pigs and pinot

“We’ve never eaten as much swine in an eighteen-hour period as we did in Healdsburg this past weekend, beginning with the Taste of Pigs & Pinot event on Friday night hosted by Charlie Palmer and the Hotel Healdsburg, and ending with the sandwich order that they got wrong at the Dry Creek General Store on Saturday afternoon, when all we wanted was some tuna to cleanse our palates but we ended up with more soppressatta. So. Much. Pork.”

You might think I wrote those sentences. Or Danny. But it wasn’t us, sadly. This was written by Jay Barmann for Grub Street San Francisco, after participating in the Taste of Pigs and Pinot event in Healdsburg.

Some of you may remember that Danny and I (along with our daughter) were lucky enough to stay at the Hotel Healdsburg last November, as part of the Kingsford University trip. At the time, we had just watched Top Chef, which featured contestants competing as part of  the Taste of Pigs and Pinot, an event orchestrated by Charlie Palmer every year, with proceeds going to Share Our Strength and educational opportunities in the local Healdsburg area. We wanted to be there this year.

Time passed. Life grew crazy busy again. And it wasn’t until someone forwarded me this piece that I realized that Pigs and Pinot had already happened. In March.

However, that doesn’t prevent us from drooling over all the descriptions of pork dishes available there:

“Chef Voltaggio made a visually stunning pork loin with mash potatoes and draped with a “veil” of red pepper gelatin.”

“Kevin’s Gillespie’s first dish, which ultimately won him the tournament, was a duo of wood-fired pork loin and pork belly over roasted baby carrots and cabbage and creamed farro.”

“Tyler Florence explains one of his two dishes, called ‘The Relationship,’ while his culinary director Jason Rose plates. The dish consisted of braised pork shoulder over curds, celebrating the relationship between dairy farmers and pig farmers.”

“Chef Philippe Rispolli of Supreme Cuisine produced a perfect bite of pig with this slightly crunchy, 24-hour-roasted chunk of pork belly topped with mustardy mashed potatoes and cheese.”

ARGH. I wish we hadn’t missed this.

If you click on this link, you can read all about it, and watch the slideshow. Maybe we’ll make it next year. Maybe you will. Tell us all about it if you have been or plan to go.