Cochon 555 – five chefs, five pigs, five winemakers – is a one-of-a-kind traveling culinary competition and tasting event to promote sustainable farming of heritage breed pigs. The Napa event challenges five local chefs to prepare a menu created from heritage breed pigs, nose-to-tail, for an audience of pork-loving epicureans. On Sunday January 29, Cochon 555 will invade the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, CA for a night of pure pig deliciousness.

2012 Napa competing chefs include Chris L’Hommedieu of Michael Mina San Francisco, Lars Kronmark of Culinary Institute of America, Michael Tuohy of Dean & Deluca, Mark Dommen of One Market Restaurant and the 2011 King and Queen of Porc – Duskie Estes + John Stewart of zazu restaurant + farm.

Guests will be treated to an epic pork feast with wines from five different small wineries, including Elk Cove Vineyards, Scholium Project, Behrens Family Winery, Wind Gap Wines and Matthiasson plus a special tasting of SALDO.

At the end of the night, attendees and local judges will select the Prince or Princess of Porc. The winning chef will compete against other regional winners at the finale Grand Cochon event at the FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen, June 17, 2012.

Interested in purchasing tickets? Visit this website here.

Include the hashtag #cochonnapa on tweets about the event.

Every year I make cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. This year on a lark I decided to use 21st Amendment Fireside Chat in the recipe with delicious results. I tweeted a rather ugly photo of my yummy breakfast (it looked like Jabba the Hut) and the next thing I knew 21st Amendment, at 110F (do this in the microwave at 15 second increments) was tweeting me back asking me to post the recipe. I had been thinking about saving it for something else, but who am I to keep this to myself, so here it is.

The idea to make one giant cinnamon roll was born out of my obsession not only to create a seriously gooey roll, but out of my love for cinnamon roll French toast which is something seriously lacking on California breakfast menus. Although I didn’t have the restraint to turn this into cinnamon roll French toast, I am positive that this giant roll would work fabulously in that application. I digress.

I really love the Fireside Chat in this. It is a really delightful winter brew nuanced and rich with spices, brown sugar and cacao that really adds an interesting element to the cinnamon roll. Since it is a seasonal brew, it will probably be out of stores soon, but you still might be able to find it. If you can’t find it try using another dark ale with undertones of caramel, cocoa and winter spice.

On another note, I just started tweeting about food and beverage under the name @hungrymutineer. It would be awesome if you joined the conversation.

Giant Fireside Chat Cinnamon Roll

• 1 cup Fireside Chat by 21st Amendment, at 110F (do this in the microwave at 15 second increments)
• 1 tsp. yeast
• 5 TBS. brown sugar
• 8 TBS. butter, melted and cooled + 8 TBS. more for the filling
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 1 tsp. fine sea salt
• 4 c. flour + a bit more for the board during kneading

Measure out all of your ingredients. Take the warm Fireside Chat (or some other equally delicious dark brew) and add in the yeast and 1 TBS. of the brown sugar and proof the yeast in a medium bowl. The beer will foam up a bit at first, so be sure to use a bowl that can accommodate it. Allow this to sit at room temperature while you assemble the other ingredients.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the brown sugar and butter mixing until they are well combined before adding in the egg and yeast mixture. Slowly mix in the flour, using dough hooks if necessary. Turn out the dough on a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes adding flour as needed. Put the dough in a greased bowl, cover and raise in a warm part of the kitchen for 90 minutes.

At this time, prepare the filling (listed below).

Thoroughly grease an 8 or 9 inch baking pan.

Turn the dough out onto your floured cutting board and punch down. Form the dough into a smallish square and slice the dough into 3 even pieces. Set 2 aside and roll out the first piece to be around 5 inches wide and two feet long. Spread some filling on this strip, roll it up and place it in the baking pan. Roll out the other two and spread with the filling in the same fashion, then wrap them around the first roll, thus creating one giant cinnamon roll to rule them all.

If you are making this the day before, stop, cover the dish with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. Remove the pan from the fridge two hours ahead to bring it to room temperature before proceeding.

