The Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Cookbook: Recipes and Behind-the-Scenes Stories from America's Hottest Chefs

422 Pages·2010·10.57 MB·English

by  Lee Brian Schrager

Proceeds from the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival Cookbook will benefit the
Florida International University School of Hospitality and Tourism Management and the Southern
Wines & Spirits Beverage Management Center.
Copyright © 2010 by Lee Schrager
Principal food photography copyright © 2010 by Quentin Bacon
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing
Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.clarksonpotter.com
CLARKSON POTTER is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is a registered trademark of
Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schrager, Lee.
The Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival cookbook / Lee Schrager. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Cookery, American. 2. Festivals—Florida—Miami Beach. 3. South Beach Wine and Food
Festival (Miami Beach, Fla.) I. South Beach Wine and Food Festival (Miami Beach, Fla.) II. Title.
TX715.S14536 2011
641.59759’381—dc22
eISBN: 978-0-30788542-5
Cover and interior design by Subtitle
Cover photographs (top center and below right) by Quentin Bacon; all other cover photographs
are courtesy of Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival.
Event photographs throughout courtesy of Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival,
except for photo 1 (top left), photo 1, page 176 (center), and page 247 (bottom), which are
copyright © 2010 by Quentin Bacon.
v3.0
v3.0

CONTENTS
FOREWORD BY ANTHONY BOURDAIN
INTRODUCTION: RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
DRINKS
STARTERS AND SMALL PLATES
BARBECUE
BURGERS
COMFORT AND CASUAL FOOD
MAIN COURSES
DESSERTS
THANK-YOUS
THE DREAM TEAM
RECIPE CREDITS
INDEX

Every year for the past five years, near the end of February,
when the weather in New York is miserable and cold and I’ve
been working too hard and away from friends too long, an
escape is offered. I load a bathing suit, my loudest Hawaiian
shirt, my most deteriorated jeans, and a pair of sandals into a
suitcase and fly to Miami for the South Beach Wine & Food
Festival.
I was never really a Miami fan. I was immune to the charms of Miami Vice, wondering always
how many times a day Sonny Crockett had to change his white jacket. But for a few days each
year, I step into a delicious alternate universe, a South Beach filled with wonderful things to eat,
bags full of free stuff, and long afternoons at the pool accompanied by frosty boat drinks. And all
my friends are there.
I got my first “swag bag” at the Festival—a benchmark moment in my career—entering my
ludicrously large room at the Raleigh to find a sky-high tower of merch: professional-quality pots
and pans, vanadium steel knives, every variety of appliance, a beach towel, liquors of many
lands, and bottles of enticing mystery liquids ranging from energy water to exfoliant. I still have
that lovely free beach towel—and my pores are cleaner than ever.
Ah, the many adventures. The festival seems to invite moments—and hours—of forgetfulness.
Certainly it is advisable from a legal point of view to claim amnesia. Thinking back over the years,
it’s a tumble of images: padding onto the stage on the beach, sunburned and barefoot, fresh from
the surf. Was that last year…or the year before…or is it every year? A hooting mob of industry
types on Fridays, a more general audience on Saturdays. I remember screening the film I
narrated, Decoding Ferran Adrià, for…Ferran Adrià (among the most terrifying and ultimately
gratifying moments in my life) and, later, scooping the last Iranian beluga in the country into my
face.
Then, at the delightfully divey Mac’s Club at four in the morning, I remember seeing Nancy
Silverton across the bar, still going strong. Nigella Lawson, barefoot and legs tucked under her on
a couch, offering me cheese and charcuterie—and cigarettes. Thomas Keller smiling
mischievously at me and my soon wife-to-be from across a crowded dance floor. Elena Arzak
plating food for the meal honoring Eric Ripert. Eric the next day, doing the breaststroke across the
Raleigh pool, careful not to get his hair wet. Gabrielle Hamilton on her first trip to the festival,
peeking around suspiciously and wondering—as I once did—what the hell she was doing here.
The inexplicably energetic Iron Man of many continents, Daniel Boulud (one of the few chefs who
needs only one name), dancing, a drink in his hand, somehow everywhere at once. Michael
Ruhlman, sitting with me over drinks, about to get himself blackballed from television by agreeing
to present our libelous “Golden Clog Awards”— a ludicrously faux award presentation ceremony
in which we honored luminaries of the food world with hastily painted kitchen clogs, in categories
like “Worst Career Move” and “Greatest Achievement in Hooves, Guts or Snouts,” with one
presenter after another mysteriously vaporizing at the last minute. Rocco DiSpirito generously and
good-naturedly agreed to present his namesake “Rocco Award” for “Worst Career Move.” (The
recipient showed no such good humor.)
The memory I have of Emeril—and one that, in many ways, sums up his true nature—is that
every year, after the ceremonies, and after the parties, when a carload of drunken chefs on the
spur of the moment decide to “swing by Emeril’s,” he is always to be found in the kitchen. An
almost empty dining room, the last of the lingering dinner crowd, a boisterous incursion of
colleagues at short notice—and there is Emeril, hunched over an outgoing order, looking up with
a smile and greetings, happier in this element, a real, professional kitchen, than you’ve ever seen
him on TV.
Party waiting to happen: Terry Zarikian, Aarón Sanchez, Tony Bourdain, and Eric Ripert. Giada is always one of our favorites.
And, of course, I remember one particular carload of badly behaved chefs—an incongruous
assemblage, to be sure: me, Mario Batali, Jamie Oliver, Mark Ladner, Adam Perry Lang—
crammed into the backseat of Lee Schrager’s car, Lee chatting urgently but patiently over the
phone, accommodating some last-minute diva, dealing with one of a thousand chef-related
disasters large and small that he will face this weekend. Arranging for the disposal of a body,