A few weeks ago I put up a survey to see if people were planning on going to the first (and hopefully annual) Atlanta Food and Wine Festival, as well as which ticket level they were going to purchase. My initial reaction upon ticket package announcement was that the event was quite expensive, and that’s basically what I read from about 40% of the survey respondents.

A week or so later I attended a media information session at AF&W headquarters, where we were schmoozed with Community BBQ and Beer, a sure fire way to the hearts of many food lovers. While they had their audience captive with sticky rib fingers, founders Dominique Love and Elizabeth Feichter had the chance to tell us just how much stuff will be going on the weekend of May 20-22, and it’s quite impressive. The array of tasting tents, food trucks, special nightly events, information and demo sessions with famous chefs and local institutions is by far the most comprehensive food event that I’ve seen in Atlanta. The details are here.

Learning all this completely justified the cost and value of this event…it just costs a lot to put on something this big, but it doesn’t change the fact that I felt I needed to drop, at minimum, $225-500 to thoroughly take advantage. With an advanced, stage four terminal White Burgundy habit, I already blow enough money as it is.

But with only 12 hours remaining, the $225 all day pass (which includes info sessions, tasting tent, and food truck privliedges), is still available on TravelZoo for $125. I purchased mine yesterday. I can’t wait for some of my sessions with local cheese celeb Tim Gaddis, infamous Mississippi chef John Currence, Italian wine expert Jeremy Parzen, and more.

I’m also volunteering on Friday, pouring some wine I suppose (I haven’t learned the details yet). Feel free to find me, I’ll do my best to top off your glass if you say hello.

Details on each ticket package here.

I’m going to pick someone from the responses to win a prize, so put your email address in the comment section. (Hint: it may be a book on programming in Java from 2001).

(survey link here for those using RSS and such: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WQZ3SC7)

Yesterday was the 4th chili cook-off put on by me and my friend Aaron. We had it at Red Brick (formerly ABC) brewery again, which has been good to our event. The beer and chili flowed. We had about 175 attendees, and should end up with an extra $600 or so, which we’re giving to the Georgia chapter of the National MS Society.

I made the two out of focus chilis above, a pork green chili and a black bean chili with quinoa and butternut squash. They were both solid but I was especially happy with the pork. I roasted the tomatillos in rendered Benton’s bacon fat, and also threw in homemade pancetta when I seared the pork shoulder. I didn’t think it would win because it wasn’t traditional enough, but it was the chili I wanted to eat the most.

This year we used chafing trays with sterno instead of crockpots. Last year the power circuit was tripping due to the overload and we had to worry about extension cords. I thought this worked much better and each setup only cost $5-6 at Restaurant Depot. The chili below was a “pho chili” – a thin pho broth with a pickled vegetable garnish and sriracha. It was definitely creative and pretty tasty too.

Ryan J. worked hard to defend his title, but I found his chili to be the most palatable it has been during his four year reign of gastrointestinal terror.

This is what it looked like. It just looks hot.

This was a brisket chili I liked – tender, sweet up front, and a little bit of heat. Maybe a bit too sweet for my tastes, but it was definitely one of the better chilis, and there were some goods ones.

Some people, such as my brother, got creative with the naming.

Here he is, having a grand time.

When the winners were announced, it was no surprise that Annie won the Best Unusual trophy, her 2nd piece of hardware in three years.

Ryan (2nd from left) won for the 4th time for spiciest, despite the protests from one guy who kept bragging about his ghost pepper hot sauce he had back in his car. We got it, yours would have been spicier.

“3 Guys, 1 Chili” won first prize, with a stellar brisket chili. I think the competition has increased the last two years. Both this year and last, the winners appear to have put a good bit of thought and effort into the chilis.

You can tell by looking below, there’s no messin’ around anymore. See any smiles? Chili is serious business.

Farmer’s market season is (finally) in full effect, and I’m back this year at the Peachtree Road Farmers Market. I’m ashamed to say I’ve never even been to the Morningside market, as PRFM is so close to my house. But it’s a very good market and it seems to be getting better too – more vendors, more people…less parking. I took these shots on a visit a few weeks ago.

Surprise, surprise – the city wants more money…, or I guess just enjoys being a pain in the ass.

Souper Jenny out selling her lobster rolls.

The line at Crepe Masters is always 5-10 people long so I’ve never had one, but they must be good.

My favorite vendors include: Native Juices, Riverview Farms, H&F Bread, Pine St Market, Moto Bene, Zocalo Salsa (salsa verde!), and Farmer Jeff’s produce.