Raise the dough in a warm place for about 30 minutes or so.

Bake the giant cinnamon roll at 325F for 45 minutes or until the roll is golden. Top with Fireside Chat glaze, slice and serve.

Filling

• 1/4 c. cinnamon
• 3/4 c. brown sugar
• 8 TBS. butter

Warm the butter in the microwave, remove and stir in the brown sugar and cinnamon. Set aside until needed.

Glaze

• 1/2 c. Fireside Chat
• 1/4 c. water
• 3/4 c. brown sugar
• pinch sea salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg

Combine your ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a low boil. Cook the glaze down about a third of the way and cool partially before pouring over the cinnamon roll. Be careful with this stuff, when hot it can really hurt.

Napa’s Kitchen Door has teamed up with Folsom’s Lockdown Brewing Co. for a celebration of Northern California craft beer and great food. Kitchen Door, recently honored as a Michelin Guide Recommended Restaurant as well as one of Bon Appetit’s 7 Best Restaurants on Napa Valley, will be pairing three delicious courses with three great beers from Lockdown Brewing Co. on January 23rd including their Emma’s Blonde Ale, Sutter Street Common and Stony Bar Scotch Ale.

Tickets are very limited for this intimate dinner and are $65 each, tax and gratuity included.

Mutineer will be on hand at the event and we hope to see you there.

Call or email Tim Sebeberson ASAP if interested in attending.
707-226-1560 // [email protected]

Sometimes my fellow food bloggers and I roll our eyes and bemoan having to attend yet another extravagant dinner or indulgent food festival. Even while recognizing the enormous calorie counts and coma-inducing properties of cream, bacon, butter and simple carbohydrates (frequently coexisting in the same dish) friends and loved ones are completely appalled when those of us in the bite-it-n-write-it circles get bitchy about a free lunch.

If you are one of those people, don’t read this.

“But it was thirty hamburgers!” That was the most common complaint I heard about The Taste’s Burgers & Beer event, the kickoff to four days of indulgent wining and dining. A huge expanse of parking lot had been taken over behind the Beverly Hilton. Astroturf rolled out, tents erected, gleaming luxury cars (courtesy of Infiniti) were put on display in all their self-conscious opulence. And in that space, from September 2 – 5, The Taste took over – at least for some of the events.

“Thirty! That’s a lot of burgers.”

True. That is a lot of burgers (the number of restaurants was actually thirty-two; the crowd’s favorite burger was from Santa Monica’s Rustic Canyon). At the Taco Tequila Tryst event, spread out on the New York City backlot at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, there were a lot of tacos. And tequila, too.

But, then again, what else should one expect from events called Burgers & Beer and Taco Tequila Tryst? In their defense, the meat spanned the spectrum from beef to pork to sheep and goat and fish, and even the taco party was influenced by a host of different cultures.

See? Sometimes a taco is more than just a taco. Even when there are seventeen different purveyors, all distributing their goods (twenty-seven different tacos in all), wrapped up in a warm tortilla (or a large, circular slice of jicama – from both Taberna Mexicana and Red O).

There was a lot of wine at The Taste, too, but I didn’t hear as much complaining that the bulk of it appeared to be Cabernet Sauvignon (and most of that was poured at Saturday’s Secrets from the Kitchen & Cellar…although, given the name, that’s probably not much of a surprise). What was a surprise was that the wine of the day was actually poured by Ray’s and Stark Bar and it was a sparkling from Westport, Massachusetts: Westport Rivers 2006 Westport Brut “RJR.” Sommelier Paul Sanguinetti said a friend from the area had introduced him to it. Great sparkling from MA? That’s a secret worth sharing.

Another secret from the cellar was that Chateau D’Esclans had all four of their Rosés on hand (Whispering Angel, Chateau d’Esclans, Les Clans and Garrus), and they were all gorgeous.

