Red Apron Butcher tour and more – IACP 2015

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending my second IACP conference, once again it was a fun time and a great way to network! I learned scads and enjoyed eating and drinking the whole weekend.  Don’t know what I like more…the food or the people?

Here’s my mostly photographic weekend.  Photos taken at Red Apron (mostly) were taken with my D800, after a while I ditched it for the freedom of my iPhone (which amazes me constantly…)

My first day started off with a charcuterie tour and wine pairing at the famous Red Apron, then a meal at Chef Nathan Anda’s restaurant The Partisan.

Preparing to make proscuitto

Butcher/Chef Nathan Anda beats the meat… this removes blood/reduces bad coloration

salting the ham, the consistency of the salt is like the moist sand at the beach. Bone in proscuitto takes two years before it’s ready.

Prepping for boneless curing

Boneless meat needs to be tied so tight that no air can get inside

After visiting the butchery, we headed to Union Market.

An incredible chandelier made of plastic water bottles hanging in Union Market

then we hit a gelatto and coffee lab (yes it’s called a lab)

from there we went to ‘the Partisan‘ where we finally got to try the amazing charcuterie and wine pairings.

the restaurant has a butcher shop/sales attached to it

One of the many reasons I could not be vegetarian

first course

Chef Anda hadnd carried rare vintage Italian baking Irons back in order to make this special bread

chef Anda explains the charcuterie and bread

Here’s comes the lambrusco, a perfect pairing with the salty charcuterie

Thor Ericson, the IACP educator of the year last year…he’s a butcher also

Amazing bar

for our other courses we roasted mushroom kale salad, a root vegetable escabeche, a lighter than air spring garlic mash and leaping waters pork loin and leg of lamb with tigelles, fennel kraut and salsa verde

my hotel room, it was full of political details

Friday night we celebrated Jacques Pepin (co-founder with Julia Child of IACP) 80th birthday

Jacques had a minor stroke and was unable to make the conference but through the wonderful world of technology we got to hear from him (the photo is a picture blown up on a huge screen, scuse the quality please).

A bake sale fund raiser…80 cakes for Jacques

Dinner afterwards was at Acadiana with my dear friend Joan Nielsen (we met at the San Francisco conference and I immediately fell in love with her)

Joan twisted my arm to do a bourbon tasting

our tasting and notes

I had BBQ shrimp with jalapeno grits and Joan had the most amazing duck with greens

The next day was spent taking classes and a fab lunch

thanks Alaskan Seafood for letting this Montana girl gorge herself on seafood

but the evening was occupied with a fundraiser for the Culinary Trust Foundation (the non-profit arm of IACP

the booze and food flowed

this deserves a little explanation…meringue baguettes with soft cheese, apple, chives and sliced truffles…aren’t you sorry you didn’t get any!

Amazing hors ‘d oeuvres, I especially liked the foie gras one (the round red one) and shamelessly went back as often as I could

Hazelnut creams, spectacular

and an almond tart that was so amazing that I can’t even describe it

after our fine food and cocktails we hung out with Carla Hall (of The Chew), Chef Jose Andres and via internet Jacques Pepin and his daughter Claudine and some guy from the NY Times I think, I didn’t catch his name but he was a great host 

Surprise swag I found in my room courtesy of Candian Lentils, it’s a wine tote and opener. Did they know me?

One of my classes was ‘Lessons from Julia Child’ I learned I should drink wine at lunch time 😉

Sunday was filled with more classes and I stuffed myself again while watching the IACP awards (hint, next year I may have something to do with the awards)

After a day of classes and an early evening of checking out cook books, bloggers, and photographers (you know people like Patricia Wells, Nancie McDermott, Farrell Scott oh and Curtis Stone…pitter patter goes my heart) another dear friend Jane Bonacci (The Heritage Cook) had invited me and several over women to dinner at Jose Andres restaurant Jaleo.

We put our hands into the staff and let them pick out our tapas, smart move!  There were just too many to photograph but my favorite and most unique tapas were the liquid olives

liquid olives are made through a process of spherification, a masterful molecular gastronomy technique

I was tickled to see how these pork croquettes were served

Jaleo is obviously a fun and funky place to dine, I hope to return someday.

Monday was spent taking more classes then I had to leave

home sweet home

Next year LA baby!