Tag Archives: Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival

Get ready to party with some of your favorite chefs at the 2012 Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival!

19 Apr

The Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival is always one of the highlights of my summer.  Each spring, I wait with eager anticpation for the event lineup to be announced…and that time has finally come!  The 2012 Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival is shaping up to be another epic weekend filled with incredible food, amazing culinary experiences, and tons of opportunities to meet and spend time with celebrity and local chefs!

Caesars Entertainment Atlantic City will present the fourth annual Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival from July 26-29, 2012.  The festival will feature a collection of the world’s most renowned chefs, icons, TV personalities and experts - arguably one of the festival’s strongest lineups to date - including Anne Burrell, Tom Colicchio, Robert Irvine, Aaron Sanchez, Buddy Valastro and Andrew Zimmern, with more announcements to come.  The event takes place across all four Caesars Entertainment Atlantic City casinos and resorts – Caesars, Harrah’s Resort, Showboat and Bally’s. “Caesars Entertainment is committed to continually offering Atlantic City’s residents and visitors the top entertainment programming in the region and there is nothing more exciting than the return of the Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival,” said Jennifer Weissman, Regional Vice President of Marketing for Caesars Entertainment.  “We are proud of this year’s outstanding line-up of high-profile celebrity chefs and experts, as well as our own family of talented chefs honorably representing our casinos and resorts.”

The 2012 festival will present an acclaimed roster of exciting gastronomic talent on both a local and national scale. I n addition to Anne Burrell, Tom Colicchio, Robert Irvine, Aaron Sanchez, Buddy Valastro and Andrew Zimmern, the 2012 Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival will showcase wine, beer and spirits experts such as Gary Monterosso and Michael Green and Caesars Entertainment’s top in-house culinary talents.  This year’s festival will offer more than 30 events such as cooking demonstrations, wine and spirits seminars, and various tasting events.  Some of the highlights include:

  • The Grand Market: This world of indulgence will excite, inspire and amaze as you eat and drink your way through this tasting village.  Showcasing more than 100 stations featuring food, wine, spirits, ales and more from world renowned restaurants and brands, all which can be experienced during a four-hour journey.
  • Mia Seminar Series: America’s premier wine tasting seminars return to the shore with the  ever-talented Michael Green’s hands-on seminar designed to educate oenophiles with exemplary wines from around the world.
  • Book Store & Signings: Throughout the weekend, festival goers are given the opportunity to shop for their favorite cookbooks from the festival personalities and meet their favorite culinary idols.
  • Define “Cheese-Steak”: Join New Jersey resident, celebrity chef and Top Chef judge, Tom Colicchio as he walks you through a who’s who of cheese steaks while local sub shops battle it out for votes in the contest to find the “best of” this Philadelphia classic.
  • Sunset Sliders, Sushi & Sake:  Summer nights along the Jersey coastline are like none other and when you add a chic, rooftop party with Sushi and Sake, then it must be at Caesars.  This is the festival’s unique version of a ‘surf and turf’ party atop the Pool Deck at Caesars, all paired with Saki tasting.
  • Sweet & Stylish: Blending designer fashion and sensual desserts, Chef Buddy Valastro from Cake Boss and owner of Carlo’s Bakery in Hoboken, New Jersey will create the ultimate nightlife event and one-of-a-kind showcase of style and decadence, displaying favorite specialty cocktails and sweets for festivalgoers’ tasting pleasure.

This year Caesars Entertainment has partnered with local charity, The Community Food Bank of New Jersey, to be the official charity sponsor of The Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival.  The community Food Bank of New Jersey fights hunger and poverty by distributing food and groceries, providing education and training and developing new programs to help low income individuals meet their basic needs. As a non-profit organization, The Community Food Bank of New Jersey acts as the central food distribution center for other non-profits in New Jersey that serve individuals including local soup kitchens, food pantries and shelters.

Tickets for the Food Network Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival are on sale now!  Check out the Festival website for a full listing of events and to purchase tickets.  And be sure to follow the Festival on Facebook and Twitter for all the latest updates!  I will be talking to some of the participating chefs in the next couple of months, so keep your eyes out for future posts about some of the Festival’s featured chefs and events!

