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Stuff to do: January 2008
• by Byron Kerman - Image courtesy of Bravo
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Stuff to do: FOOD
Special Events
Sushi Workshop
Jan. 2 – 6 p.m., Viking Cooking School
314.961.1999
www.vikingcookingschool.com
What’s the one thing any serious sushi chef won’t tell you? How he makes his rice. The maki sushi (rolls) are all about the rice. The rice grain, the vinegar, the additional ingredients, the mixing and cooking procedure – it’s really a discipline within a discipline. If the rice is made just right, you may find it difficult to stop eating sushi. If not, you may start to think about trying a different sushi restaurant next time. The Viking Cooking School delves into the intricacies of this photogenic food at a class during which you’ll get to use a bunch of different techniques. Students will make hand-pressed nigiri sushi with shrimp, tuna and eel; the inside-out California roll (uramaki sushi); hosomaki spicy tuna and cucumber rolls; a temaki hand roll; plus miso soup and the healthiest appetizer known to man, edamame. And you will learn the trade secrets of making quality rice for sushi.
Burns Night
Jan. 24, 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., Schlafly Tap Room
314.241.2337
www.schlafly.com
Last year’s Burns Night celebration of poet Robert Burns and all things Scottish reached a fever pitch when Schlafly Beer owner/poet laureate Tom Schlafly read his epic poem Burns’ Voyeuristic Ghost. He declaimed that “Britney Spears, like Robert Burns, had a birthday celebration / With her buddy Paris Hilton, she had a few libations / They wore their skirts like kilts, without their BVDs / Like a proper Scotsman, they liked to feel the breeze.” (It only got more earthy from that point.) In addition to topical verse, diners who brave Burns Night may also encounter the formidable haggis, shepherd’s pie, neaps and tatties, Scotch eggs, Cock-a-Leekie soup and plenty of Schlafly Scotch Ale and single-malt scotch. Don’t miss the bagpipers and Celtic bands, too.
The St. Louis Food & Wine Experience
Jan. 26 and 27, Chase Park Plaza Hotel
314.968.7340, ext. 229
www.repstl.org
There is a special discounted admission rate for designated drivers attending the annual St. Louis Food & Wine Experience to benefit the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. That’s because the weekend festival offers the chance to sample many, many intriguing wines. Oh, yes. Even if you take just a tiny taste of each wine that interests you, you will be feeling goooooood. It’s a party. So consider bringing – or being – that designated driver, or maybe arriving by taxi or rickshaw. The Experience, which has the feel of a boisterous convention floor, features about 100 vendors showing off their wine and gourmet foods. You’ll also find guest chefs leading wine seminars and a “VIP Reserve Room” for hardcore winos. I mean oenophiles.
Exhibitions
Mary Joan Waid: Meditations
Through Jan. 6, Atrium Gallery
314.367.1076
www.atriumgallery.net
Art history tells us that food depicted in still life paintings is a symbol for decay and loss. Nothing gold can stay, as the poet says, and that includes Golden Delicious apples. Mary Joan Waid’s still lifes of food – a basket of apples, a plate of green grapes, a huddle of underripe oranges with a touch of green on their peels – are wrapped up in similar notions of control versus chaos, she has explained in interviews. When it comes to oils and pastels, Waid would seem to have control in spades. Her Summer’s Wild Berries, a pastel rendering of a plate of blackberries, makes you want to pluck the luscious fruit right off the paper. (In fact, Waid herself has been known to eat the subjects of her paintings shortly after the work is done.) In another piece, a pair of cream-colored meringue cookies, with their peculiar circus-tent texture, rest on a pale pink plate, genteel, controlled and fragile as spun sugar.
The Birth of Coffee
From Jan. 11, Missouri Botanical Garden 314.577.9400
www.birthofcoffee.com
The husband-and-wife team of photographer Daniel Lorenzetti and author Linda Rice Lorenzetti traveled a quarter of a million miles to five continents and eight countries to follow the story of coffee from bean to cup. They tackled some rough terrain (and some rougher political regimes) to witness coffee planting, growing, harvesting, processing, shipping and, finally, drinking. The exhibition detailing their finds springs from the pages of their book, The Birth of Coffee, which features cool black-and-white photos tinted with a dye made from coffee itself. If you lick the pages, you can get a caffeine buzz!
