Winter Fancy Food Day 2: Chefs and Cheese
By A.J. Flick
Senior Editor
The second day of the Specialty Food Association’s 2023 Winter Fancy Food Show was my day of meeting chefs and eating a lot of cheese.
The prsonal highlight was meeting Chef Stephanie Izard, who was the first woman named “Top Chef” (season 4) and one of my favorite Top Chef chefs. She also is from Arizona, as I am, so I was rooting for the “home chef.” Chef Izard has a new line of sauces, spices and add-ons developed out of her esteemed Chicago (and now LA) restaurant, This Little Goat. When I walked up to her booth, she was stirring a pan of halved Brussel sprouts, bathed in her Asian sauce. They looked good, but I’m not a Brussel sprouts fan. A friend of mine, Robert, loves them and so wants me to love them when he roasts them and slathers butter on them, but I just don’t like Brussel sprouts.
Until now. I have to break the news to Robert that I do love Brussel sprouts now, Chef Izard’s Brussel sprouts! She adds her new Everything Crunch puffed rice toppers on them for the contrast in textures that she’s famous for. I’ll have to make them for Robert now and show him how good Brussel sprouts can really taste!
I also was looking forward to meeting Chef Michael Tashman, who was a fabulous line of flavored butters. I was especially impressed with the Truffle Butter flavor, such a balance of truffle and high-quality butter. Chef Tashman is new to the CPG world, but he has plan to present more “chef forward” products to the specialty food market. He called it “chef to table.” (He didn’t coin the term, but likes calling it that.)
As for cheese, I stopped by a wine and cheese party thrown by the nice folks at Beehive Cheese. I tasted some of their cheeses last summer in Portland at the American Cheese Society Conference. Here, they presented a whole table of artisanal cheese at a Las Vegas wine bar, Garagiste. Beehive Cheese is a family business, not only the family who started it, but each Beehive team member I talked to spoke about how great it is to work there and how they are all treated life family. You’ll be hearing much more about Beehive in Gourmet News!
My second stop of the night was at the top of the Mandalay Bay Casino and Resort, in the Foundation Room, UK in Las Vegas, held to celebrate cheese from the United Kingdom. Yes, there was everything from Stilton to a truffle cheddar (which was gone by the time I got there!). So I ended up having Utah cheese for appetizers and British cheese for the main course. I’m not complaining!
Earlier in the day, I stopped by to visit our friends at The French Farm. They’re excited to introduce an award-winning line of artisanal from Francis Miot from the southwest of France. Not only that, but The French Farm has added to its own Epicurian line of products, jars of tasty spring and summer veggies such as Zucchini & Ramp Spread, and some aiolis. Yum!
I also spent some quality time learning more at Le Gruyere, the fine cheese from Switzerland. And you’ll learn more, too, in our upcoming Spring Cheese Guide.
I had more time yesterday to do some wandering, I sampled chicken jerky from Brave Good Kind; Simply Animals, a better-for-you lightly frosted animal crackers; lemon and ginger Snaps from Stauffer’s, Pink Sauce from Dave’s Gourmet (you’ll be hearing more about that) and delicious dumplings from Chef Kim’s.
I had fun decorating (and eating) a little gingerbread man at the Signature Brands booth. I got a tour of the new Jelly Belly products – at long last, the Butter Beer jelly beans have landed! And, there’s another Harry Potter product on the horizon that fans will love (but I can’t say what it is yet!) Jelly Belly is expanding its reach into the greeting card market with a tasty new Easter greeting card, too. You’ll read more about it in the March issue of Gourmet News in our Winter Fancy Food Show roundup.
One more day to go – can we make it? Yes, we will!