Dan Latham (Moto Bene) is making some outrageous pizza from his portable oven. Kessler wrote about him here.

The pies often utilize whatever is in season at the market. This past Saturday I had a pie with ricotta, mozzarella, thin slices of zucchini, breakfast sausage, topped with squash blossoms after cooking. Wow. His end crust is some of the best I’ve had – light, slightly puffy inside, and just crispy enough. Really fantastic. Texturally, it’s somewhere in between Varasano’s and Antico. If and when Dan sets up shop, his pie is going to be formidable. Based on a two minute conversation, he seems to be a nice guy that loves pizza; definitely a welcome addition.

Bought some greens…

Roasted spring onions and cherry tomatoes, bibb lettuce, dandelion greens, homemade ranch dressing

Burgers last night – H&F bread made the burger

As the follow up to the Winter Festival, the Westside Provisions District will be hosting the Spring into Green Festival this upcoming Saturday. There are promises of fun, free food, Bluegrass music, and there is a $1 raffle where you could win a shopping spree. They don’t define “shopping spree”, but if it’s $200 you could get like 60 tacos from Taqueria del Sol, or one pair of khakis from Sid Mashburn’s.

The first 250 attendees will receive a free tote bag filled with goodies, so hurry on over there at 11AM.

More information on the Spring Green Festival schedule available here.

Cameli’s Gourmet Pizza is the 7th official destination of the Atlanta Pizza Days, representing a full week of ATL pizza eatin’. It’s been almost two weeks since the series announcement, and I tell ya, this pizza thing is more difficult than I thought! But the greatest achievements are accomplished in the face of adversity, and I vow to continue. However, it does look like this will last at least another week because I have six more pizza spots to hit up, and I am taking a short vacation with some friends Feb 5-8. 

Similar to Shorty’s, I’ve never been to Cameli’s, and I was looking forward to trying it as there were a handful of votes for them in the “favorite pizza destinations in Atlanta” poll from a few weeks back. One thing that’s developed during this process is that it’s getting really hard for me to get excited about going to eat pizza that I know isn’t going to be all that great, so the unknown is a treat and somewhat exciting, as far as pizza eating goes. 

My eating cohort and I met up at Cameli’s for lunch, and after finally figuring out which door to enter, we walked up to the counter and ordered a large pie  - half cheese, and half with artichokes and sun dried tomato. The pizza took longer to come out than I was expecting, particularly because we were the only people in there at 1:30 on a Tuesday. Well, it finally came out, and I know the suspense is killing you, so here are the official comments on Cameli’s pie. 

Dough (average score -2.0/5) 

• “very crunchy, good looking char, firm,  nice looking bubbles, but overcooked, lacking flavor, cardboard”
• Blind Taste - “crispy (maybe the re-heating but nothing special)”

Sauce (average score – 2.25/5)

• “sauce was very average, not much of it, standard pizza sauce flavor
• Blind Taste - “plain, not very much sauce”

Cheese (average score – 1.75/5)

• “poor cheese, not enough, not much flavor”
• Blind Taste - “love cheese, but needed more”

Overall (average score – 1.75/5)

• “looked decent at first, flavorless, boring, poor crust, stiff, bad overall”
• Blind Taste - “not very flavorful – plain”

Final Thoughts: Well, it’s easy to see that this pizza didn’t bode well in the tastings. While there is only one tasting note from the live tasting (mine) and one blind taste, I feel that this is a fair assessment. I know two other people who emailed me last week about Cameli’s, and they both had fairly consistent comments. It should be noted that one person said that a year or two ago the pizza was different (better). 

When the pizza first hit the table, it actually looked good to me. The endcrust looked nice and crispy (not gummy), there were some bubbles in the dough, which I like, and it wasn’t soggy and appeared to have the right proportions of ingredients. However, when I picked up the first slice, I held it straight out and could see it was as stiff as cardboard. The pie was clearly overcooked, and it had very little flavor. The dough structure was non-existent, it was light and wafer-like, and the overall flavor was bland. Even the toppings were just OK. The blind taster commented that they were “decent”, but that was pretty much the highest praise the pie earned. 

Again, I feel a little bad giving a poor review to yet another Atlanta pizza destination, but I have to go with my gut. This pizza is memorable for the wrong reasons…even if I’m just looking for some pizza to stuff my face, Cameli’s is not going to be on my list of acceptable solutions. 

