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Posts Tagged ‘dc Food Trucks’

Festival Celebrates Chesapeake Seafood – Oysters & Wine!

July 20th, 2018 • No Comments

TasteUSA’s Newest Festival Under Management – Chesapeake Oyster & Wine Festival

Chesapeake Oyster & Wine Festival – A Shucking Good Time with Wine! is TasteUSA’s newest food and drink festival under management. 

We’ll Have Plenty of Oysters & Wine!

After 3 years specializing in the food and drink festival management and organization of events in the Washington, D.C./Northern Virginia regions, we have added our newest festival – and now we’re in Maryland! On September 22nd and 23rd, 2018 we’ll be taking our newest concept – combining the popularity of Chesapeake Seafood and especially Virginia and Maryland Oysters with both local, domestic and international wines into a fun new festival. Chesapeake Oyster & Wine Festival was developed after the success of the VA Oyster Pavilion which was added to the Virginia Wine Festival® in 2016 and 2017 to immense success.

Wine festival lovers today want more than just quality wine – they want gourmet food items and Virginia oysters are the perfect addition to a top regional food and drink festival. We have taken that idea one step further by creating our newest Maryland seafood festival – The Chesapeake Oyster & Wine Festival puts the seafood category in front of the wine festival to target both the seafood “foodie” who loves oysters but also is interested in learning about wine and the wine lover who is curious about Virginia, Maryland and Chesapeake oysters and seafood.

Garnish your own Bloody Mary at the Bloody Mary Pavilion!

Great Food Trucks – But a New Twist: The Bloody Mary Pavilion

Charlie Adler, TasteUSA’s owner and festival organizer noticed a new trend among Millennials at recent festivals – more than just a fascination with all things local and “foodie” – a desire to “brunchify” events. Washington, D.C. is known as a brunch city, but the trend has spread to food and drink festivals – Brunchcon, Atlanta Brunch Fest and a slew of new festivals capitalizes on the fun excitement of eating brunch and sipping cocktails. The Bloody Mary Pavilion was added to the MD wine and seafood festival as a play on brunchifying festivals.

Upcoming TasteUSA Managed Food and Drink Festivals:

Chesapeake Oyster & Wine Festival – A Shucking Good Time with Wine
September 22nd and 23rd, 2018, 137 National Plaza, National Harbor, MD

43rd Annual Virginia Wine Festival®
October 13th and 14th, 2018, Arlington Gateway Park, 1300 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22209

Chocolate, Wine & Whiskey Festival
February 23rd, 2019, The Showroom DC, 1099 14th St., NW (1st Floor), Washington, D.C. 20005

3rd Annual Taco, Beer, Tequila Festival
2019 Location TBD

Charlie Adler, Founder
TasteUSA Festival Event Management
www.tasteusa.com

“I Drink on the Job”

Suthn Cookin’ at Union Kitchen in DC

March 4th, 2013 • No Comments

I wanted to learn how to make the juiciest fried chicken and fluffiest biscuits in DC..

Chicken in the Fryer..

Chicken in the Fryer..

Fried Chicken..Yummy!

Fried Chicken..Yummy!

I had the really great luck to attend a cooking class on Thursday, February 28th, 2013 at a totally new facility in DC – the Union Kitchen. So you may ask what exactly IS Union Kitchen? That actually might be hard to explain, but let me give it a try – it’s a place for Start-Up food businesses to go the next level in production and ultimately business success. But not always..it’s also a commercial kitchen for Food Trucks and other food producers who can schedule a time and then produce their product for commercial purposes..but it’s also one more thing – a potentially excellent venue for hands-on cooking classes and events. In a nutshell, it’s an exciting opportunity for food ventures in DC to go to the next level – I was PSYCHED to go to this event! (Note: Here’s a really good explanation by City Paper )

Union Kitchen - DC's Newest Food Business Incubator!

Union Kitchen – DC’s Newest Food Business Incubator!

The Chef: I stole this from the Chef’s bio on her website, but I also would like to add that the chef was excellent at organizing and teaching a cooking class – she had wonderful rapport with the 10 attendees and she was very organized and straight to the point of the class – let’s get cookin’! Jessica also mentioned to me that she’s working on a commercial recipe for her Southern pimento cheese ..but I didn’t get much detail, I’m sure there will be more to tell..From her page: Jessica O’Neal started JLOkitchens to share her love of Southern cuisine with the District. She teaches cooking classes at CulinAerie, is a personal chef for a very tall man and is currently developing a line of Southern food products at Union Kitchen. She will gladly trade you her tasty pimento cheese for honest feedback and/or champagne.

The Class: This class was held in a commercial kitchen, so we used the same industrial equipment that all of the commercial businesses use, but our recipe was for producing similar amounts to what we would make at home. We got right down to cracking eggs, adding them to the flour with hunks of butter and making biscuits. The basic format was that we were shown how to make each dish with basic recipes and then broken down into groups to cook for the group.

The Secret to Great Biscuits: 1) cut in half..

The Secret to Great Biscuits: 1) cut in half..

Step 2: Layer and Press!

Step 2: Layer and Press!


The Menu:

Sweet Potato Herb Biscuits with Honey Butter – I finally learned the secret of making great biscuits – hunks of butter and folding the flour and compressing to create layers for steam and flakiness..
Buttermilk Brined Fried Chicken – I actually missed the recipe for this part and basically all I did was flip some fried chicken (my fault – I was off on a tour of the facility!)-a much longer than expected slow fry in the oil made this chicken both crispy and cooked through..but the meat was really juicy – I ate it down to the bone!

Grits..

Grits..

-Creamy Cheddar Grits with Smoky Greens – this is actually 2 dishes, but they were combined. The secret is in both the type of corn grits and in the way they are ground – stone ground is best. And cheese was added at the very end only as a topping, rather than in the cooking process. We used curly Kale, but any green works for this dish.
Cornbread Custard with Berry Coulis – this was a very simple dessert essentially using store bought corn bread, breaking it up and adding eggs and milk into a custard and heating at a relatively low temperature – simple, but classic comfort food!
-Bourbon Whipped Cream – real Bourbon..I should know, I was sipping some of that Jim Beam during the class..

Good Eats!

Good Eats!

Charlie Adler..cooking on the Job!

Charlie Adler..cooking on the Job!

Conclusion: This was a really fun event in a great location..I was warned about this neighborhood, but when I found the space (it was a little hidden – but it’s an old warehouse building, c’mon!) and parking in front, I began to think – people are just living in the past..this facility IS the future of DC and the entrepreneurs who run it are the next wave for DC. Jessica gave a great cooking class and the facility is perfect for a multitude of events – there’s even additional spaces for Pop-Up Dinners, wine tastings and more culinary endeavors. OK, so it’s a bit edgy, but you know the expression – you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette – Cheers!

Charlie “I Drink on the Job” Adler

The class is just getting started..

The class is just getting started..

The Setup

The Setup

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