Classes, Clinics and Demos
Knife-Sharpening Clinic
Jan. 19 – 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Chef’s Shoppe, Edwardsville
618.659.9840
www.chefsshoppe.com
Once upon a time, the itinerant knife sharpener would rattle up to your door in his horse-drawn wagon. You’d open the door to find a smiling, disheveled man, his ancient tools and his spavined horse – charming one and all. You’d bring him all of your kitchen knives, and he’d sharpen every one of them to a fine edge, right there in your front yard. You hadn’t realized just how dull they’d become. You were so grateful – and it was so cold outside – and he was such a nice man. You’d invite him in for a cup of coffee and maybe a slice of Bundt cake. The knife sharpener who makes house calls may have gone the way of the milkman, but a J.A. Henckels knives rep will be stopping by Edwardsville’s Chef’s Shoppe to sharpen up to three of your knives for free. She’ll answer any general knife care and use questions, too. So ask her anything, and she’ll take a stab at it. Ouchie.
Iron Chef
Jan. 21 – 6 p.m., Kitchen Conservatory
314.862.2665
www.kitchenconservatory.com
The wags who name the classes at the Kitchen Conservatory cooking school and shop are just having too much fun. In January alone, the offerings include The World Series of Porker; Wake Up, Little Sushi; Nice Bass!; Name That Tuna; and my personal favorite, Phyllo, Aim High. Ooch! The mood may turn a bit more serious for the school’s Iron Chef night, at which Kevin Nashan of Sidney Street Café will battle Joshua Galliano of An American Place. The secret ingredient will be chosen by Conservatory chairperson Anne Cori, and will not be revealed until the start of the competition, just like in the TV show/drinking game. In a fun twist, the floor commentator will be Chris Nashan, who has worked at both restaurants, and is, yep, the brother of Kevin. And who are the judges? You, if you take this one-night class.
Festivals and Expos
Let’s Go Fishing Show
Jan. 4 to 6, Gateway Center, Collinsville
314.355.1236
www.letsgoshows.com
The mothers of the world have been known to call fish “brain food,” telling their children they’ll get smarter if they eat it. But smarts is what you need if you’re going to catch it in the first place. Visitors to the Let’s Go Fishing Show are excited about outsmarting the fish, and about cooking and savoring the ones that didn’t get away. The weekend convention includes a truly gigantic selection of tackle; reps from resorts; boat, rod, reel, motor and depth-finder vendors; and some very popular fishing seminars with celebrities from the world of competitive fishing (all free with paid admission). There’s also a large display of antique fishing lures and equipment, and free appraisals of the same, provided by the National Fishing Lure Collectors Club.
Smart Living Expo
Jan. 5 and 6, America’s Center
314.394.2482
www.smartlivingstlouis.com/expo.php
There are some big names whipping up dishes on the Cooking Stage at this year’s Smart Living Expo, including the Bravo network’s Top Chef winner Hung Huynh, who fuses Asian, French and Spanish influences at the chichi Guy Savoy restaurant in Las Vegas. At other times, you can witness the guru of fresh ingredients Nathan Lyon of the Discovery Health Channel’s A Lyon in the Kitchen turning seasonal items into delicious meals. The locals on the Cooking Stage include Greg Maggi, executive chef of Robust; Rich LoRusso of LoRusso’s Cucina; Vince Bommarito Jr. of Tony’s; and Charles Rossi, assistant professor at St. Louis Community College.
Sauce sponsored
Food Outreach’s Foodies Forum
Jan. 29 – 6:15 p.m., Extra Virgin, An Olive Ovation
314.652.3663
www.foodoutreach.org
This month, taste two millennia-old pleasures – olives and olive oils – at a rotating event for epicures. Lock in a spot by calling Food Outreach’s Justin O’Neal at x18.
Soirée Pour La Vue Premium Tasting
Jan. 31 – 6 to 8:30 p.m., Moulin Meetings & Events
618.394.6443 or 314.241.3400 x6443
www.mindseyeradio.org
Get in on some silent auction action as you sip and nibble at this benefit for Minds Eye Radio, a nonprofit that supplies the blind and print-impaired with local and national news.
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