West on Western 2008
http://westofwestern.com/
The festival was Saturday 3/15-Sunday 3/16
at the Phoenix Art Museum
We went on Sunday where there were about 30 tables set up from different restaurants/whole foods/chefs/culinary schools. There were also cooking demos and presentations you could go to. There was live music and we walked around the museum as well. It was a little pricey-my ticket was $67 because i got the food pass(no wine), and my sister got the kids price $22-it was also cheaper since we bought the tickets ahead of time online..I took MANY pictures, i think some of the chefs thought this was weird, aka a certain Iron Chef Champion. The festival was in the outside courtyard, on a beautiful day, and it was full but not super crowded. We go most of the food right away, with rarely a line in sight. I didn't take pictures from the demos but we went to the one from Classic Cooking with Nephi Craig and Pascal Dionot. They combine French and Native American cooking techniques at their culinary school and made a really good pork/posole soup for us. We also saw Lionel Geuskens from Trente-Cinq 35, he made shrimp croquettes, and was super adorable. At the end we saw Matt Carter from Zinc Bistro, he made squash ravioli with pancetta, a cream sauce, and scallops. There weren't many samples and my sister ran pushed her way in to make sure we got to try, it was really good. I think we tried every single sample, and we were about to pass out at the end..but it was really fun and yummy.
Simply Bread
cornbread and cranberry breads
corn was good
cranberry was eh
Don't remember where this was from,
but it was
a sweet potato type bliniwith pork, avocado creme, creme fraiche, pretty tassty
mmm this one was really good, fish with green lentils
and umm don't know where its fun, or what type of fish or sauce buttt it was GOOD
I remember this being good too..I really should have
written down where they were from..some of the names I didn't even know before the festival. The dish wasn't this big, this was the show platter on the table
These were both from the same place,
the first was
octopus-I just remember it being really chewy, and
the soup was a white bean with fresh shaved parmesanon top
..it was good
This was a fresh made sausage, olives
and tomato and cauliflower.
It was ok
I have a ton of pictures from the Kai
stand..it
had cedar plank grilledsalmon, tortilla rolled cones
with creme friache and dipped in
pistachios, and the best thing-buffalo tacos!!! They were so
good with tons of different
toppings...and we got to talk to the chefs too, one is up for James
Beard
award..yayz
