Awesome after party ice cube
A few posts ago I talked about Feast, a huge culinary celebration held here in Portland. Every year it brings big names in the food industry (the likes of Chris Cosentino, Paul Qui, Edward Lee, Brad Farmerie) to our town for four days of non-stop chaos. There are seminars, special dinners and tastings being held all over the city, followed by after-parties and after hours after-parties.
Since the company I work for is a sponsor, we get in to a lot of the events for free. Which meant food, food and more tasty, fabulous food, all washed down with local brews, wine and liquor. Let the good times roll!
First up, Friday Night: Night Market. I love the Night Market. The setting is gorgeous and the food is crazy good.
Grilled quail with celeriac and Szechuan pepper, Annisa, NYC
Best Bite: Beef tongue fry bread with crema by Smallwares
Saturday: The Oregon Bounty Grand Tasting. This is a slightly more casual affair held in downtown’s Pioneer Square. My husband, the chef of 23 Hoyt, served two dishes for our Nicky USA booth and both were undoubtedly the best things I ate that day.
Oregon Goat Polpette with Spinach Pesto and Pecorino
Braised Rabbit Spaetzle with herbs, mustard, creme fraiche
Wandering around, I found some other tasty snacks too…
Porky goodness
Saturday Early Evening: High Comfort. The ultra fancy tasting in the luxurious hotel, The Nines.
Saturday Evening: Feast Dinner Series. After stuffing my face all day, I went to a special dinner at Bluehour, a restaurant I actually used to cook at. The special guest chef was Chris Cosentino from San Francisco and between him and Bluehour’s chef, Kyo Koo, the dinner was pretty amazing. Raw pork and a head-on squab will certainly make a dinner memorable!
Tails & Trotters Pork Tartare with Hazelnuts and Truffles
Smoked salmon belly with salmon caviar and matsutake mushrooms
Roasted Whole Squab with Creamed Borage
And that concludes Feast-mania!
Surprisingly the best moment of the extravaganza was when my team (led by my husband and his kitchen crew) won an after-party championship game of Flip Cup. We beat out 15 other restaurant teams and walked away with a trophy and $1,600 in cold, hard cash. It was a beautiful moment!
Anyways, next up — food I’ve actually cooked myself, I promise.
Sneak peek…
Shakshuka with homegrown tomatoes
I hope you don’t take this the wrong way… but I HATE you.
hahaha! I know. I’d hate me too. My liver hated me for a few days, if that makes you feel any better. =)
Crise de foie!
Oh no. I missed the famed spaetzle! It’s been way way too long since I’ve had a bite of that.
Also, I was thinking you were a total bro when I saw the flip cup thing at first. But 16 hundo?! That’s awesome!!
I know — that spaetzle is the best thing ever! Sadly I only got a few bites of it, but Chris made a second small batch for me after the fact. And yes! Cash for flip cup – woo! The last round was brutal – a shot of tequila and a 3/4 cup of beer but we prevailed. Chris filled the trophy up with beer and dumped it on himself. Burnside Brewery was the second place team and they were so mad about losing it was hilarious.
to. die. for.
It was! In fact, I’m sure I actually killed a little bit of my liver…hopefully it will regenerate in time for next year!
Words fail. 😉
That was definitely how I felt by the end of the weekend! =)
Wowy wowy, beautiful! Your photos are amazing and that food … I am SO jealous! And intrigued … what’s “shashuka”? Can’t wait!
I did some serious eating that’s for sure — I really should be on an all-veg detox plan after that! =) Shakshuka is amazing! It’s a spicy tomato-pepper dish that has a poached egg in it, usually some feta and herbs too. It’s so easy to throw together and I’ve been obsessed with it this summer. Post is coming up soon with a recipe!
Oh my goodness, all this delicious food! That pig’s head totally freaks me out, but all the scrumptious bites thankfully took my eyes away from it very quickly. 🙂 The Feast sounds like it was a lot of fun!
Yeah, there was actually a surprising amount of pig’s heads staring out into the crowd, but the beautiful food would totally have distracted you from the creepiness. =) So much good stuff in one place, it was practically sinful. And the schmoozing with famous chefs is a nice little perk to my job (as though eating incredible food for 4 days wasn’t enough!).
So much food and all look so delicious. Thanks for sharing the photos which leave me drooling…