This year I was for­tu­nate enough to take a quick jaunt to the sunny shores of South Beach to check out the Food Network’s South Beach Wine & Food Fes­ti­val.  First of all, this was held ON the beach – and when I say ON the beach, it was right there on the gor­geous white sands with a back­drop of the gor­geous blue ocean.  The weather was beau­ti­ful, to say the least and it was so cool to drive into the city of Miami with ban­ners of var­i­ous Food Net­work per­son­al­i­ties includ­ing Sunny Ander­son, Ingrid Hoff­man, the Neelys and Anne Bur­rell in addi­tion to the stan­dard Food Net­work crew like Bobby, Emeril, Tyler, Rachael and the Iron Chefs. 

Typ­i­cally, I head to South Beach for Win­ter Music Con­fer­ence and var­i­ous music events.  This was my first time head­ing down to some­thing that was part of my culi­nary pas­sion and  I didn’t know what I would encounter.  I was excited for the demos and I was deter­mined to get you all some fab­u­lous recipes and pics.  Food­Buzz shared my excite­ment as I was selected to be part of this month’s 24, 24, 24 so I decided to take some of what I learned at SOBE and share it with you.

First of all, the one thing I heard echoed time and time again – cook from the heart.  If you don’t like a par­tic­u­lar ingre­di­ent – don’t use it.  Recipes are sug­ges­tions and guide­lines – but you can impro­vise where you see fit.  Also, Iron Chef Michael Symonhad some great tips – namely – DO NOT GET SUCKERED BY GADGETS.  Now I’m a gad­get ho, that’s not up for debate.  When he said to toss the gar­lic press and the cit­rus squeezer – I winced.  Accord­ing to him, a fork and a good chef’s knife is a sta­ple in any good cook’s kitchen, I hated to admit it but he was cor­rect.  I was curs­ing out Williams Sonoma under by breath for suck­er­ing me into that cit­rus reamer and the gar­lic mincer/slicer toy.  If I took a poll of all my culi­nary “gad­gets” :::sigh:::I prob­a­bly could get a swanky pair of Loubous.  How­ever, I do like using the “gad­gets” but I am deter­mined to try to old school it more. 

Sec­ondly, Iron Chef Cat Cora said dur­ing her demo that you can cook from the hip – namely if you have time to only do a lit­tle grilled shrimp or toss together a quick salad, then do it.  But when you do it, do it well the first time.  Also, cook­ing is often trial and error.  Sunny Ander­son said that some­times her best recipes are just whipped up in her kitchen – that woman is not afraid to get her culi­nary mojo on.   Finally, Rocco DiSpir­ito tossed it out there that not every­one can make a mean chicken stock and, some­times, that chicken stock ”in a box” is really good.  Top Chef Hung who was just observ­ing the demo con­curred with Rocco’s opinion. 

Another theme that went through the event - great ingre­di­ents = great end prod­uct.  Iron Chef Symon said that when you cook, try to get the best ingre­di­ents that you can.  He said there is a rea­son why there is a $.40 lb chicken v. the $1.20 lb chicken.  He knows not every­one can afford the $1.20 lb chicken but if you can, use it.  You will have a bet­ter end prod­uct.  He also talked about his favorite must haves in a dish:  fat, acid, chilies and salt.  Salt brings out the fla­vor in every­thing so don’t be afraid to use it.  Again, it’s about trial and error.  Taste your dish as you go along – you’ll catch when the sea­son­ing is just right.

Dur­ing the demos, they had mir­rors above the cook­ing sta­tions and I thought it was cool to see how every­thing was laid out.  I took some pics of that for you all to see how some­times it is just bet­ter to prep before­hand and have every­thing laid out.  They also had some book sign­ings and var­i­ous tast­ings so I’ll have to break that down in future posts.

So, for my Food­Buzz 24, 24, 24 din­ner I decided to focus on some dishes cre­ated by three of my favorite Food Net­work chefs (and SOBE demo pre­sen­ters):  Sunny Ander­son, Ingrid Hoff­man and Cat Cora and share them with my friends here in Orlando who didn’t get to make the trip. 

First up, Iron Chef Cat Cora’s Straw­berry Arugula Saladfrom her cook­book, “Cook­ing From The Hip”.  I noticed that the recipe had some ingre­di­ents I did not have (i.e. White Bal­samic Vine­gar for one) but I decided to “cook from the hip” and impro­vise with a basic bal­as­mic vine­gar dress­ing and a dash of lemon and some blue cheese.  Delish.

I rarely host a soiree with­out a shrimp appe­tizer.  My Bampa always started off with shrimp cock­tail and since I’ve been enter­tain­ing more, I fol­lowed suit.  This time, I decided to give Sunny Anderson’s No Fuss Peel n’ Eat Shrimp a try.  She did it at her demo. I think my Bampa would agree that the stan­dard shrimp cock­tail MUST be replaced with this.  I have to con­fess that while I’m an Old Bay Sea­son­ing novice, I am offi­cially a con­vert.  So much fla­vor was in the shrimp and the recipe couldn’t have been sim­pler.  Roast some deveined peel on shrimp with 1 tbsp. of Old Bay and 1 1/2 tbsp. of veg­etable oil at 350 for 10–12 min­utes and that’s it.  You will be the rock star of the kitchen, trust.

Sadly, while I did miss Ingrid’s demo, I had a minute to chat with her dur­ing her book sign­ing.  What you see on the tv screen is reflec­tive of her per­son­al­ity.  She’s a trip – very warm and per­son­able.  I decided to go for the shock value and try her “Pollo Pen­dejo” aka Fool­proof Chicken or Idiot Chicken.  I’ll post the recipe this week and this dish is being added to reper­toire.   It’s bone­less skin­less chicken breast mar­i­nated in some worces­ter­shire sauce and adobo and then cooked with some mush­rooms, onions, gar­lic and beer.  Per her sug­ges­tion in the recipe, I served it over but­tered noo­dles.  Soooo flip­pin’ good.

All in all, it was a great suc­cess and I feel that going to SOBE blessed me with so much culi­nary inspi­ra­tion.  I got to meet some amaz­ing peo­ple such as Sunny, Ingrid, Jacob from FNAd­dict, Rocco and oth­ers which was a bonus to every­thing I got to see.  I even picked up some good­ies for y’all which I’ll share over the month of March.   Next year’s event will be more than a day trip, that’s for sure.   

Here are some pics so you can enjoy the trip with me.