Great Advice and a Delicious Weeknight Dinner from Kelsey Nixon

13 Sep

I have been a Kelsey Nixon fan since her top four finish on Next Food Network Star.  Her show on Cooking Channel, Kelsey’s Essentials, is like cooking school taught by a close friend – she demonstrates basic skills in a skillful and comfortable manner that encourages any home cook to prepare her fun, simple, and delicious recipes.

(Photo courtesy Cooking Channel)

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to meet Kelsey Nixon at the Atlantic City Food and Wine Festival this summer!  I asked her what three essential skills every home cook should master to be the star of their own kitchen:

“I think every home cook should really invest in learning a few essential knife skills.  I think that a good, sharp chef’s knife is your best friend in the kitchen, and to learn the basic, proper way to hold the knife, the rocking motion of working with the knife, will make you a better home cook more than anything else.  I think it’s absolutely essential to really, really know what you’re doing when it comes to working with a knife. 

Another essential technique or skill I think everyone should know is to roast…when it comes to roasting, what’s so great about that is the oven does all the work.  As long as you pick the proper ingredients, pop it in the oven, it’s the easiest thing for any home cook.  Whether it’s fruit or chicken, roasting is a great way to caramelize the natural sugars in food and bring out what’s best about those ingredients.  So I think roasting is something that no one should be afraid of, and really, really familiar with. 

A third technique I think everyone should be…let’s go with this…working with a cast iron skillet.  If you know me, you know that I’m obsessed with my cast iron skillet.  And that’s a little bit of a tool, but I think that it’s also learning how to properly work with a cast iron skillet.  The basics behind seasoning a cast iron skillet, and then developing the confidence that you really can cook everything from breakfast to dessert in it.  Whether you’re cooking eggs in the morning, or you’re baking a cobbler off at night, I think a cast iron skillet is something that everyone should invest in.  It’s literally $21, you can pick one up and it gets better with time.  The more you cook with it, the more seasoned it is, and it’s that kind of ‘end all be all’ of kitchen essentials to have on hand.”

I have to admit – I always agreed with Kelsey’s first two “essential” techniques, and am currently discovering how right she is about the third.  I am the deliriously happy new owner of my first cast iron skillet, and am gradually embracing a wide variety of cooking with it.

One of Kelsey’s most recent episodes featured recipes that were not only simple to prepare, but quick enough for a busy, back-to-school weeknight meal.  Believe it or not, I even made pickles in 20 minutes!

My fondest memory of homemade pickles is the huge jars of pickles my great-aunt would put up during the week she stayed with us each summer.  She would leave instructions with us about how many days the jars should sit in order for them to become half-sour or sour beauties.  So the thought of pickles in 20 minutes completely piqued my interest!  Sure enough, after immersing sliced kirby cucumbers in a mixture of red wine vinegar, sugar and spices, I had crisp, delicious pickles!

Kelsey’s Quick Pickles are not sour or half-sour – they are more briny from the red wine vinegar, and still have a nice crunch to them – and they are completely addictive!  I had to stop myself from snacking on them so there would be enough to use as toppers for our Sloppy Jane Sliders…

While the kirbys soaked in their wonderful brine to become crunchy pickle perfection, I put together Kelsey’s Sloppy Jane Sliders – a lighter version of the classic sloppy joe, made with ground turkey and a tangy-sweet sauce that I just couldn’t get enough of! 

I get home from work at about 5:00, and the pickles AND these sliders, along with a fresh salad, were all ready before 6:00!  I even had dessert prepared and ready to be finished off under the broiler…Kelsey’s S’mores Pudding Pie!

Yes, even this guilty pleasure is weeknight-friendly!  I took advantage of Kelsey’s note at the end of the  recipe and used a store-bought graham cracker crust to save some time.  Before I left for work in the morning, I took about 15-20 minutes to prepare the pudding, poured it into the crust, and put it in the refrigerator to set.  Once we finished dinner, I topped the pie with the marshmallows, and put it under the broiler for a couple of minutes until the marshmallows became toasted and gooey.  And that’s it – dinner AND dessert ready by 6pm on a weeknight!

If you haven’t had the chance to check out Kelsey’s Essentials, you should definitely give it a try – you will love Kelsey Nixon’s easy, breezy approach to cooking, and her simple-but-ridiculously-delicious recipes!

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 74 other followers