South Beach Wine & Food Festival

Boots on the ground in South Beach. Just a few short weeks ago, Mike, Phillip, and I traveled to Miami to participate in Lee Schrager’s wildly popular South Beach Wine and Food Festival. This event is an all-out celebration of wine and food, with the country’s best chefs, a handful of pitmasters, and wine experts hosting and cooking cleverly themed ticketed events, along with a massive tasting tent for wine and demos by favorite Food Network chefs.
We participated in Moët Hennessey’s The Q presented by Creekstone Farms sponsored by MIAMI magazine hosted by Michael Symon featuring the 2014 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models . The police car above escorted  our pit down the beach to the event site.

Each chef/pitmaster had one or more  of these lockers with all of our prepped food, equipment, and other ingredients all neatly organized. When we finished prepping, the food went back in here and was then transported to refrigerated storage at the beach. Chef Michael Moran, Lead Chef Instructor for the Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Florida International University, along with Lindsay Autry and Kelly Murphy, expertly managed the food procurement, pre-prep, and logistics – an enormous task.

Many chefs traveled with special ingredients in their luggage. Hello, Hugh Mangum of Mighty Quinn’s.

We enjoyed a fab dinner at the new location of Lure Fishbar. Oysters several ways, sushi, fish, and more. Excellent food and service.

Back to the beach to temp the hogs by moonlight, with the assistance of a lighter.

We cooked two 150-pound hogs from Iowa, using Kingsford charcoal and apple and pecan woods from Western Woods.

Classic Mike Mills. Smoking Marlboro Reds and whole hogs.

This massive banner announced the entrance of The Q.

The magnitude and logistics of these events are a sight to behold. Dozens of people transformed a stretch of bare beach into a massive, well-designed party scene.

The Food Network lounge provided a place to relax and rejuvenate. Dogs swept the area prior to opening.

ATVs buzzed about delivering supplies all throughout the day. Here’s a wall of trays of Martin’s Potato Rolls.

And here are ours.

We dressed up our little stretch of sand with our Ole Hickory Pit, signage, and a few props brought from home. The real centerpiece would be the hog.

Here’s our bread delivery. Mini Martin’s Potato Rolls for our whole hog sandwiches.

We enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with Randy Fisher of Cream, the culinary entertainment and marketing company. He invited us to participate in our first SOBE Festival event several years ago.

John Rivers,  4 Rivers Smokehouse in Orlando, and his pit master stopped by to chat and say hello.

Michael Symon was the host of our event. He’s been a huge champion of 17th Street and we are immensely grateful for his friendship and support.

Michael, Hugh Magnum, and Mike catch up after the chef photo opp.

Each chef is assigned a group of FIU hospitality and culinary students to help during the event. This was our great group and they were super. Curious, attentive, and pro-active. They pitched right in and helped figure out the set-up and best flow for the line. Each one had a job during the event and they stayed to help clean up and break down. THANK YOU! Y’all rock!

We always name our hogs and this one was Sobe. Isn’t she pretty?

Thanks to Getty Images for this shot of us just before the gates opened. You can view more of their party pix here – four pages’ worth.

Doesn’t get much better than cooking with our friends on the beach. Ken Hess {left} and Chris Lilly {right} of Big Bob Gibson. Chris made miniature soft tacos with his succulent shoulder and jalapeño slaw. Delicious.

Moët Chandon champagne pairs perfectly with pork and Creekstone beef, and it was free-flowing throughout the evening.

I’ve never seen Mike move so quickly as when he heard the words,”Your Sports Illustrated model is here to help!” He leapt into action and helped her with her apron and gloves.

The Sports Illustrated swimsuit models were co-hosts of the event and several of us had a model in our booth to help out. This is the lovely Genevieve Morton of South Africa. She’s been in the last five issues of the SI Swimsuit Edition.

Genevieve was an incredibly good sport and she helped Phillip and me pull the hog and make sandwiches for several hours, all the while smiling and engaging with the guests. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Phillip, of course, is all smiles.

Mike and Genevieve.

There were two prizes given during the event, one for the best item using Creekstone Beef and the other for the best cooked over Kingsford Charcoal. We were surprised and thrilled to win the King and Queen of the Q award presented by Kingsford.

Food Network stars Katie Lee and Jeff Mauro were the judges. THANK YOU!

Mike, freshly crowned, being greeted by Anne Burrell as he exited the stage.

The minute the event was over, we were cleaned up and packed up and hauled off the beach so they could begin setting up for following night’s  Burger Bash. More about that in an upcoming post.

Taking home a Chris Lilly pork butt in your handbag takes the doggie bag concept to a whole new level.

We followed the festivities with drinks, friends, and fun at the Chef Kick-off party

Still on a royal high. Huge thanks to Lee Schrager, Devin Padgett, Lizzi Nuell, Randy Fisher, Randi Freedman, Michael  Moran, Lindsay Autry, Kelly Murphy, Carol Press,  our crew of FIU students, and the outstanding SOBE festival team for such a terrific time!

You can read about the Q here and here.  

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