Five Parties In Three Days Makes For A Happy Blogger
The 9th annual San Diego Wine & Food Festival is now over the shoulder, and I not only survived it, I thrived at it.
And I added two new events this year to my usual trio, making it a five course meal, so to speak. That meant five parties in three days and nights. For me, Party of Five was not a TV show, but a review of my 2012 San Diego Wine & Food Festival. And there’s a lot more than five events to this festival, in fact there’s nearly 25. With a lineup like that, you think they might hand you a stretcher along with your tickets.
For me, it all started with an awesome meet and greet mixer at the Searsucker Steak House on Thursday night that had a few of us then staying out until last call at the bar across the street, followed by two cooking and cocktail demonstrations that started at 1:30 the next afternoon, with that being immediately being followed by the festival’s second-biggest event, and concluding with the main event which for us started at 11 in the morning.
You would have thought I was in New Orleans.
Yet I survived it all. How did this happen?
I did it because I was smiling the whole time. And laughing. Cheering. Having a great time. Wine festivals are that way in general and when you mix in the many events of the San Diego Wine & Food Festival, it’s putting the cherry on top of the fun. When you’re having so much fun, you’re talking more than you are drinking, so you don’t overindulge. It’s not a binge, it’s a breakthrough.
The long weekend began, as I mentioned, with a reception at Searsucker. It didn’t start until 10 p.m., and frankly, I wasn’t expecting much for whatever reason, but boy was I wrong! There was a table full of tantalizing food. I really hasn’t expected any or much food so I instructed my photographer, Jack Fleming, that we should eat dinner earlier. So we were not hungry how could we pass up on crab legs – warmed crab legs – salmon samples and the other tasty treats that were there for the taking?
To wash it down was all the Stella Artois, Leffe and Hoegaarden you could handle. And the beers went down easily because we bumped into and started mingling with the chefs at the festival (whom, apparently, also love to party) and when the event ended around midnight a handful of us went across the street to Barley Mash, a fun Gaslamp bar.
The next day promised to be a blur.
I warmed up for Friday’s main event, the Reserve Tasting by attending the Belgian Comedy Hour, otherwise knows as the Taste of Belgium in which Belgian beers are paired with tasty treats. But the real treat is the host, Belgian native executive chef Daniel Joly, who rolls out one-liners as fast as Rodney Dangerfield, keeping the audience laughing as much as eating and drinking. Here’s a review.
And those beers are not light; they are Belgium’s Hoegaarden, Stella Artois and Leffe. You have three of them in an hour.
From there, it was a quick turnaround to a “Cocktails and Salty Snacks” featuring the Hearty Boys. One of the Hearty Boys made made drinks while the other one made food. And then it was quickly out the door to the Reserve Tasting. (Fortunately, all these events are conveniently located within the easily walkable Gaslamp District so logistics in getting from one to the other was not an issue.)
Naturally, we were among the last to leave the Reserve Tasting, so that led almost directly into the next day’s Grand Tasting.
The Grand Tasting is the main entree of the San Diego Wine & Food Festival. There are so many wines, beers and food you can barely get to all the tents, let alone sample everything. And the people. Whoa! From the event staff to the servers to the chefs to the patrons, they are all in a majestic mood. There’s not one frown in the entire place. Even the security guards are enjoying the event.
The festival, of course, ends too soon because you are having so much fun you don’t want to leave until the sun goes down over San Diego Bay. When the last wine bottle is drained or corked, the final Stella, Leffe or Hoegaarden eases out of the taps, it’s time to go, unfortunately.
Nobody goes home, of course. They want to keep going. There is an event for those who want to stay in the festival-going group, so to speak, the Re-Mixed Official Festival After Party. But we opted to go back to the bars (again landing at Barley Malt). And, for the second year in a row, we were rewarded by not one but two major college football upsets being shown on the TVs. And both years the teams involved in the upsets Baylor and Oregon.
You would think after three days of this kind of go-go-go action, that upon returning home I would immediately go to bed, put a blanket over my head and not set the alarm. That the batteries would be so worn down I would myself into my cell phone charger if possible. But I was so energized by the grandness of the entire event that you know what I did – I opened a bottle of wine and had a drink. (I would have had a beer, but there’s no Stella in the refrigerator).
And if everyone is like myself, the PubClub.com photographer and just about anyone else who was at the 2012 San Diego Wine & Food Festival, we are already looking forward to 2013.
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