Oy! Between the outstanding food and drink at this weekend’s NYC Wine & Food Festival and the early morning flight back to the West Coast, I’m beat! The festival, I have to declare, was a smashing success as well as a fantastic addition to an already established capital of culinary stars. Kudos to festival creator Lee Brian Schrager!
A few of my personal highlights:
- “Do I have chocolate in my teeth?” asked legendary crooner Billy Joel, flashing me his pearly whites while departing last night’s SWEET event. Joel’s beautiful wife, Katie Lee Joel, is the author of The Comfort Table and a former judge on Food Network’s Iron Chef America.
- “Can I have yours?” answered adorable Mark Simmons from Bravo’s Top Chef Season 4 when I asked for his autograph. (Hey, you never know when today’s eliminated chef becomes tomorrow’s celebrity chef – and he’s adorable! Did I mention that?) Simmons was enjoying the atmosphere at Saturday night’s Macy’s Culinary Council Star Party.
- “Oh, you don’t want his autograph!” teased The FN Dish host Bruce Seidel as Bobby Flay put pen to paper for a fan.
- “I thought he was a bit of a bastard,” laughed famed El Bulli chef Ferrán Adrià referring to friend, and “Decoding Ferrán Adrià” documentarian, chef Anthony Bourdain, who calls the menu at El Bulli “shock effect food” in his bestseller, Kitchen Confidential. On tour to promote his new book, A Day at El Bulli, Adrià and Bourdain spoke at Saturday’s TimesTalk with Eric Asimov.
Stay tuned to Daily Blender for more of my favorite moments from this weekend’s festival!
~Jennifer Heigl
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