Rising Stars Revue, Ghirardelli Square

Wednesday's Rising Stars Revue proved to be a stellar event with the 14 award-winning chefs selected by culinary magazine StarChefs.com transforming Ghirardelli Square into a midsummer night's feast. The tasting gala and awards ceremony celebrated the Bay Area's brightest culinary talent, and the crowd was more than happy to bask in glow of their signature dishes.

Left: Aziza's Mourad Lahlou (winner of 2010 Rising Stars Mentor Award) and Center: Rising Star chef Louis Maldonado, prepare Marinated Striped Bass, Petrossian Caviar, Green Strawberries, and Brown Rice

The chefs impressed, with a flurry of intricately constructed small plates -- each one lovingly sauced, seasoned, and garnished before disappearing quickly into a throng of eager hands. With each bite, it became clear why these chosen few were crowned rising stars.

Thomas McNaughton's Ravioli Doppio of Pork and Pea, with butter sauce, pork jus, and fresh horseradish

Thomas McNaughton, flour + water (nominated for the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant this year), served his soul-satisfying Ravioli Doppio of Pork and Pea. Yes, this ravioli had not one, but two fillings, piped in side by side (double the pleasure, double the fun). Bathed in a warm butter sauce and topped with grated Parmigiano and fresh horseradish, this hit the spot as the sun went down and the brisk bay air set in.

Brian MacGregor shakes up his Tippler's Delight

Brian MacGregor, Rising Star mixologist at Jardiniere, shook up a storm with his titillating Tippler's Delight (1½ ounces Navip Slivovitz, ¾ ounce St. Germain, ¾ ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice, dash of absinthe, shaken with ice and strained).

And, if you're wondering what my favorite dish of the evening was, here comes the grand finale…

Scott Nishiyama wows us with his Foie Gras "Neige"

Scott Nishiyama, Chez TJ, hands down, took the cake for the most ridiculously delicious dish served at this event: Moulard Duck Foie Gras "Neige," Blackberry Gelee, Cashew Puree, Sunchoke Salad, and Housemade Mustard Toast.

On the bottom of this heavenly dish was a smear of rich cashew butter. Scattered on top were little cubes of blackberry gelee and big, plump blackberries, some microgreens, and crispy baby radishes, sliced paper-thin. (In Nishiyama's original recipe, he uses sunchoke chisp rather than radishes). On the side rested a baton of brioche-like housemade mustard bread. And showered upon it all was the most glorious mound of shaved frozen foie gras.

Yeah, I'll just let that sink in for a sec.

Nishiyama (who cut his teeth at a few little places called Daniel and The French Laundry) makes the foie gras torchon in-house, soaking it in Sauternes and seasoning it with kosher salt, sugar, pink salt, and white pepper. He then freezes it so that it can be grated into a fine snow-flurry of gastronomic bliss. And, it's not just a wee sprinkling he imparts, no, he keeps it coming until a lavish foie-blizzard has accumulated on your plate.

Ugh, I know I'm gushing like a smitten schoolgirl, but it really was simply divine. The frozen foie melted delicately on your tongue, and settled into the dish so that the creamy cashew puree took on its luxurious flavor. And the blackberry accents added just the amount of acidity needed to cut the richness, while bringing out the sweetness of the dish at the same time.

Apparently I wasn't alone in my sentiment. As people took their first bite, I witnessed reactions ranging from utterances of "Holy Sh*t" to sounds not suitable for children. Needless to say, the dish won the People's Choice award as best dish of the event.

Rising Stars and Mentors

The wining and dining carried on into the night, and then even further into the night at the industry-only after party hosted at Elizabeth Falkner’s Orson, where, by the way, I had my second O-face inducing taste of the evening –- a deep-fried Monte Cristo with melty gruyere and Canadian bacon, served with strawberry-raspberry jam and powdered sugar.

A euphoric evening it was.

StarChefs.com’s Rising Stars Revue
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
7:30-10:00 pm
Ghirardelli Square, SF

For a high-profile chef from New York City, it takes a certain amount of moxie to stand up at the recent Ecological Farming Conference at Asilomar and admit how much you love foie gras. It's especially provocative if you’re Dan Barber, buddy of Michael Pollan, chef of the acclaimed Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns restaurants, and very vocal advocate of local, seasonal, and sustainable cooking.

Sitting in the main reception room, a few minutes before the afternoon plenary session was to begin, I overheard Barber catching up with a farmer colleague. It seemed he’d just found out that he was expected to lecture, not just answer questions, on the panel alongside Annie Somerville of Greens and Judy Wicks of Philadelphia’s White Dog Cafe. "I'm just going to tell the foie gras story," he said, sounding exhausted, and I thought, “Foie gras? At Eco-Farm? Does this man know where he is?” After all, this is a confab of organic farmers and food-justice activists. Sure, there’s a passion for deliciousness, but in general, the talk is kale, not champagne.

Onstage, Barber was unapologetic: for all his dirt-first politics, he’s a chef in love with flavor and texture, and to him, foie gras was the epitome: sweet, fatty, unctuous, able to make anything paired with it taste fantastic.

Why? Because it is, essentially, a small amount of liver flavoring a whole lot of fat. It gets that way due to gavage, a controversial practice of force-feeding ducks and geese until their livers swell to several times their normal size. Chicago recently repealed a two-year ban on serving it in the city’s restaurants; Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill outlawing the making and selling of force-fed foie gras in California by 2012.

Barber, however, had a mission. He followed his declaration with a detailed story of going to Spain to seek out Eduardo Sousa, a man who’d recently won France’s highest gastronomic award for foie gras. “When I arrived,” Barber related, “He was lying in the grass taking cell-phone pictures of his geese.” Sousa’s geese were pasture-raised, and his fences were only electrified on the outside against predators. Electrifying the inside would be insulting to the geese, Sousa insisted; they would feel themselves prisoners. Instead, as a third-generation goose steward, his job was to give his geese everything they needed to be happy (short of dying of old age), so they’d have no need to leave.

Sousa didn’t practice gavage; instead, he followed the geese’s natural inclination to stuff themselves before winter. Come fall, as the days shortened and the temperatures dropped, he increased the amount of food available to his geese. They gobbled, and then, fat and happy, they met their end. Living on an herb-rich pasture as well as grains, their meat was layered with flavor, pre-seasoned from the inside out. “Who was the chef,” Barber found himself asking as he ate with Sousa, “And who was the farmer?”

Back home in New York City, Barber did his research: Sousa’s method, he claimed, was the origin of foie gras. As Barber told it, Jewish communities in Egypt enjoyed foie gras as a natural by-product of winter-slaughtered geese. Upon tasting it, the pharoh demanded a year-round supply of the delicacy for the court, and so gavage was invented, to mimic the natural autumn voracity of the birds.

Earlier in the panel, restauranteur Judy Wicks had described her mission as “using good food to lure innocent customers into social activism.” Barber ended his talk by insisting, “The best decisions are almost always the most delicious.” Personally, I don’t eat foie gras, having no stomach for either the taste or the method. But for those who do, could pleasure reward compassion, making humanely-produced foie gras into a seasonal, winter-only delicacy offered by local poultry producers? It’s already a luxury item; why not make it a humane one, too?

Dan Barber, making a similar case for humane foie gras at the Taste3 Conference in Napa.