Curtis Stone demonstrates how to create Gourmet Chicken Sausage Roll with Truffle — his favorite ingredient — on March 26 at Palm Desert Food and Wine.
PHOTOGRAPH BY YASIN CHAUDHRY
After donning an orange neck sling that handily nests a wine glass, a Palm Desert Food & Wine attendee on March 26 could begin a day of indulgence by perusing product displays in a tent that would serve as a reception area for the evening’s Fashion Week El Paseo runway show by The Netherlands’ “Designer of Storytelling” Edwin Oudshoorn.
It couldn’t hurt to take a moment to savor a tidbit taste from the royal blue and gold Goufrais table, featuring gourmet chocolates from the south edge of the Black Forest.
Stepping into the sunshine of the tent-complex courtyard, you see a trio of Lexus automobiles (LC, NX, and RX models). If you aren’t in the market for a car, you at least could grab a Lexus lollipop offered in a rainbow of colors from pots mounted on a greenery wall.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NICOLE JARMILLO
The "Bar Monte" featured Amaro Montenegro liqueur.
PHOTOGRAPH BY NICOLE JARMILLO
2022 models from Shottenkirk Desert Lexus dotted the festival grounds.
In your peripheral vision, you spy a mobile cart from Palm Springs’ Gelato Granucci. This presents the day’s first opportunity to exercise your decision-making skills. You can try a range of flavors: dark chocolate, lemon basil, cava brut rosé, amarena (a tart cherry yogurt), stracciatella (sweet cream with chunks of dark chocolate), or hazelnut.
Another local business, Indio’s Buzzbox, offers an array of premixed cocktails (margarita, mojito, cosmopolitan, bloody Mary, hurricane, etc.) in ecofriendly Tetra Pak boxes. Did you hear someone say “picnic?”
Upon noting that Ascension Cellars and ZD Wines are neighbors at the end of a row, you might suspect festival organizers thought you’d have an A-to-Z tasting experience just as you were getting started. But it’s too early in the day for conspiracy theories — and later you won’t care.
Though it may be logical to continue down the line, so to speak, there’s something behind you and it’s not your mother and father. So, you feel free to check out Dragos Cantina’s craft margaritas. If you thought a strawberry margarita was adventurous, then you don’t know Dragos. The 1.75-liter boxes come in pineapple coconut with shredded coconut rim dipper, strawberry basil with jalapeño salt dipper, blood orange grapefruit with black volcanic sea salt dipper, and cucumber jalapeño with chili lime salt dipper.
You turn your attention back to wines and then decide you should, at the absolute least, check out what local restaurants are offering. After all, your stomach and tongue like solids as well as liquids.
Palm Springs’ Trio bookends the palate with an appetizer and dessert: citrus-cured salmon crostini and Medjool dates combined with nuts, chocolate, and goat cheese. Cork & Fork follows suit with quiche squares and key lime bars. Wildest, Pacifica, Cliffhouse, and Larkspur Grill take a seaworthy approach with wild-tuna tartare; shrimp cocktail; sugar-spiced Norwegian salmon rillettes; and charred avocado with shrimp, chimichurri sauce, crema, and micro cilantro on Peruvian purple corn tortillas. SOˑPA at L’Horizon Resort & Spa serves puff pastry with truffled cheese sauce, garnished with paprika and chives.
PHOTOGRAPH BY YASIN CHAUDHRY
Cheese master Afrim Pristine talked up using halloumi with vinaigrette and roasted grapes.
If you are a vegetarian — or maybe if you just lose track of time in the main tent, you might miss chef demonstrations that include meat and poultry (though others with broader diets or better time-management skills fill the chairs). But, particularly if you attended Friday’s James Beard Luncheon and found cheese master Afrim Pristine charismatic (and you did if you did), you want to sit in on his demonstration of halloumi with vinaigrette and roasted grapes. If you are not a cheese aficionado, let alone a cheese master, halloumi may sound Greek to you. But it only kinda is. Pristine explains that the cheese – made from a combination of sheep’s and goat’s milk — comes from Cyprus.
“I am the Jedi of cheese,” Pristine says — and proudly points out that he is the world’s youngest Maître Fromager. So, you are not inclined to challenge him when he declares halloumi to be having its moment. If you like to grill in the summer, you probably are thinking you should ferret out a halloumi source, because Pristine declares it to be a non-melting-but-meant-to-be-cooked cheese that — ha! —can be set directly on a grill.
PHOTOGRAPH BY YASIN CHAUDHRY
Mark Tadros of Aziz Farms in Thermal talks abotu the care and time it takes to cultivate dates in the Coachella Valley while chef Aarti Sequeira looks on.
PHOTOGRAPH BY YASIN CHAUDHRY
Mark Tadros and Aarti Sequeira show off their lamb chops with hummus and date, mint, pine nut salsa.
Armed with recipes that you’ve witnessed and tasted, you find yourself inspired to elevate your kitchen to chef level. If you attended the James Beard Luncheon, you have jars of Peruvian chile lime seasoning and Pikes Peak butcher’s rub from Palm Desert’s Savory Spice. At the Palm Desert Food and Wine grand tasting, you’ve tucked a complimentary packet of salt-free California citrus rub into your bag.
That said, inspiration is just a jumping-off point. And your kitchen will still be there in days and weeks to come; the grand tasting only continues one more day until 2023. So, you might as well get back to wine tasting.
• READ NEXT: James Beard Luncheon Serves Up Playful Banter from Headliner Chefs.