Before I turn to the celebrity chefs, let’s anchor Digest in this good community stuff, like The Riverside. I think the DU Vin Festival fits the bill. The festival, a combination multicourse dinner and wine tasting, is run by a dozen students at the University of Denver’s Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management. With two days of events, and lots of pressure, this is fantastic experience for these ambitious college kids.
And it sounds like a winner for the rest of us.
The May 16 dinner features courses prepared by Denver restaurateur Frank Bonanno (along with members of Bonanno’s culinary team, and DU students) and paired with wines. The May 18 afternoon wine tasting includes vintners, wine vendors and sommeliers pouring top wines from around the world, paired with dishes prepared by the students. All along, DU Vin embraces the green revolution: recycled products, sustainable glassware, green-cleaning methods, and locally grown foods.
Way to go.
I don’t think I have mentioned DU once in more than six months of Digest, but here we go with the university again. And now, too, I’ll plug the first celebrity chef in this week’s column. The Knoebel school, through its “Contemporary Cuisine” program, is hosting Aaron Woo, one of the country’s top vegetarian chefs,for an event on May 15 that features his food. Woo, the owner and chef at Portland, Ore.’s Natural Selection restaurant, will lead a team of cooks in preparing a five-course dinner, with wine pairings. Proceeds get sent back directly into the program, which forces students to learn by doing.