Marble House – arriving and sky is grey
This past weekend I attended the Newport Food and Wine Festival – a great fundraiser for the Preservation Society of Newport County. The weather started out a little ominous but cleared out beautifully and was crisp and delightful – showing off the amazing venue that is Newport in sparkling confidence. 
view from behind the Grand Tasting Tent just a little while later!
The Grand Tasting events were held at Marble House and we took in all of the glory that is a large scale food and wine event. First, I was happily able to meet Roseann Tully, founder and CEO of Intermezzo Magazine, a long-time objective of mine and watch her prepare her amazing seafood paella. She made this dish look very easy, emphasized the great impression such a dish creates and how it can feed a large group elegantly in a one-pot format. I have a huge and amazing copper paella pan that I use for many dishes when I am entertaining – time to dust it off and do this great recipe! As I have mentioned here on many occasions, Intermezzo is a very beautifully-done publication, and reflects Roseann’s great vision on culinary experiences and travel. I am so happy that this magazine keeps the standard so high in publications produced in this country, in an era when there is so much competition from other media venues. I re-read issue #9 from 2005, with the paella on the cover, this morning and, the word “genius” popped into my mind – as I surveyed the array of offerings and exceptional quality of features from this very talented publishing guru! Thank you Roseann!
with Roseann Tully
Next, Jacques Pepin with his daughter, Claudine entertained the guests in the celebrity tent with his Chicken with Tarragon and apple fritters. It is interesting to see how these professionals can prepare and present an entire dish in a half-hour format. Overall, I thought this was too little time for these great guests to profile in the best light as instead of a nice, relaxed presentation and perhaps more effective one at that – it was just a little too rushed and frantic. I thought this minimized them rather than showcased them in the style that they deserved and for no good reason other than less than effective scheduling.
with Jacques Pepin – oops (eyes)
Jacques and Claudine getting ready
In spite of this, it was great to meet these people and they were friendly and gregarious with the audience. It takes a lot to pull off this format and the support group from the Johnson and Wales Culinary program obviously had a big job to do. It was very interesting to observe this format in person.
The food that I sampled outside of the celebrity tent was really quite amazing. While there were too many tasty tidbits to mention here, I especially loved the Stone Fruit Gazpacho with Crab, and fresh shucked oysters. I also loved the young and aged parmigiana-reggiano cheese served with a drizzle of the most exceptional Girasole (Sunflower) honey from Tuscany. I scored a jar of this most glorious potion and gift from the bees, a taste of which is truly transcendent, and a great bottle of balsamic vinegar -bringing home these jewels to experiment with and savor in my own kitchen – oh, and neither of these need any embellishment or accompaniment to do them justice – they are perfect on their own.
Exceptional! Il Caratello Balsamic and Il Forteto Sunflower Honey!!!! OMG, YUM
A tour of the Elms topped off yesterday morning’s activities before arriving at the Sunday session of the Grand Tasting. I especially loved seeing the kitchen and pantries in the house – wow, I think I would have rather worked in those kitchens than lived in the house!!!!!! Since I adore old houses in general, it was no surprise that when we got to the “help’s quarters” a broad smile came upon my face as I took in the marble sinks, massive work tables and grand collection of copper cookware – all reminiscent of Upstairs-Downstairs and Downton Abbey vintage. My heart was warmed and yearning as I am indeed of the peasant class at heart.
All in all, this was a great weekend – the perfect place and activity for the first weekend in Autumn! I am definitely going to go again next year. I actually am still processing all of the great moments from the weekend. Wow! I found myself wishing this morning that the event was ongoing. What does this say??? Hmmmm…..