having a little too much fun at the party, so frankly I couldn’t be bothered to do it. Or, I don’t know, maybe it’s the cool kids syndrome I’ve got. You see, I didn’t think going to a party with a camera is very cool. Even less so is asking celebs to take photos of them. And it was, after all, the first night and the first party, so I was still getting my bearing. Or so I hoped.

From the few photos I have, it looked as though I was stalking Tom Colicchio. I didn’t. Really. It’s just that since Daniel Boulud was missing in action –prepping for his seminar in the morning as he told me the next day- Tom took up the position as the man-about-party, and really seemed to have been everywhere chatting, talking, hugging, salut-ing with everyone and anyone.

Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen: Day One

Day one of Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen was a lot of fun, even though I had to be fueled by countless cups of coffee. Aspen is so beautiful it’s almost pointless to attempt to describe it. I’ve been here a few times before, but only when the mountains were covered in white. Aspen in the summer is a whole other kind of wonderful. The hills are green green, and the air clear. I could use a few degrees higher in temperature though, after the heat the past couple of weeks in Paris and San Sebastian.

After spending the morning getting my gear in shape again, downloading photoshop and figuring out wifi access at the event, I was finally ready to attend something! The first event I went to was Mario Battali’s cooking demonstration.

Mario’s popularity meant that the line into the room formed long before the announced time. Lucky my ‘press’ badge let me breeze through the line. Ok, I must admit a pang of guilt as I was bypassing a throng of Mario’s eager fans, but certainly not one strong enough to make me join them in that epic line!

All the lines at the event actually remind me a bit of Disneyland. And true to the spirit they were quite well managed and moved quite impossibly quickly: all that was missing was a bunch of head-bobbing puppets squeaking out the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song. But I digress. Let’s get back to our Mario, shall we?

Watching him was a hoot. He’s such a personality. Not exactly a drop-dead gorgeous guy mind you, but he sure was captivating to watch. Throwing out crowd-pleaser one-liners just as fast as he chopped. He appeared slightly discombobulated –I guess the altitude was to blame- and at one point dumping a bowl of rock shrimp intended for another dish into a ‘crab’ pasta he was cooking. Not missing a beat, he announced the sudden –and of course virtuous- change of plan to the roaring laughter of his adoring fans.

Unfortunately didn’t get to watch him until the end. I had to run to the Pichon-Longueville tasting at another hotel.

Live from Aspen: 24th Annual Food & Wine Magazine's Classics in Aspen

Actually, barely alive in Aspen is more like it. It's almost 9am here on a ridiculously beautiful morning in Aspen. I'm barely hanging on, sustained by about three cups of really bad coffee and an oily donut.

I came here yesterday, straight from Paris. Well, here again, straight is perhaps not an apt choice of word. It was Paris -> Dallas -> Denver -> and then perhaps -or perhaps not- Aspen ->and finally Aspen. What's with the uncertainty, you asked? Well, the plane to Aspen is this tiny little thing, you see. And Aspen is this tiny town in a valley surrounded by high mountians, you know. So the plane goes up from Denver airport, flies over the mountains and then dives, nose-first, down to the airport. It's a tricky meneuver that they don't really want to attempt when the weather condition is less than ideal.

Well, needless to say yesterday was less than ideal. Wind sheer condition was so dangerous that the Denver airport halted traffice in-out of the runway for a time. The tail wind for our little flight was expected to be so bad that United was contemplating lighting the load -that'd be kicking out some passengers- so my chance to get on as a standby didn't look so good.

Finally I was let on, I guess they saw I didn't take up much room. But we waited on the tarmac for a long time before it was safe enough to take off -a tad scary for a whimp like me, I kept thinking to myself I really didn't need to be in Aspen that badly!! Not helping the matter was the pilot telling us he's not entirely sure we would make it all the way to Aspen, and that if the wind situation didn't die down we'd be heading back to Denver!!!! By then I was sure I really didn't need to be in Aspen that badly....but it was all to late. That flight, all 27 minutes of it, was the longest one of my life!

That wasn't the only adventure that has graced my life lately. You might remember my computer throwing a fit a few weeks back. Well, I thought I had it fixed, but it turned out not to be the case. My poor powerbook was hacking just like we did throughout our time in Paris and San Sebastian, and finally died a rather painful death.... It would have been funny to have shown up in Aspen as a blogger guest of Food & Wine magazine without a computer to blog with. Ok perhaps the F&W people wouldn't have found it so amusing. In any case, we didn't have to find out since David came to the rescue. So now I am typing on his computer, and he's without one for a few days until I return. If you send him an email and he doesn't answer, just know it's not his fault!

Anyway, I'm here now. The entire town of Aspen has been taken over by aliens, I mean foodies. I'm going to be blogging throughout the event, and hopefully for a few more days afterwards with stuff from here. It's going to be fun, stay tuned!!

P.S. Sorry I've been so slow to answer the comments. The illness and subsequent death of my computer made a pretty good excuse though, no? I'll get to them asap. Promise.