Back at Paramount, Street Eats (Sept 4) took it to…well…the street, with an assortment of finger foods from a variety of kitchens – including the wheeled kind. There were food trucks, a few dessert stalls and – cheese ‘n’ rice – more tacos. Despite feeling under the weather, I ended up going balls-out at this event: Two of my favorites were Great Balls On Tires’ Ballywood balls (garam masala chicken, coconut madras curry, crispy fried onions, tomato and cilantro chutneys, saffron basmati rice), and the tiny wheels of cream puff goodness from TiroVino wine bar. Pitfire Artisan Pizza got rave reviews from the crowd.

Perhaps the most inventive of the events was DTLA’s Food Noir. Many of the festival’s previous vendors returned for the final night (Giada De Laurentiis hosted Picnic in the Hills the next afternoon to close the festival, for the second year in a row). Restaurants served everything from pan-seared sea scallops (The Raymond) and hand-sliced prosciutto (Terroni) to…more burgers (The Counter) and more tacos (Pinches).

In addition to a great show by the LA local band Dengue Fever, The Orpheum showed clips of old black & white films to support the evening’s theme. That (and the cocktails (The Varnish, Mas Malo, Seven Grand) and the prosciutto…and the cocktails) were my favorite part of the evening.

Actually, Food Noir was probably my favorite part of the entire event (the cocktails: Caña Rum Bar, Las Perlas) certainly helped (but I hadn’t made it to Friday’s Art of Mixing, so that might’ve been a game changer). I also had to skip Fashion Bites Brunch and Desserts After Dark; although it probably would’ve been amazing to see Rodeo Drive closed off and lined with loaded tables of decadent treats…

But, then again, how many desserts can a blogger actually be expected to eat in a weekend? I mean, honestly.

This incredible dinner is less than 10 days away! If you’re in the LA area, you should be there.

For LA Beer Week, Firestone Walker is pulling out all the stops with their Deconstructed LA beer dinner. Firestone Walker will be breaking down their “XV” anniversary blend into eight individual components and they have enlisted the help of renowned beer inspired chef The Home Brew Chef Sean Paxton, who will deconstruct the flavors in each beer then craft small dishes to create a perfect and seamless pairing.

The event will host the debut of XV, Firestone Walker’s 15th anniversary ale. Every year, in September, Firestone Walker blends several of their strong, barrel-aged beers to create the Anniversary beer; this year’s is XV. Firestone Walker brings together top local winemakers under the guidance of Brewmaster, Matt Brynildson, to blend one of the most unique brews available. Eight ales, were hand selected to create XV, a blend that will become this year’s finest moment.

“Sean is mildly insane and phenomenally talented; his unbridled imagination and deep understanding of the DNA of beer and food creates a real experience ,” said David Walker, co-proprietor of Firestone Walker. “Add that to Matt Brynildson’s equally inspired Anniversary blend and you have something that you’ll not forget.”

Deconstructed L.A. will be held in the Bardot at the Avalon Theater from 7pm-10pm on October 12. Tickets are $75/person and very limited. The price will include complimentary beer, small plates, an event snifter glass and an amazing evening with Executive Chef Sean Z. Paxton, David Walker and Matt Brynildson as hosts.

Tickets and additional information available at www.FWDeconstructed.com or call 805-225-5911 x607.

Drive about ten miles east of downtown Los Angeles and you’ll find yourself in a sort of cornucopia of Asian food. Vietnamese, Chinese – a spectrum of dim sum that stretches from soup dumplings in tiny, ten-tabled holes-in-the-wall to cavernous event palaces where older women push carts of cooked chicken feet, jellyfish, pig stomach and a rainbow of intestines.

Clearly, it’s not for everyone.

But in the heart of the shining and glitzy LA Live complex, towering over the city on the 24th floor of the Ritz Carlton hotel, chef Sara Johannes is bringing old world-style dim sum to Wolfgang Puck’s WP24. The restaurant launched Family Style Dim Sum Sunday Dinners on September 25. For $55 each, diners get four courses (ten dishes to share), including honey drizzled BBQ pork buns, scallop steamed shu mai with blue crab in ginger sauce, organic Jidori chicken chow fun noodles with sweet Thai basil, Singapore style chili prawns, and farmer’s market vegetable fried rice. For an additional $20 per person, Alaskan king crab dumplings, Peking style duck two ways or Korean grilled lamb chops with kochujang aioli can be added to the menu. Not a single durian pastry to navigate or chicken brain to avoid.

