Sunday morning at the ATLANTA FOOD AND WINE FESTIVAL was indeed easy, all I had to do was stroll out onto the terrace for brunch. My husband joined me for the Sunday festivities. I had been on my own until this point occasionally running into a friend here and there. The festival was fun on my own but there’s nothing like enjoying good food and drink with the one you love. He also takes wonderful pictures for me and of me for the blog. I purchased a ticket for Sunday Brunch for him when I was ordering my tickets and I was able to obtain a media pass for my husband/photographer to visit the Sunday Tasting Tents.
I got down to the 14th floor terrace level early Sunday morning looking for a cup of coffee. It was fairly empty, not many guests roaming around but the Rathbun brothers were hard at work. The sibling rivalry between these chefs/restaurateurs is REAL with younger brother Kevin (Iron Chef winner, Chopped champion, owner of several restaurants in Atlanta including Kevin Rathbun Steak, Rathbun’s Krog Bar, KR Steak Bar) constantly teasing Kent ( Iron Chef winner, 4 time James Beard award nominee, owner of many restaurants in Texas such as Abacus and Jasper’s with two more to open soon) as they got the Big Green Eggs loaded with charcoal and fired up.
When they finished cooking the Rathbun Bros did an impromptu Q&A session, roaming the tables and engaging the audience, joking with the crowd and each other. I even planted a kiss on Kent’s cheek at the behest of Kevin and much to the chagrin of my husband (I’m kidding, he didn’t mind, he played along with the whole bit). A good time was had by all.
Brunch was served “Gunshow Style” in which chefs came to the tables to present their dishes.
Chef Steven Satterfield from Miller Union stopped by:
as did Vishwesh Bhatt, Joe Kindred and a bunch more, each chef dropping delicious little dishes in front of us as the went along.
We had time to take one more class before heading out to the Tasting Tents and I chose “Pork Awesomness” with Gunshow chef Kevin Gillespie because how could I not?! That was a great time.
He made a dish called BACON EXPLOSION for which he made pork sausage from scratch (he ground the meat in the class and everything) and wrapped it with a lattice work of BACON. It was stuffed with cheese and roasted jalapeno peppers and served on the most delicious flaky biscuits. Chef Gillespie has the most wonderful personality, it was a joy to be in his class.
…and he has some cool tattoos
Rain delayed the opening of the Tasting Tents by half an hour on Sunday, we walked over just after 2pm. Occasional showers didn’t stop the fun. I wanted Hubby to get a peach slider from Revolution Donuts so we headed there first. He was wondering why I dragged him past so much good food but I didn’t want to take a chance on them running out before he tried one, that would be a sin. We browsed around for a while more eating and drinking focusing mostly on bourbon and barbecue….and boozy punch, of course! In the picture below each punch bowl contains the two bottles of liquor closest to it.
Then we headed home.