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Sorry for the brain lapse yesterday (get it? brain lapse!), but today I am back on the scene with the 6th posting of the Atlanta Pizza Days. Quick recap: we’ve been to Pizzeria Fortunato, Mellow Mushroom, Ray’s, Harry’s, and Shorty’s. I have Cameli’s and Rosa’s queued up, but today we have a destination that I was definitely looking forward to – Fritti. 

Part of Riccardo Ullio’s “U” Restaurants, Fritti is one of the more popular pizza destinations in Atlanta, earning high praise in the form of constant crowds clamoring for the Naples style pizza from their wood burning oven. Fritti is the only pizza restaurant in Atlanta (actually, the only place south of the Mason-Dixon line) to have earned accreditation from the Vera Pizza Napoletana Association. The purpose of this association is to promote true Neapolitan pizza, and they have a strict list of requirements to be certified as a true purveyor of their style of pizza. The list includes everything from flour type, to dough rise time, to tomatoes, toppings, and cooking times. Only seven of the pizzas on Fritti’s menu are classified as VPN certified, the others do not meet standards, likely due to topping combinations, so Fritti breaks out the pizzas into two categories. 

These kinds of rules definitely bring out the pizza geek in me, and it had been almost two years since my last visit to Fritti, so I was excited that we had eleven people that wanted to go on a Saturday night. Trying to fit that many people was impossible, and getting two tables of five and six was hard enough. 

The night didn’t start well. Our reservation was for 9:30, late enough as it is, but we weren’t seated until after 10:30. We were fairly starving by the time we sat down, so they threw an appetizer at us, which the five of us at our table devoured in 2 minutes flat. The other table of six was seated even later. It’s frustrating when a restaurant overbooks tables; I would have preferred to have gone another time if I knew we wouldn’t eat until after 11PM. 

We decided to split four pizzas for the five at our table, getting a wide variety of pizzas. The scores on theses pizzas are definitely going to be inconsistent as I wasn’t as methodical during this tasting. We didn’t pull out the spreadsheets. There wasn’t enough Margherita for everyone, so the scores could be for any pizza. Again, these scores should be taken lightly, it is the comments that are of value. Also, I think it’s worth noting that this style of pizza really isn’t going to reheat well so the blind scores should be taken into consideration. BUT, I guess it is good to know that if you are ordering a ton of pizza in order to have leftovers, Fritti might not be the place to do it. 

Dough (average score -2.5/5) 

• “thin, a little overcooked, not as much structure or char as I was expecting, often very soggy”
• “flat & salted properly, more like a crispy pita than pizza crust, no air bubbles retained by dough, no end crust to speak of”
• Blind Taste - “not bad flavor, but not crispy”

Sauce (average score – 3/5)

• “A few pizzas didn’t have sauce, but those that did were decent. Nothing special, often too much causing dough to be soggy”
• “not overpowering, didn’t stand out, make the flop too soggy”
• Blind Taste - Blind pizzas didn’t have sauce

Cheese (average score – 3.5/5)

• “Good cheese, especially on margherita, right amount, great flavor, real cheese”
• “good flavor, didn’t skimp on the cheese, browned slightly”
• Blind Taste - “way, way too salty”

Overall (average score – 2.88/5)

• “too soggy, unimpressive dough for my expectations, overall poor value”
• “for this size pizza at this price point there is better out there, good balance of flavor, crust brings down the score”
• Blind Taste - “reheated, not good”

Other free form comments from our group:

• “the prosciutto and arugula was excellent.  Also liked the spinach one but the crust was soggy as we said…”
• “I thought the cheese, sauce, toppings and all of their proportions were very good… I was not brave enough to try the seafood medley.”
• “Mushrooms with the truffle oil were the shit.”
• “The prosciutto & arugula was excellent.  The cured meat was awesomely salty.  The other pies seemed to lack the structural integrity to maintain a crisp dough.  It’s as if they got a bit waterlogged under the pressure of the sauce. The prosciutto pie’s lack of sauce may have been it’s saving grace.”
• “The combination of peppered salami, rosemary, and fresh tomatoes had me prepared for a taste overload.  Unfortunately, the salami hogged, or overpowered, the whole experience.  Pretty descent, but not my favorite of the four.”
• “Spinach pie was pretty flavorless.”
• “I thought the end crust was great.  I like my pizza on the thin side, but I also like them to have some strength to their dough.  The dough was a little bit loose for me.  It’s all about the scene…  I think Fritti is a great spot and will go back.  When critiquing solely on pizza though, I’ll give it a middle of the class ranking.”

Final Thoughts: While a good time was had with friends, I was a little disappointed in my experience at Fritti, though I was definitely influenced by the wait. I understand that sometimes you can’t always be seated right away, but it was clear to me that they had overbooked, probably knowing we would just wait at the bar and spend more money. 