Perfectly paired with Klaus (brother to Wolfie) Puck’s wine suggestions, the bright, precise flavors – from mild hot-sweet to deep and searingly spicy – are a lovely introduction to the vast and sometimes overwhelming world of Chinese small bites. The restaurant is lovely, the views spectacular; and the menu is not only based on seasonal availability, it is also designed to change according to the weather: a little spicier on cold days, a bit more Yin when the temperature climbs.

But if after the concert, the game, or the Family Sunday Dim Sum Sunday Dinner, you still want to try a bit of dou fu fa (silky tofu in syrup) for dessert, that drive to San Gabriel is a twenty minute straight shot down the 10.

The waiters have just begun to serve the third course at John Sedlar’s restaurant, Rivera, in downtown Los Angeles. The plating is inspiring: Occupying the top third of the square white dish and painted in spices, is an image. Five different pictures in all, divided among the fifteen or so at the table. Mine is a word, something (meaning now forgotten) printed in delicate Arabic letters, tasting primarily of cumin and paprika. The person next to me has an image of a bull. Beside them is a plate painted with a pair of female eyes, gazing back beneath heavily lined lids. Each picture, the accompaniment to Sedlar’s grilled Snake River Farms chuleta de puerco (under the green of a pureed pippan sauce), is whimsical and strong and leads to an immediate surge in conversation.

But the well-presented pork chops aren’t the only reason the table is buzzing. Vinos Unico, a San Francisco-based wine importer specializing in Portuguese, Spanish and Argentinean wines, invited guests to this dinner to show off their new portfolio of Bodegas Riojanas wines. And they just poured a 1978 and a 1964, side-by-side.

The brands on display tonight, Viña Albina and Monte Real, both represent traditional Spanish Rioja – brambly, earthy, slightly untamed. The Viña Albina wines, in particular – from the 1978 Gran Reserva to the 2004 Reserva (paired with macerated salmon, white asparagus and nasturtium), are all masculine power – berries braced against tannin and spice, unfolding into cigar and barnyard and forest floor. These wines are smooth, but substantial. As they open, it’s impossible to predict the direction they’ll take. The ride is exciting.

The Monte Real Rioja, by contrast, are more restrained. These wines, while still possessing the earth and complexity of the Viña Albina, are more feminine; they’re big but pretty. The journey is less unpredictable; they’re gentle and soft on the finish. Even after ten, thirteen, forty-seven years of aging, these wines still show fruit. If everything aged so pretty, half the people in Beverly Hills would save a fortune on fillers and peels.

Rioja wine comes from La Rioja, an autonomous community and province in northern Spain. The region, itself, is divided into three separate areas: Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa and Rioja Baja. Grapes (traditionally Tempranillo, Graciano, Mazuelo and Garnacha for red; and Viura/Macabeo, Malvasia, and Garnacha Blanca for white) are grown in each of the sections – top, middle and lower. The most acclaimed wines come from Rioja Alta, whose higher elevation tends to produce the best combination of fruit/structure/acid/alcohol. By contrast, most of the grapes from Rioja Baja are used for blending.

Bodegas Riojanas is a Rioja Alta producer. Both lines feature a majority of Tempranillo, with Mazuelo and Graciano making up the remainder of the blends. True to tradition and D.O.C. regulation, the Reservas have been aged anywhere from 24 – 30 months in oak barrels and spend another year in bottle; the Gran Reservas spend 36 months aging in bottle after 24 – 30 months in oak.

The 2001 Viña Albina Dolce Reserva, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. This is a sweet white Rioja; the rich, viscous, honey-citrus blend made from Viura and Malvasia – and has just been paired with Sedlar’s honey ice cream, anise kumquat cookies and macerated blueberries. It is the perfect ending to a presentation of unforgettable food and wine; an evening that has proven to be an enlightening combination of old and new in Spanish wine and cuisine.