This year’s Sun Valley Harvest Festival will feature eight chef demonstrations on Saturday, including two chefs from Bravo TV’s hit show Top Chef. Each chef will prepare and present Idaho food in their own unique and remarkable way. All chef demonstrations will take place at Sun Valley’s Carol’s Dollar Mountain Lodge in a professional gourmet kitchen.
Sun Valley, Idaho has become a leader in the food policy movement by utilizing local and organic foods in seasonal menus. Local chefs Taite Pearson, Judith McQueen, and Chris Kastner are in part responsible for this regional eco-food movement. Apart from local chefs, the Sun Valley Harvest Festival will feature chefs from across the country to showcase their culinary talents and celebrate the bounty of Idaho’s harvest this fall with the likes of Melissa Costello, Clay Conley, Cathy Whims, and two Top Chef, contestants, Dave Martin and Sam Talbot. Festival veteran Randy King will preside as Master of Ceremonies.
Saturday’s schedule is as follows:

9:00 AM Judith McQueen – Judith McQueen Entertaining, Ketchum, ID
Judith McQueen owns her own business in Hailey, Judith McQueen Entertaining, and works as a private chef for parties, events, and personal functions in the Sun Valley area. Judith specializes in catering events that are “elegant, emotional, joyous, and timeless.” Sustainability and eco-cuisine is a cause championed by Judith as well. “Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes” is the theme of Judith’s demonstration and she will be showing us how to prepare tomato water (for Bloody Mary’s, gazpacho, marinade), how to peel, seed, and cook tomatoes, roasted tomato displays, and tomato and basil uses.

10:00 AM Clay Conley – Buccan, Plam Beach, FL
Chef Clay Conley celebrated the start of the year with the opening of his first restaurant, Buccan, a progressive American grill in Palm Beach, Florida. Named for a wooden structure used to grill meat in the Caribbean, Buccan is known for its wood fired, internationally inspired cuisine. Clay has drawn from his travels and his culinary experience to create the evolving menu and casual atmosphere at Buccan. Clay believes that small plate options, similar to tapas, create a flexibility and fluidity that allows for trying new things and focuses on creating dishes from fresh, local ingredients and sources from local farmers. Throughout the festival, Clay will showcase his culinary expertise and bring the flavor and charm of Buccan from Palm Beach to Sun Valley. Clay’s demonstration will follow the topic, “Rabbit Head-to-Toe.”

>11:00 AM Chris Kastner – CK’s Real Food, Hailey, ID
Husband and wife Chris and Rebecca Kastner are the owners and chefs of CK’s Real Food in Hailey, ID. This culinary duo shares the responsibilities of the restaurant, with Chris working in the kitchen as the head chef and creative mind behind the dishes and Rebecca coordinating the dessert and wine options. Regional beer, wine and various real-food options create a unique menu with a sustainable core while a spacious restaurant and garden filled with intimate seating encourage long talks and slow meals. “ Local Idaho Soups: grilled tomatoes and roasted squash: soups, sauces, and variations” is the topic of Chris’ demonstration.

12:00 PM Melissa Costello – Karma Chow, Los Angeles, CA
Chef Melissa Costello, founder of Karma Chow, brings a Clean Eating perspective to the festival. As a certified Wellness Coach and Yoga Instructor, Melissa is known for her healthy, nutritious recipes and vegan cleanses. In addition to being a proponent of clean eating, Melissa also promotes vegan cleanses as a way to break addictions and cravings. As the founder and chef of Karma Chow, a personal health, wellness, and chef service, Melissa has been chef to the stars, including Tony Horton, creator of P90X. For the Sun Valley Harvest Festival, Melissa will showcase healthy vegetarian and vegan cuisine made from nutrient rich ingredients and will explain the health benefits of a “Clean Food” diet. At the festival, Melissa will be focusing on the topic, “Know Your Food: Simple & Seasonal Vegan Cooking.”

1:00 PM Dave Martin – Bravo Top Chef and Restaurant Consultant
Dave Martin as a featured participant at this year’s festival. Dave was on the first season of Bravo’s Top Chef where his proved culinary skills helped him make it to the competition finals. Fans have yet to forget his famous Black Truffle Mac n’ Cheese which will be one of his featured dishes at the Sun Valley Harvest Festival. Attend Dave’s cooking demonstrations and explore the layers of flavor as he prepares some of his signature dishes during Saturday’s Chef Demonstrations on Saturday at 2 p.m. Dave will also be featuring his ‘Flavor Quest’ line of Rubs and Sauces along with his cookbooks and have them available for purchase all weekend. His demonstration will focus on “Gearing Up for Fall” with Grand Teton Root Beer Braised Snake River Farms Pork atop Wild Cherrywood Bacon & Goat cheese grits drizzled in Dave’s Roasted Poblano BBQ Sauce, finished off with Pumpkin Panna Cotta with Salted Chantilly Cream.