The pizza itself was just OK to me. With their pedigree and oven, I was expecting better dough – a better char, more flavor, better structure, particularly on the endcrust. The Margherita had a nice char on the upskirt, but the rest were way too soggy.  The non-dough aspects of the pizza were pretty good, but not mind-blowing. The cheese was quite tasty. The sauce was decent. The arugula pizza at Shorty’s was better to me. If the dough had lived up to my expectations then this would have been a much better experience. For the caliber of the restaurant, and the amount of money I spent (almost $50), it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Then again, that taste could have been the squid pizza. 

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BONUS DOUGH SECTION!

So you think I’m a dough snob? Well, maybe, but let me give you a visual example to explain. Below is a picture of the best slice I’ve ever had. In terms of attempted style, Fritti is the closest thing in Atlanta to this pizza. Attempted style…that’s where the similarities end. 

Exhibit 1: You can see the bubble, the char, and the hole created on the bottom of the pizza. This indicates a fantastic, crisp charred upskirt. 

Exhibit 2: Note the exterior char, noticeable, but not totally burned on the endcrust. This indicates proper cooking temperature and an amazing crunch on the endcrust. 

Exhibit 3: Note the structure of the endcrust. While the overall pizza is quite thin, the endcrust has exploded, reminding me of the tube created by the break of a perfect surfing wave. Crunchy outside, airy, not dense, slightly chewy, amazing flavor inside the crust…what pizza is all about (to me). 

Also of note, nice cheese coverage, not sparse, but not covering the whole slice, so you can taste the individual ingredients. 

Now go back up to the top of this post and compare the crusts. THESE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SIMILAR PIZZAS. But one of these is not like the other. You don’t even need taste buds to figure this one out, just look at evidence!

First, it’s Midtown Atlanta Shop and Dine Week, Nov 14-21. There are “fine dining” and “casual dining” meals for $25 at a ton of places, including Ecco, The Original El Taco, Cuerno, and ONE Midtown Kitchen. It’s a good opportunity to try some new shiz-uff (stuff that is tha shizz – yeah, I said it). 

Next up, I just found out about Toscano & Sons and am super stoked about it. I plan on going there for a panini lunch today, and also to pick up some imported mozzarella for some pizza later today. Pictures to follow. Oh yeah, and it’s also only 3 miles from my house. 

Looking for a wine tasting this week? Check out the V2 Wine Room this Wednesday. They are featuring 7 Thanksgiving wines, ranging in price from $15 to $40. The tasting is $20 per person. RSVP required call 770-226-0099. 

Did you know that Joel is now featuring a Bistro lunch? They are featuring a soup, salad, sandwich, or pasta, all of which are available for $10 or less. If you’ve wanted to eat at Joel without taking out a 2nd mortgage, check it out. The Croque Monsieur with a green salad or french fries for $9 would be my first choice. Read the full Bistro menu here. 

Have you checked out the Dirty South Wine blog? If not, do it, it’s very cool. DSW has recently challenged numerous restaurants around Atlanta to create the best single wine/food offering for under $25. The offerings will be judged soon and the first 5 pairings have been submitted by Dogwood, Toulouse, La Tavola, Repast, and Woodfire Grill. Check out the full rules and offerings here. 

Lastly, I am going to see M83 and School of Seven Bells tonight at The Earl. It’s sold out, so too bad you can’t buy a ticket today. If you are already going, see you there. I plan on going out for dinner in East Atlanta Village and getting my drink on. I will be live blogging the show and updating via twitter. Just kidding. Maybe.

So I just bought over 20lbs of meat at Costco, and the cooking of my two time award winning chili begins at 7PM. If you want to hang out tonight and cook and drink some beerz, c’mon over. 

If not, I hope to see you there tomorrow. I promise it is a good time, and if you come by my booth I’ll have a surprise for you (in addition to the best chili you’ve ever eaten). Just look for Team Tequila. 

French Laundry at Home: Sweet Potato Agnolotti with Sage Cream….

This is a very cool blog that just fnished up – the author cooked every dish in the Thomas Keller Cookbook for his flagship restaurant, French Laundry. Quite impressive. 

The Amatuer Gormuet: Cassoulet

A different recipe here

Bake or Break: Peanut Butter Candy Bar Squares

Chez What?: Pasta Madness

This looks freakin’ amazing. 

The Omnomicon: Cheddar and Potato Pierogi Lasagna

I don’t know what else I can say about this. It sounds like the best thing imaginable.