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Park City, Utah - This is a long winded post - forwarning- skimming allowed.

Friday, July 18th, 2008 | General

So, July 10th - July 13th was spent working the Park City, Utah food & wine classic.
Park city, Utah.

A picturesque setting with rolling hills and gondolas and a charming main street.

It’s been an adventure for sure.

I was a bit stressed at the beginning with uncertaintites galore, but luckily I had a good, supportive team and the chef that accompanied us on this trip was super easy going, and did a fantastic job.

Thursday, fly in arrive, I’m running around trying to make sure we have all we need for the seminar our chef is conducting on Friday, nevermind we had tickets to an evening wine and food event as a perk.

Driving was relatively easy, however, getting to the Thursday evening’s tasting was far more adventurous than I had anticipated.

We made it, the views were absolutely amazing.

But, after that we went back to the hotel. Discovered at 9:30 pm that most restaurants close by 10pm. So we tried one place, the kitchen was closed, then we got a taxi to take us into town, One of my colleagues decided while in the cab to downtown to get the 411 on the place the hotel bell hop recommended.

Up to 3 places she called stopped serving food, I had flashbacks to our European adventures we may just end up at a Burger Kiing for dinner.,Luckily the bar at Butcher’s was still open and serving bar food. So, we all had a cocktail, shared the hummus and pita, I got prawns soaked in Hefeweizen and a mixed green salad.

It’s fun and interesting traveling with a Chef. We bombarded him with lots and lots of questions about what he likes, if the food we are having is good, Asked him about his restaurant in Portland and were almost enamored by the extent of his knowledge and sophisticated palate. But what’s so cool is his total down to earth and approachable disposition. It made it for a much easier trip.

After our meal we headed back in anticipation for our chef’s big presentation on Mac & cheese on Friday.

Basically, to put it into more digestible points here was the lay of the weekend.

Friday – 11 am Mac & Cheese Seminar provided by our guest chef, It was a smashing success.
Lunch – we found a charming bistro and I had their cold Gaspacho which was delcious.

Worked the sampling event from 3-6, went back to hotel.
Sat out on the deck, enjoyed the warm sun and cool breeze. Basically we had 3 total rooms we were all next to each other, and the room I shared with a colleague had a FULL on kitchen. It was aweseom.

So yesterday we picked up bottles of wine to share, cheese, crackers and fruit.

We made reservations at Shabu, which is a sushi restaurant. It was amazing. I have newfound appreciation for sushi. It was light, delicious and just perfect. We shared all kinds of rolls and sashimi. Yum.

Then we hit the town. In my notes at the end of this blog I’ll review the CRAZY liquor laws of the state of Utah and especially Park City as they are really strict.

But, we had to pay a “membership” fee, basically it’s a cover charge but for some reason here it’s different, You either have a “membership” or you have a “Sponsor” to get into bars/ clubs.

So our chef paid for the “membership’ for us and there was a live band. The guy singing was a brother to the guy my colleagues met earlier at the restaurant of where we did our seminar and sampling, and so he bought my colleagues each a drink.

The singer was really good, he did a lot of cover tunes, such as Dave Matthews Band, Counting Crows, Peter Gabriel.

Then my colleagues seem to think it would be awesome to do shots. So I had my first shot of tequila with the lime and everything. I took it slow ensuring after each drink there is a full glass of water in my belly. As the night progressed, we seemed to continue to get more attention and my colleagues proceeded to try to get me drunk by getting a guy to buy me a shot. So yes, I had yet another shot of tequila. Followed by a nice big glass of water.

Which is why I think I maintained my sober composure, even after we got back to the hotel and continued to open a 2nd bottle of wine to share with more cheese and crackers.

I would imagine the strict liquor laws also have something to do with the elevation. I felt a bit winded a few times, for sure.

Saturday, we wasted no time getting our wine on. We had tickets to attend a “Wine and Chocolate” pairing seminar. All of it was absolutely heavenly.

We had truffles with a bubbly rose
Dark organic chocolate with the Ravenswood Zinfandel – my favorite
Lighter dark chocolate with another Zinfandel
Port with chocolate covered dried cherries- which was pretty good.

After that we hit Starbucks on the way to a cooking demo at Fin Restaurant. A magazine representative wanted us to see it as they are seeking our sponsorship for this and so we went to observe. I ended up buying the Chef’s cookbook who was doing the demo.

We then drove back to the hotel to change and we attended another seminar called “Food & Wine’. I wasn’t that impressed. We at least got to sample 8 wines, starting from a bubbly and of course ending with a Madeira.

After that we got to set up our booth to work the next sampling event and our guest chef was going to be featured again conducting a cooking demo at the cooking stage area.

It was quite the event. Beautiful, full of people who just raved about our product and everyone was so friendly.

So, I was at about exhausted by the time we were done with this event. We packed up our stuff, got it ready to be shipped out and returned to our hotel to freshen up and proceed to enjoy a bottle of wine on the deck followed by dinner at Grappa, which was pretty good, I decided to go with a chardonnay to accompany my delicious mushroom soup and grape and gorgonzola salad, all then followed by a drink at the No Name saloon, where I continued to keep my water going, because the group felt it good to do shots.

So yes, another set of tequila shots, at this point I felt like my head was going to explode, so much so, I told the girls that I think it might be good for me to head back to the hotel prematurely.
But, it was only another hour before last call so I decided to stick it out, so we decided to head out and we ended up paying another “membership” fee to get back into Spurs and see and hear a Raggae Ska band, Who upon first hearing I immediately thought of GD. He woulda loved it.

Anyway, so I kept water going, had an Amstel Light, because really their beer choices are extremely limited. Beers have to have lower alcohol content to be served there, so lots of light beers. Our chef had the Sierra Nevada Pale.

All this then followed by a night cap at the hotel, opening our last bottle of wine and sitting around watching and talking about Food Network with our chef.

I am exhausted.

We were up till about 3am on Friday and Saturday and so lack of sleep is definitely predominantly reigning in my head.

My allergies were terrible there, so much so, my eyes remaind bloodshot practically the entire time there and I swear it looked like I just smoked a big bowl. They certainly hurt like hell, stinging and dry. Not fun at all.

Crazy Utah Liquor Laws- include:

• At a bar no one person cannot be served two of the same drinks at one time. No one can have doubles of anything too.
• Beer of only about 4% alcohol can be sold in the regular grocery store.
• Wine and beer over 3% can only be purchased in Liquor Stores
• To get into a club or bar there is a “membership” fee. Some clubs and bars require you to have a “sponsorship” in order to enter.
• There can be no consumption of alcohol outside, if there is the opportunity to sit outside any alcohol must be served with food.

So, it’s been just a crazy whirlwind of a business trip. The best parts are:

• getting to have fun with my colleagues which allows me to get to know them better.
• Getting to the chef and the amount of work it takes to run a restaurant and learning about his aspirations, goals and incredibly amount of work he does. It’s Amazing.
• Getting to experience “sushi” and understanding more about why people like to go to sushi so much especially with a group of people.

Eating and drinking fabulous food and wine

Not so Fantastic parts to the trip:

• Lack of sleep
• Allergies
• Stress of making sure all the planning and details for the events went perfectly.
• Being away from S&C&D
• Being away for Ry and Kitty

Next:
Bite of Seattle –YEEHAW!

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