2:00 PM Cathy Whims – Nostrana, Portland, OR
Chef Cathy Whims has built quite a following in the Portland area, receiving much critical acclaim and recognition for her latest culinary adventure, the opening of Nostrana, an Italian roadhouse restaurant. Named Oregon’s Restaurant of the Year twice since it’s opening, Nostrana has become known for Cathy’s historically-based, authentic dishes that are classically Italian yet inventive, seasonal, and reflective of flavors found in the Northwest. As a member of the Board of Advisors for Slow Food Portland, Cathy has also brought the Slow Food Movement to Nostrana. The Slow Food Movement encourages the pure enjoyment of food and its natural flavors. Cathy will bring her love of Italian culinary tradition, as well as her enthusiasm for the food and wine options of the Northwest. “Italian Cooking Idaho Style” will be the focus of Cathy’s demonstration, where she will be focusing on Chanterelle mushroom sformato with fonduta.

3:00 PM Taite Pearson – SEGO Restaurant and della Mano, Ketchum, ID
Taite Pearson is currently the owner and chef of della Mano in Ketchum, Idaho. Before settling in scenic Sun Valley, Taite worked in some of the best kitchens nationwide. His experience ranges from being a sous chef at Wright’s in Arizona to working as chef de cuisine, as well as executive chef and director of culinary development at Wolfgang Puck. Taite has worked to create an eco-conscious, sustainable restaurant using local ingredients gathered from nearby farms and fisheries and Idaho’s. Taite’s presentation will be “Mise en Place for Vegetables, basic knife skills, decorative cuts and the best techniques for the proper preparation of vegetables.

4:00 PM Sam Talbot – The Surf Lodge, Montauk, NY and Imperial No. 9, New York, NY
Sam Talbot is unique, even among celebrity chefs, Sam brings to his kitchen his deep love of nature, keen sense of taste, creative mind, and intrinsic understanding of the relationship between food and health. At the forefront of the ‘integrative kitchen’, which breaks down the walls between the way we eat and the way we live, Sam is today one of America’s most original chefs. He has traveled the world exploring his culinary passions and expanding his culinary vision, cooking and eating in some of the world’s best restaurants – and some of the worst. Wherever he goes, Sam’s cooking is always a reflection of his insistence on fresh, healthy ingredients. Sam’s “Some Like it Hot, Some Like it Trout: Cooking with fresh waters favorite fish ” will be Whole Brook Trout with Arugula and Blackberry Salad, as well as Roasted Broccoli with shaved Garlic, Ginger, and Opal Basil at his demonstration.

Part of Idaho based Agri Beef Co., Snake River Farms produces American Kobe Beef and Kurobuta pork. Served in some of the finest restaurants across the country including some right here in our area, Snake River Farms beef and pork are well known to “foodies” for delivering incredible eating experiences – an experience we are looking forward to during the Festival!

Well known for its extraordinary marbling and intensely rich flavor, Snake River has focused on producing the very finest quality meats available in the US. Animals are fed an all vegetarian diet over a much longer period of time than average, as much as four times longer in the case of cattle production.

Each step of the production process is also carefully managed to ensure quality care of the animals and of the end product, including no added use of hormones and no use of sub therapeutic antibiotics. Using local, sustainable resources from the Pacific Northwest, Snake River Farms employs experts in all areas – nutrition, animal well-being, food safety, land management, and more.

An enormous thank you to Snake River Farms for their generous support of the Sun Valley Harvest Festival. Snake River Farms representatives will be giving away prizes during the event, so make sure to follow them on Facebook and Twitter to find out where they will be throughout the weekend!

Twitter www.twitter.com/snakeriverfarms
Facebook www.facebook.com/SnakeRiverFarms
For more information about Snake River Farms, please visit www.snakeriverfarms.com and look for their products atthe Festival!

For those looking for a convenient way to find fresh, flavorful, and healthy foods while also enriching the local economy, Idaho’s Bounty is the place to start.

Idaho’s Bounty was created in October 2007 as a pilot project and launched fully in the spring of 2008 with the goal to promote a vibrant, sustainable, regional food network in Southern Idaho that ensures safe, consistent, fresh, ethically produced and delivered products. The Online Food Market is devoting to bringing fresh, healthy, locally grown and produced food to our local customers in a easy and cost-effective manner on a weekly basis.

Idaho’s Bounty strives to serve the growth and long-term health of farmers, ranchers, market gardeners as well as chefs, families, restaurants and consumers by developing a sustainable local network that supports the promotion and distribution of organic, all-natural and fair trade food to our region: including Blaine, Camas, Gooding, Jerome, Lincoln, Twin Falls, Ada, Elmore and Canyon Counties.

By joining Idaho’s Bounty, members can shop in an online marketplace of fresh local foods and then pick up their order at one of Idaho’s Bounty’s Pick-Up Sites throughout Wood River, as well as the Magic and Treasure Valleys. Business owners can also reap Idaho’s Bounty benefits by buying wholesale local foods and produce for their company or event.

For more information on Idaho’s Bounty and details on where and from whom the produce is coming from, as well as how and why to join, please visit http://idahosbounty.org/index.php.