Tent count

Beverly Stephen reports.

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St. Michaels, Maryland—What's an event without a chef in a tent? Or two? Or more? "We equate our growth to the number of tents," says St. Michaels Food & Wine Festival executive director Jon Mason. This year there were five. That's how successful this Chesapeake Bay festival has become in just six years.

On the last weekend in April some 2,000 attendees flocked to the tents to watch chefs demo their dishes; sample wines, cheeses, and specialty products; listen and learn at educational seminars; buy some wines to take home; and open their wallets at live and silent auctions to raise $35,000 for local charities. They also fanned out in the community to attend wine dinners at a number of local restaurants such as Scossa Restaurant & Lounge in Easton, where Italian fare ruled, and The Inn at Perry Cabin, where executive chef Mark Salter and pastry chef Douglas Matthews were joined by an international crew that included Guillermo J. Gomez (Maroma Resort and Spa, Riviera Maya, Mexico) and his pollen/cardamom crusted seared scallops with avocado relish and agave nectar essence; Michael Hobins, (The Lake of Menteith Hotel, Scotland) and his roasted breast of Maple Leaf duck with ginger nut crumble, chicory marmalade, and pepper berry jus; and Jeffrey Buben (Vidalia and (Bistro Bis, Washington, D.C.) and his stuffed saddle of Shenandoah lamb with sweet garlic/grits cake, espelette pepper, and arugula pesto. The addictive cheese bread was baked by Gustina Harmon, aka Miss Gussie, who has been turning out yeast rolls, biscuits, scones, cookies, etc. for the Inn for 18 years. Wines were from Chateau St. Jean in Sonoma County, California.

In the tents, New York City's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel executive chef John Doherty updated Waldorf salad with crème fraîche, walnut oil, and lemon juice; Buben served citrus cured salmon with tartare of spring vegetables; Gomez did ajillo sautéed shrimp with mango/ginger sangrita; and Salter produced Eastern Shore pub sauce—glazed pork tenderloin with corn salad and grilled onion relish. Lou DiPalo (DiPalo's Fine Foods, New York City) sampled speck, a type of prosciutto from the Alto Adige region that's smoked as well as cured. Restaurateur Tony May expounded on the evolution of Italian cuisine; Evan Cattanach led a tasting of Scotch and oysters; and Lynne Tolley, the great grandniece of Jack Daniel, offered a tasting and a history of the Tennessee whiskey, which she explained differs from Bourbon in that it goes through the additional step of charcoal filtration. Tolley also extolled the virtues of cooking with Jack Daniel's and gave the tip that one could always use it in lieu of vanilla. However, she got a good laugh when she recalled that one gentleman had told her, "Honey, I'm a lot more likely to run out of Jack Daniel's than I am to run out of vanilla."

When the festival first started, there was only one tent to accommodate both chefs and exhibitors on The Inn at Perry Cabin lawn (yes, that's where Wedding Crashers was filmed). "That was our first learning curve. We figured out that we couldn't put those two noise units together," says Mason. But growth came quickly. Like many promotions designed to boost shoulder season sales, the festival was soon filling up the hotels and selling out restaurants on an otherwise lackluster preseason weekend. As such, it has taken on a life of its own with new twists added annually.

Though the organizers want visitors to think beyond crab when they think of Maryland, they "have incorporated a number of events—wine dinners, receptions, tours—on boats to bring the water experience into the festival," according to John Volponi, Inn at Perry Cabin gm. And now the expanded festival has moved to the grounds of the (Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, giving visitors the opportunity to catch a history lesson.

"We constantly add to the festival to encourage visitors to utilize activities and visit other areas of the town," says Volponi. "This year we added a Sip and Shop component in which local stores featured wine tastings."

Festival board member Bonnie Booth, who with her husband, John, owns the historic (Five Gables Inn & Spa, says, "We originally joined to build business during a down time of year, and it has turned out to be a wonderful event for Five Gables." An unexpected bonus, she notes, "is the number of repeat guests we have. Lots of people come to the festival every year, and they book for the next year as they're checking out."