Something to Check Out: 5th Annual LA Food & Wine Festival

Movie stars in Los Angeles are a dime a dozen, but once a year the culinary stars from across the country descend on the City of Angels!  Edible Skinny is dusting off our shades the 5th Annual Los Angeles Food & Wine Festival.

Taking place August 27-30^th, the event is a star studded list of James Beard Award winners, and Food & Wine Best New Chefs including Tyler Florence, Curtis Stone, Thomas Keller, and Michelle Bernstein.  Produced by Coastal Luxury Management and presented with founding partners FOOD & WINE and Lexus

Our favorite event hands down is the Lexus Live on Grand featuring tastings from over 30 chefs and 100 wineries. This year Lexus Live will feature a live performance from The Roots, and later that same night the band will be joined by band mate Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson as the festival’s headlining musical entertainment.  Culinary icon Thomas Keller will also be on hand, making an appearance with Chef David Hands and Bouchon Beverly Hills.

Here’s to life being delicious and your food and wine being star studded! 

LA Food and Wine Festival

The Second Annual Los Angeles Food & Wine Festival was this weekend and I was lucky enough to attend Saturday's Lexus Grand Tasting. With 300 wines from 200 of the world's most prestigious wineries it was quite the imbibing event, but not in the standard way. Usually at these events the Reds are the showstoppers, but this year with sweltering heat anything cold was the star of the show (for a wine event the line for a glass of Stella Artois was ridiculous ).

Some of the alcoholic highlights where:

The guys are over at 7 Grand shaking some Mint Juleps, Knob Creek, simple syrup, a sizable spring of mint, and an ice cube that crowded the entire glass.

Hitting every single Bubbly available including Champagne Delamotte, Champagne Lanson, and Champagne Perrier Jouet.

JUSTIN Isosceles. Yes it was Red, and yes it was sweltering, but it was totally worth it, it's JUSTIN.

Along with the booze, 30 Celebrity Chefs will showcase their culinary skills and provide delicious and decadent tasting samples of their cuisine. The pickings were a little sparse for the Vegetarian/Vegan crowd (I get it, if you're spending $150 on a ticket you expect some meat) but the Susan Feniger was there for the non-face eating crowd. Her Border Grill offered a Summer Bean Salad Tostadita with Cilantro Aioli, Avocado, Fresh Origins Micro Verdolaga (it also came with Heirloom Bacon but they made my sans for Veggie style).



All the flatware for the event was proved by Knork, a Kansas based company, that trying to revolutionize our food utensils. A combination fork, knife, and spoon (but in a fancy way so please do not mention a Spork around them) it's got a fingertip platform, beveled outer tines and a heavier, balanced design that allows you to cut food more easily.