cali coast foodie

So 4 cocktails, 4 bottomless glasses of wine with Guy Fieri, and I am in to my third event, the Dan Dunn’s Blues Booze and BBq’s.  This event just sounded fun; I have no idea who the F Dan Dunn is, and still don’t.  He apparently writes the nightlife column for playboy, but checking though my last three years of magazines I don’t see his name mentioned once, whatever, not the point.

The point is I am hammer fisted at this point, drunk as a skunk, but we are to consume three cocktails at this event paired with BBQ listening to the comedic genius that is Dan Dunn.  First Dan is a pretty entertaining guy; he was not, however, prepared to entertain the crowd of 300 for two hours and kept shoving off the responsibility on his BBQ champions from Baby Blues BBQ in Los Angeles, CA.  

Also the cocktails tasted like shit, putting that out there, didn’t enjoy them.  Dan was funny, but more importantly his BBQ pal Danny was spot on with his additions.  Stole the show. 

Anyhow, after this gorging of more food and booze I headed over to Spanish bay fire pits again, my home away from home (more like my real home).  Here I bumped into a writer friend of mine who wanted a cigar and some scotch, so I ordered a couple up and continued to imbibe at an excessive amount.  

Sooo my friend who writes for the times in some region recognized Dan and the BBQ crew out and about so we began chatting with them, then we began shooting shots with them (Dan’s new book is entitled “Living Loaded” a memoir of drunken debauchery at the age of 40) then I began drunkenly suggestion local spots for dinner, then was invited to dinner with the crew.   I agreed that I would join them.  But first I was going to stop home for some R and R.  

However, on the way out, I spotted some celebrity Chefs, below is a picture of some the more prominent female chefs of our day.  I also spotted guy Fieri, and I interrupted his conversation for a picture and he told me to F OFF.  Rude, but my photographer got a shot of us anyway! A$$.

I awoke in my home eight hours later with a massive headache and a dozen text messages from people asking questions from where I was for dinner (Dan Crew) to when I was heading to the after party (Local Peeps).  I went back to bed to get ready for the Lexus Grand Tasting!~

Plus, I was heading to the Cayman Islands on Monday, more on that later!~

Alright so on Saturday of the 2011 Pebble Beach Food and Wine I started the day with the Tom Coliccio cooking demo.  He did an OK job but I get bored with no booze and or interaction, yes you host a famed TV reality show, so f’ing what.  He made ravioli that looked like ish.

But the good news is that there were about a dozen rather attractive females strutting around in heels dolling out cocktails of various sorts  promoting some new Vegas Resort (yeah great time to open a casino, smack dab in the middle of a recession).  So these scantily clad temptresses had me on my fourth cocktail by noon, and the Guy Fieri interactive lunch started at noon thirty I believe.  So I hopped over to the Spanish bay for a quick cigar and a scotch (cocktail number 5) and headed back for the lunch.

I clearly didn’t know what exactly to expect from this endeavor, the lunch I mean, because when I got to the lobby there were more waitresses handing out bacon wrapped prawns smothered in chipotle BBQ sauce, sounds like Guy.   No class just big meaty flavors, and lots of bacon fat!

Well I sat down and was moved to the front of the room sitting amongst the industry Elite again, this time instead of the Anheuser Busch Fellows it was Jackson Family Wines (RIP Mr. Jackson).  The great thing about this lunch was not the four bottomless glasses of wines paired with Guys insanely saturated fat ridden but delicious dishes; it was the fact that we cooked our own meal. A volunteer from the table got up and helped a professional chef (standing at the end of each table of eight) Cook one of the four courses. 

I roasted up some rack of lamb for the table with a mint pesto sauce, it was f’ing fantastic, and Guy came around and peppered my dish with his pepper cracker, thanks Guy.

If he had only showed as much grace offstage, or should I have?  We let’s not get into it now, the Dan Dunn BBQ is up next!

Alright well I obviously survived opening night and the subsequent events as I am finishing up my recollection of the events about a week later.   And to be quite honest I think I may have done irreparable damage to my liver and or other vital organs during the 4 day stretch.  

Let’s see if I can even remember this, Friday, I did the Sports celebrity wine tasting with Drew Bledsoe and two other people I have never heard of.  Their wine was good but I was board.  Then I moved on over to the Belgian Beer lunch.  

The Belgian beer lunch was great.  The officiating chef for the event was the famous Belgian chef Daniel Joly., but also included dishes by Tim Love and Mark Sullivan.  This event was an eye opener for me, I hate pairing beer with food because I feel bloated and can’t enjoy my meal, well as Daniel pointed out early on, not only do Belgian beers contain less carbonation, there is also a great way to pour them to remove some unwanted carbonation, as well as open them up for proper flavor. Good to know!  Click here to learn how!

So with what I recall as pretty good food, and some amazing Belgian beer I did discover a new found pleasure for the Belgian stuff and the pairing of food with it.  I told this to the other members of the table and sure enough the gentleman sitting to my right was a corporate executive with Anheuser-Bush In-Bev.  They were so happy that their point made it across they sent me a 300 hundred dollar Stella Picnic set the following week.  Thanks Guys!!! 

