June 4, 2010 Poolside at the M Resort.
All for a good cause: the students of Bishop Gorman High School…and the tasting of Australian food and wines!
See the attached pdf document for more details.
See ya there, mate!
Category: Events
High Society at NOVE
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Geno Bernardo has all the fun.
Most hard-working professional chefs toil and sweat and slave in front of 300 degree stoves for hours at a time, battling fatigue, thirst, hangovers, unruly line cooks and unreasonable patrons.
Geno gets to cavort with mega-babes, play the bongos, dance on the job (with the aforementioned mega-babes), and collect accolades for figuring out how to get women to come to his restaurant on Sunday afternoons in their underwear.
Most young chefs and chef-wannabes look at the Food Network stars with envy and admiration.
If we were them, we’d plan our career path around whatever deal Geno made with the (horny) devil.
He still cooks mind you (some of the best Italian food in town), but cooking for the public is….like….hard and shit…compared to motorboating your way through the mammaries…so you’ve got to hand it to the guy for figuring out how to combine business with pleasure.
All those young, eager, forward-looking chefs out there should be grateful to you (the straight male ones anyway), for giving them something to look forward to that doesn’t involve badly burned forearms and multiple stays in rehab.
We appreciated the eggs fonduta (with a silky, eggy cheese sauce), the hand-made frittatas (that come with a side of tatas), the cheese selection, the dessert selection, the pastas, the salads, all the fun and the fishnets.
Thanks Geno, for thinking up High Society at NOVE, so we now have someplace to go on a slow Sunday, for that coffee-shot concoction that made us feel drunk and wired for the rest of the day, and for the surprisingly good “keg” wine.
But most of all….
NOVE
In the Palms Hotel and Casino
4321 West Flamingo Road
Las Vegas, NV 89103
702.942.6800
Francois Payard at Uncork’d
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About the funnest thing we did at Vegas Uncork’d was attending an itty bitty pastry seminar, given personally by Francois Payard in his restaurant (Payard Patisserie & Bistro) at Caesars Palace, for twenty-five lucky souls who got close enough to the action to be burned by the melted sugar (almost). It was the perfect way to learn all sorts of ideas and pastry tips from this acknowledged master of the craft….and the small crowd soaked up the info like a baba with some rhum (and like the uber-foodies they were).
The event was an under-the-radar-thing — especially when compared with the hundreds and thousands who attended some of the larger get-togethers — but it pointed up what is so special about Vegas’ food and wine festival: Getting up close and personal information from the one of the most exalted chefs on earth.
This was no seminar conducted from a jumbo tron. Francois explained, he joked, he teased and he made you understand the science, art and craft of great pastry — from three feet away.
Watching him (ably assisted by Vegas top toque Gregory Gorreau) explain the dangers of adding cool cream to lethally-hot melted sugar to make caramel, was worth a thousand words, and something no one in attendance will ever forget.
The trouble with intimate events of this kind is that they become victims of their own success. Expect the same thing next year, but in a larger venue, with four times as many attendees.
Something will be lost, but thankfully, the desserts will be just as good.
PAYARD PATISSERIE & BISTRO
In Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino
3570 Las Vegas Blvd. south
Las Vegas, NV 89109
702.731.7292