Spanish Chefs, Portuguese Wines, and a Week of Cava

Here are three events occurring next week which you might want to take note of.

First one is Spain-10 whose website throughly confused me. So, I sent off a note to the organizers of the event and received this reply:

Essentially, the event is being organized by The International Culinary Center to celebrate its grand opening. (The International Culinary Center is the new home of The FCI, a new Italian studies program and expanded class offerings with international focus, such as wine education, restaurant management, food writing and intensive cooking
clinics).

To celebrate, ten of Spain’s master chefs (including Ferran Adria of El Bulli and Juan Mari Arzak) are coming to New York – together in NYC for the first time – to herald the grand opening of the Center and participate in a two-day Summit about Spanish cuisine.

On Saturday October 14th, at Guastavino’s (409 East 59th) from 8am to 7pm, New Yorkers will have the chance to get up close and personal with revolutionary Spanish chefs. Attendees will enjoy exclusive demonstrations by Spain’s ten world-renowned chefs, sip their way through wine education seminars and browse a Spanish marketplace to taste preeminent food and wine products from approximately 40 producers from Spain.

The event is $300 and proceeds from this event will fund scholarships for The International Culinary Center students to intern in leading restaurants in Spain. Tickets are still available and can be purchased at www.spains-10.com

It sounds really interesting, and if I was in New York with a three hundred dollar bill burning a hole in my pocket, you would probably find me there. But since I’m in Spain with 5 Euro bill in my pocket, I guess I’ll have to ask that if anyone should make it to the event to shoot us an email and let us know how it went. In addition to the description of the event, they also send me some interesting press materials. Of the three documents they sent me, I made a PDF file of one that talks about the Chefs who will be present. You can download it here (right click, save as…): Chef’s Bio’s

October 19
ViniPortugal
The Puck Building, New York City
5:30-8:00pm

Join Slow Food USA, ViniPortugal and ICEP Portugal to enjoy more than 500 wines from 68 producers at their first annual tasting of Portuguese wines! The event is open to the general public and wine enthusiasts. An educational seminar entitled “Keys to Understanding the Major Portuguese Grape Varietals” will be held at 6:30pm. Tickets are $35 and 100% of the proceeds will benefit Slow Food USA.

Tickets are available at the door (cash only) or online at:
http://www.localwineevents.com/New-York-City-Wine/event-98533.html

Location:
The Puck Building
295 Lafayette Street, NY NY 10012
5:30-8:00pm

They claim that for 35 dollars, which all goes to Slowfood USA, you can taste over 500 wines from 68 producers throughout Portugal. If that is true, I would suggest getting your penny jar emptied out and heading down there to taste some wine. Of all the wines that will be available at this event, I am assuming that there will only be a handful of these wines available in the USA, other than the Ports, and most of which you will never have another chance to taste again, barring the act of renting a car in Portugal and driving to the wineries yourself. Once again, if you make it, send us a note and let us know how it goes!
*BTW while writing this, it actually took the SlowFood webpage approximately 15 minutes to load. I wonder if there is a connection….?

*Thanks to Steven for the tip off

So that’s it for now!

Till soon,

Ryan Opaz