There will be plenty of wine to sample at Saturday’s Grand Tasting at the Saratoga Wine & Food Festival. Photo by Bigler Productions.
This weekend’s Saratoga Wine & Food Festival got off to a fast start with a good crowd at the Ayurvedic cooking demo on Tuesday night; details below. As promised, here’s a list of the chefs who will be participating in this weekend’s events. The Friday event is sold out as of this date but a waitlist is available; get your tickets now for Saturday to avoid a sellout of that as well.
New to 2019 festival is the “Forest Magic” Farm-to-Table Harvest Dinner, curated by Kim Klopstock of Lily and the Rose in collaboration with John Sconzo of Rascal & Thorn and local progressive chefs Dan Spitz of Fat N Happy LLC, Yaddo’s head chef Michael Blake, and Kevin London, owner of Farmhouse Restaurant at Top of the World. Pairing the region’s top talent with national chefs Diego Moya, Executive Chef of Racines in NYC, rated one of America’s 100 Best Wine Restaurants of 2019 by Wine Enthusiast, and Austin Peltier, an expert on Ayurvedic cooking practices, the teams of two will each present a course that incorporates sustainable and locally sourced ingredients. This event is currently sold out; to add yourself to the waitlist call the SPAC Box Office at 518.584.9330 x135.
Highlighting the weekend destination event are farm-to-table chefs Tim Spedding and Louise Rødkjær Jørgensen from Britain who will utilize some of the best local produce for Friday’s VIP Farm-to-Table Harvest Dinner and prepare canapés for the VIP Grand Tasting. Tim Spedding is recognized as one of the UK’s most exciting and influential young chefs. Together with his partner Louise Rødkjær Jørgensen, the pair plans to open their own restaurant and inn in the beautiful Cornwall countryside focusing on farm-to-table cuisine.
Chef Adam Peltier presents Ayurvedic diet concepts at Cultivate event in Skidmore’s Falstaff Hall.
We attended the “Cultivate” demo with Austin Peltier earlier this week and can predict you are in for a treat when you taste his cooking. He gave us a quick overview of the principles of the Ayurvedic diet and served us roasted sweet potatoes which had been prepared with three different palates of flavor and ingredients to correspond to different aspects of Ayurvedic diet (Vatta, Pitta, Kapha); they tasted delicious rather than medicinal. Looking forward to a truly outstanding experience this weekend.
Did you also attend the seminar presented by Leah Penniman? She is the co-founder of Soul Fire Farm just outside of Troy. Incredible woman and a great speaker. If you ever get a chance to hear her speak I think you would find it very interesting. I was not able to attend due to work, but hope that she did get a good turnout for her seminar!
I was involved in some other activities and could not make Leah Penniman’s talk (or her farm workshop earlier in the day) but I agree based on some video I’ve seen that she is an impressive person. The Ayurvedic talk was well attended and tonight’s dinner is sold out, so I expect her events had good turnout as well.