 

Well the fun didn’t stop there.  The next day I was back in full fervor.  

Joly is on the right, Tim Love Center…

My experience at the opening night was similar to the last few years,  lots of wineries snobbishly pouring their wines, judging people as neophytes or pedestrian name seekers who are too drunk to value the true quality of their juice.  Well, that may be true, but the point of the event is educating wine lovers about the quality nature of your product, I would presume.  This year was on the interesting side though, as I attended with a friend who is well known enough in the community to make it very difficult to focus on wine and food collection rather than shaking babies and kissing hands with the social elite.

I am neither social nor elite, more of a half drunk nuisance stuck like a thorn in the side of the true socialites in the crowd; people who I pretend to know because I have been to enough parties to be very slightly acquainted with them.  Plus, I am a writer; people often act like they are terrified that I might publish some unsightly article in the local paper about them, which I think adds to my pariah like swagger.  GD right. 

So not being nearly connected enough to score tickets to the aforementioned after party, the place where everybody who’s anybody (pardon the Cliché) goes to get even more wasted and attempt to dance and meet the chefs and wine makers headlining the event.  It sounded like a pretty neat place to be, but thankfully my much more well known, and, well liked for that matter, friend had the big fancy premium package with after party hook ups so we rocked it!

At this point I had consumed a cumulative 2 or 3 bottles of wine, and now they had Belvedere on tap like a giant F’ing fountain spilling out over the counter in the form of delicious cocktails of various flavors.  They were amazing; I had like 6, and was having trouble formulating words at that point, marbles rolling around in my liquor soaked mouth.  I know, it’s pathetic that I start to slur my speech after only about the equivalent of 5 bottles of wine.  Not even a half a case!  

 I am pretty sure the Founders strolled by in their perfectly tailored Brioni suits (I don’t know what the hell they are but the look fancy) and said Hello to my Colleague in crime, and in defiance to their natural inclination to completely ignore me, shook my hand as well.  How very gracious.  I guess I have to buy the 5K package to some real respect at an event like this.  Well I cabbed in home and passed out like a light.  Up in the AM for the 10 am ESPW tasting, sports Celebrities and their Wines, YUM!

I am not sure how anyone could possibly prepare for an event like pebble beach food and wine’s grand opening, and there is certainly no way to prepare ones liver for the entire four day event.  The opening reception consists of over two hundred wineries and more the 30 celebrity chef’s.   

The event really does showcase the elite producers of both wine and food; the true culinary masters of our world.  Guy Fieri, Morimoto, Tom Colliccio, Jacques Pepin are just a few headliners.  But how in the hellfire and damnation to you indulge and imbibe in 30 dishes and 200 wines respectively, within the course of a few hours?

This is a good question in my opinion, as is the question, how do you partake in as much as you can in this short time period and still be in reasonable enough shape to hit the famed after party?  AND??   How in the Farfignugin does one (even a person as seasoned a party veteran as myself) make it to the after after party (by exclusive initiation only) usually at a location where the founders are staying, until 4 or 5 in the morning and make it up for a 10 a.m. tasting>!?!@  The answer is who the flip knows, you just get out there  and you do the best that you can without getting sick, and then you sleep minimally, and drink as much waster a possible while you pack in the events which last from 10 am  in the morning until ungodly hours of the night.  Four days of very expensive, over indulgence, at its finest and most debilitating.  I still hadn’t recovered from Thursday night’s opener and I had three full days after to ostensibly enjoy!

Of course, it the whole debaucherous food and alcohol binge began with the ever elite founder’s dinner on Wednesday, a dinner to which I will never be invited.  This event requires a 2 thousand dollar admission as well as accompaniment by a 5 thousand dollar MINIMUM value magnum from your cellar.  Well I do suppose I could pull a nice bottle of Argentine malbec from my wine rack, but its empty and purchased for 14 dollars at Trader Joes.  The next, out-of-my-price-range event is the golf tournament.  Thousand bucks a pop for a round on pebble with some of the rockstars of the  event, including more alcohol then you should  probably drink in a lifetime.  

In all honesty, the event is categorically out of my price range but I pulled together some tax refund cash and some other money (credit card debt) and hooked myself up  with the starter package.  The Magnum – this includes all four days, opening reception, three events on Friday, three events on Saturday and two on Sunday, including the big daddy Lexus Grand Tasting!  All the wineries and all the Chefs are at this one…200 dollars for 3 hours of free for all food and wine (and now bourbon, patron, and vodka), whooolie Shiit, you can’t walk after these things.  The Valets should be legally required to breathalyzer you when you leave , there can’t be a single person who has any business behind a wheel  leaving this event!  Also, you are not even invited to the after party until you spend five thousand dollars on your four day pass.  This ridiculous statement of a package includes all of the highest in luxury; free Lexus transportation to each event, unlimited VIP access everywhere, special exclusive offers, tastings and dinners.  This package rules all others, but you must be strong with the alcoholic force to handle all of this treatment, either that or spit your wine out (a cardinal sin in my book!).  Day One – opening night up next!