This year’s SPAC Wine & Food Festival will take place around the Rellecting Pool. Photo courtesy of Bigler Productions.
We’ve reported from time to time on the Saratoga Wine & Food Festival, an event on the grounds of SPAC that used to happen the weekend after Labor Day. Watching Zak Pelaccio break down a pig, a burger bash in which fine dining chefs attempted to outdo one another, seeing Ric Orlando cook up shrimp and grits and getting his recipe are some of our favorite memories. In recent years, however, the festival got a bit lazy with fewer side events and athletes replacing celebrity chefs as the top attraction.
No longer. Saratoga Performing Arts Center President & CEO Elizabeth Sobol has thrown the rule book out the window, starting with moving the date to leaf-peeping season on October 4 and 5 and the venue to the dramatic Reflecting Pool outside the Hall of Springs. Although admission is not cheap—this is SPAC’s main fundraising event of the year, after all—there are some fascinating preview presentations you can attend at no charge.
The “Cultivate Series” kicks off on October 1 with talks and presentations by Soul Fire Farm co-founder, author, activist and farmer Leah Penniman; author of Fasting and Feasting Adam Federman, and Ayurvedic expert and classically trained chef Austin Peltier. The events are presented in partnership with Pitney Meadows Community Farm and Skidmore College. Admission is free, but space is limited so reservations are highly recommended. Tickets here.
The Festival will feature chef-prepared specialties made with local and sustainable ingredients. Photo courtesy of Bigler Productions.
If that whets your appetite, you can head on over to the “Forest Magic” Farm-to-Table Harvest on Friday night, curated by Kim Klopstock of Lily and the Rose in collaboration with John Sconzo of Rascal & Thorn and a number of top chefs we’ll highlight in another post. Teams of two chefs will each present a course that incorporates sustainable and locally sourced ingredients. We volunteered earlier this summer at the Pitney Meadows Fire Feast, also a collaboration involving Klopstock and Sconzo, and predict this will be special. Tickets here.
The Grand Tasting will return on Saturday, October 5, though without the display of classic cars that made for an upscale but odd pairing in previous years. Still more celebrity chefs will be on hand preparing dishes to sample, along with so many representatives of local restaurants and beverage purveyors that you’ll need a strategic plan (which we’ll share in our next post) to get through it all. The Grand Tasting will also feature a sculpture garden curated by The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, and live music sponsored by Caffè Lena. Tickets here.
SPAC’s Sobol sums it up: “The underlying ethos of this year’s festival is socially-conscious cultivation and consumption. Pairing in-demand international talent with our progressive regional chefs gives our community the opportunity to experience exquisite culinary artistry, incorporating local sustainable ingredients for a truly collaborative farm-to-table inspired event.”
